It’s accepted wisdom these days that brands that want to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape should focus on their end-to-end customer experience (CX). Positive customer experiences have been proven time and time again to increase revenue, loyalty and customer satisfaction.
Despite this, marketing and lifecycle campaigns often fail to correctly prioritise CX and – as a result, fail to reach their full potential.
In this blog, I’ll look at how marketing and CX can, with the help of real-time interaction management (RTIM), join forces to deliver better journeys for customers at every point of their lifecycle.
What is RTIM and why does it matter?
Market research giant Forrester defines RTIM as:
“Enterprise marketing technology that delivers contextually relevant experiences, value and utility at the appropriate moment in the customer lifecycle via preferred customer touchpoints.”
In other words, it’s technology that lets you deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time, on the right platform. Crucially, RTIM applies to all parts of the customer lifecycle – from marketing to sales to service and more.
It’s difficult to overstate the benefits of RTIM because, at its core, it allows you to deliver hyper-personalised journeys to your customers. And those hyper-personalised journeys help increase sales, boost customer loyalty, and show customers that they’re not just another faceless number.
How does RTIM fit in with Next Best Experience?
Next Best Experience (NBX) is the holy grail of customer experience, giving you the ability to deliver the right next step to customers based on every piece of available data.
RTIM works hand-in-hand with NBX by using advanced predictive models and specific business rules to recommend the right experience in the context of a customer journey. By combining the analytical power of NBX with the CX oversight of RTIM, businesses can take personalisation to the next level and make sure every touchpoint in a customer journey is working as hard as it can.
How does RTIM fit in with journey orchestration?
If NBX is the holy grail of customer experience, journey orchestration is the map that gets you there. Journey orchestration brings together all parts of your CX, giving you a holistic view of what’s working, what can be improved, and what data is available to you.
As with NBX, RTIM goes hand-in-hand with journey orchestration. In fact, some even argue that they’re one and the same thing. Like RTIM, journey orchestration aims to enhance CX across the whole lifecycle, with improvements and decisions underpinned by data.
We believe RTIM and journey orchestration are distinct but complementary tools that can work seamlessly together. Journey orchestration lets you visualise your end-to-end customer journey, helping you to identify opportunities for CX improvement; RTIM lets you measure the impact of experience-led marketing. Together, they help you break down organisational and data silos to create value for customers at every touchpoint.
Did you know that Forrester has recognised Engage Hub as a key player in the RTIM space? Find out more on the latest inclusion here.
