Customer Journey Orchestration and the impact of AI

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses face the critical challenge of not just understanding their customers but engaging with them in meaningful and personalized ways across various online or in person touchpoints. Moving them through a marketing funnel and handing them over to sales or closing the deal is not enough anymore. To further fuel growth the Customer Experience topic nowadays needs to be further enhanced to consider every department in the business and aligning it to have the customer in mind. This is a board level topic and has organizational and process related consequences across the company, if fully implemented. Accenture named it for this reason the “Business of Experiences ”

This is where software components like Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and Customer Journey Orchestration Software (CJOS) come into place. CJOS are a sophisticated suite of tools designed to meticulously craft, manage, and optimize every step of the customer journey from awareness to purchase and even delivery and billing or at least tries to predict the journey the customer will design for himself. Companies like Microsoft with its Dynamics 365 Customer Insights products , Adobe with Adobe Experience Platform or Salesforce.com with their CDP are big companies betting on this trend. The topic did not only move to board level but has the Chief Customer Officer (determined from the marketing, sales or service business) and Chief Data Officer (CDO) fully engaged into the selection of this software. For these software companies – and other ones – it is not only about winning the war on the Customer Experience topic, but also on the data side of the house.

CJOS transcends traditional marketing tools by providing a dynamic platform for real-time interaction management across all customer engagement channels. It’s not merely about tracking the customer’s path but actively shaping that journey through personalized content, targeted communication, and seamless service experiences throughout the complete customer life cycle. It is about creating the target group of 1 and action on the moments that matter for the customer or consumer. In addition, the importance of the software lies in its ability to collate vast amounts of data from diverse touchpoints, analyze customer behavior, and leverage these insights to deliver customized experiences (actions) that resonate with the individual customer’s needs and preferences. Best in breed companies like Medallia’s Thunderhead , Qualtrics’s acquisition Usermind, Twilio’s Segment, or Cemantica are building upon the promise to tailor the journey intelligently towards the customer as honestly do the big players.

Ideally, we need to target a back and forward communication between the company and its customer that drives long lasting loyalty based on empathy and understanding. On the other side AI will massively disrupt and free up productivity. It will be interesting to see who comes out of all the Software vendor as a winner on this.

AI as part of Customer Journey Orchestration Software:

AI is a necessary ingredient in any CJOS, companies can leverage data-driven insights to personalize customer experiences, predict future behaviors, and automate real-time engagements. Most of the top vendors already have functionality that support below points either as part of the software product or within the platform:

·????? Personalization at Scale: AI enables the analysis of vast amounts of data to understand individual customer preferences and behaviors, allowing for personalization of customer interactions without manual segmentation.

·????? Predictive Analytics: Utilizing AI for predictive analytics in CJOS can forecast customer needs and behaviors, enabling businesses to proactively offer solutions, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

·????? Automation of Customer Interactions: Companies can automate responses to common inquiries, guide customers through the designed journeys, and offer support via chatbots, significantly improving efficiency and, if set up right, customer satisfaction.

These AI-driven enhancements not only streamline operations but also foster deeper customer relationships by the premise to ensure each interaction is relevant, timely, and personalized. However, looking at my inbox and the different social media, I don’t believe we are there yet. I believe we will see the trajectory of AI in customer journey orchestration point towards more sophisticated, intuitive, and integrated solutions that will help to better understand and select the right action to automate on to really drive customer satisfaction up. Examples could be the right customer segment to start with created by AI or telling which journey (tactics) I should select as best to reach my overall strategic goals. Faster experimenting and adjusting based on signals will be a further outcome.

In addition, we will see a further explosion in the AI space, led by the generative AI topic, that emerged over the last year:

·????? Generative AI: Generative AI models will enable the creation of content that resonates more deeply with individual customers, from personalized emails to tailored videos, enhancing the customer experience at every touchpoint. Examples are e.g. getting a promotional video with myself being part of it. It is however important to understand that currently the content generation capability hasn’t reached a minimum standard yet to be able to create the right signal yet.

·????? Emotion AI: Currently it is hard for the software to understand and to create the right emotion with their text and content. That is where the human touch will be super important. However, advancements in emotion AI will improve the ability of CJOS to analyze customer sentiments and emotional states, allowing businesses to adapt their communication and offerings, accordingly, thereby deepening customer engagement. This includes the understanding of when not to reach out, e.g. if my last engagement showed high level of fear and anger, e.g. because I had a complaint, or reach out with a solution to the problem, but don’t come with another offer. ?

·????? Ethical AI and Privacy: This is one of the most asked for topics when we talk about AI. Ethical considerations and privacy concerns are taking center stage already. Businesses will need to balance personalization with privacy, ensuring customer trust and compliance with data protection regulations. Once the trust is lost, it will be hard to build up the loyalty again.

How to prepare for an AI-Driven Future:

To thrive in an AI-driven future, businesses must adapt their strategies and infrastructure to leverage AI effectively in their customer journey orchestration. Here are steps to prepare:?

1.??????? Invest in AI Skills and Talent: Cultivate a team with AI skills, train them in this topic or give them time to dive deep into it by themselves. Alternatively, engage strategically with a trusted partner with AI expertise to innovate and implement AI-driven solutions in your CX strategy.

2.??????? Ensure Data Quality and Integration: Focus on consolidating data sources and establishing and then maintaining data integrity to power AI insights. When talking to our customers, we see this as the most important use case now. AI’s effectiveness is highly dependent on high-quality, integrated data.

3.??????? Prioritize Ethical AI Use: Establish and enforce guidelines for ethical AI use, considering fairness, transparency, and privacy. Engaging customers transparently about AI use can enhance trust and loyalty.

Most importantly stay agile and experiment: The AI landscape is rapidly evolving. Adopt an agile approach, experimenting with new AI technologies in your customer journeys and use cases, to stay ahead of trends and continuously enhance customer experiences. Learn fast and fail forward. Setting up an agile operational model has been shown the base for successful adjusting to the constant changing business environments and staying ahead of the curve.

By taking proactive steps to integrate AI into their customer journey strategies and operational execution, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

?