In today’s hyper-connected digital landscape, where customers expect seamless interactions at every touchpoint, investing in real-time interaction management (RTIM) has become imperative for businesses looking to stay ahead.
Recently, Engage Hub was recognised as a Contender in Forrester’s Wave report on RTIM, solidifying our leadership in customer-centric RTIM solutions. But what exactly is RTIM? And why should you prioritise it in their long-term CX strategy?
In this article, we answer those questions (and a few others).
What is RTIM?
Real-time interaction management (RTIM) refers to the ability to dynamically tailor and optimise customer interactions across various channels in real time based on individual preferences, behaviours, context, and intent.
It involves leveraging data analytics, AI and automation to deliver relevant and timely messages, offers and experiences to customers. As a result, it delivers higher engagement, loyalty and revenue.
Why prioritise RTIM?
The digital age has empowered customers with more choices, higher expectations and shorter attention spans. To meet these evolving demands and stand out in a crowded market, businesses should leverage RTIM – because it delivers:
1. Enhanced personalisation
RTIM lets you deliver hyper-personalised experiences by leveraging real-time data insights. By understanding each customer’s preferences, history and context, you can tailor interactions to meet individual needs and preferences. This fosters stronger connections and increases conversion rates.
Take Next Best Offer as an example. And as the adage goes, ‘Timing is everything’. The right offer has to be combined with the right timing, or cadence, for the customer. It’s important to note that ‘real-time’ could mean different timeframes for different products and scenarios. For instance, if your customer buys online and collects in-store, you want to make the next best offer at checkout (which might be in minutes or hours). But suppose your customer contacts your call centre about a problem? In that case, the customer support representative should have all relevant information in milliseconds, so as to provide the next best offer over the phone.
2. Improved customer engagement
By engaging customers with relevant and timely messages across their preferred channels, RTIM helps you capture and retain attention in a noisy digital landscape. Whether through email, SMS, social media or chatbots, RTIM ensures every interaction adds value and resonates with the customer.
3. Optimised customer journeys
RTIM is crucial in orchestrating seamless customer journeys across multiple touchpoints and channels. By mapping and optimising end-to-end customer journeys, you can identify pain points, remove friction and deliver a consistent and cohesive experience at every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Combining RTIM with journey orchestration
RTIM and journey orchestration go hand in hand, complementing each other to create cohesive and memorable customer experiences.
While RTIM focuses on real-time personalisation and optimisation of individual interactions, journey orchestration takes a holistic approach – mapping out customer journeys and optimising them across channels and touchpoints.
By integrating RTIM with journey orchestration, you can:
- Anticipate customer needs – By analysing past interactions and behaviours in real-time, you can anticipate customer needs and proactively deliver relevant offers or assistance at the right moment
- Ensure consistency – By orchestrating consistent messaging and experiences across channels, you can ensure customers receive cohesive and seamless interactions throughout their journey, regardless of touchpoint
- Drive continuous improvement – By leveraging data and analytics from both RTIM and journey orchestration, you gain valuable insights into preferences, trends and pain points, helping you continuously optimise and refine the CX strategy.
The business value of RTIM
In today’s customer-centric landscape – where consumers control their unique buying journeys and demand seamless, personalised experiences – the stakes for businesses have never been higher. Failure to meet these expectations can result in over 50% of consumers switching brands, highlighting the importance of getting RTIM right.
Effective RTIM not only mitigates the risks of losing customers to competitors, but it also boosts retention rates. By delivering highly relevant and timely interactions tailored to individual preferences and behaviours, you can use it to enhance key engagement metrics such as average order value, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and customer lifetime value.
How do you get started with RTIM?
As with any customer experience approach, it should be strategic and iterative.
- Start with customer data and one channel – the ultimate idea is to build a Golden Record, an always-on, constantly-updating customer view. Start small, using available data to execute personalised outbound campaigns through one channel.
- Add more channels – testing, tuning and optimising as you go.
- Analyse inbound and outbound strategies – focusing on customer context and cadence across the lifecycle.
- Leverage AI and machine learning – once you have a solid foundation of integrated, connected customer data, you can use machine learning to manage real-time interactions.
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Investing in RTIM isn’t just about staying competitive, it’s about future-proofing your long-term CX strategy and delivering exceptional experiences that keep people coming back.
See why Forrester has recognised Engage Hub’s RTIM capabilities, or get in touch to see how we can help you take your customer experience to the next level.
