Four key integration capabilities that can redefine seamless CX

Imagine, you are halfway through the month and your service provider notifies you that you have already hit your data usage cap. The service provider offers you options in the message that allows you to upgrade your plan to a higher tier or to pay an overage fee for a one-time expansion. With the click of a button, you choose and are back to your normal day.  Seamless, isn’t it?

This customer journey was made possible by multiple systems working together to provide the customer with a relevant offer, enabling them to take action, and updating the outcome in real-time, regardless of the channel used. Such seamless, channel-agnostic, yet personalized experience has become a basic expectation for customers. Any less, and businesses risk losing customers. In fact, our research shows that more than 50% of customers will switch brands if they THINK another brand offers better CX.

Businesses and specifically large enterprises are facing steep challenges in making frictionless CX a sustainable practice. The cost and resources involved in making existing legacy systems work with new communication channels while overcoming data silos is exorbitant. Lack of a centralized platform where all customer interactions can be orchestrated, viewed, monitored, evaluated, and modified further complicates the challenge leading to fragmented customer journeys.

In this blog, we share how Webex Connect, our Enterprise CPaaS platform, helps large enterprises leverage their existing systems and tech stack to create end-to-end orchestrated customer journeys using its in-built integration capabilities. We break down four of its core capabilities that enable enterprises to build, test, and deploy personalized customer journeys reducing the programming effort and costs.

1. Leverage existing business systems and applications

Most enterprises have already adopted or built dedicated systems that perform specific functions to support customer journeys. Legacy systems and technology that were built in the PC-web era do not support digital channels like SMS or WhatsApp for customer interactions, often becoming a roadblock to CX transformation. Developers will have to spend a significant amount of time integrating each of these systems through code to leverage customer data and insights to build personalized customer journeys.

Webex Connect resolves this challenge by enabling businesses to configure reusable integrations with existing systems and applications effortlessly, in no time. To further simplify the challenge of dealing with inflexible legacy systems, Webex Connect supports integrations over a variety of interfaces. Developers can configure bi-directional integrations using REST/SOAP APIs, s/FTP, and message queues where the platform can consume real-time events from already integrated systems, or fetch and update data in existing systems via commonly used formats such as JSON or XML.

2. Powerful automation with bi-directional integrations

Most existing integrations are limited to sending one-way triggers of outbound messages by building plugins for existing business systems such as CRM or marketing software. While that works for simple requirements such as one-way alerts, it misses out on leveraging the power of interactive messaging channels by not providing a seamless response path. Allowing the user to respond enables journey automation, and can make the difference between a routine customer experience vs one that delights and differentiates.

Webex Connect provides integration across two distinct dimensions – inbound vs outbound, and real-time vs batch. The combination of these enable developers to automate two-way customer interactions end-to-end.

Support for both batch and real-time integrations helps developers to automate both real-time trigger-based as well as scheduled customer interactions leveraging the tools and systems the company already has. Considering the example at the beginning of this blog, the customer’s choice is immediately updated in their data pack is a typical outbound real-time integration with third-party applications or systems where the customer response is actioned by making an API call to the relevant business systems, and the request is fulfilled without any delays or manual intervention.

On the other hand, an inbound batch integration is where the enterprise systems generate a file expecting the platform to consume and trigger communications at set intervals of time. Monthly reminders of upcoming payments are a typical use case. Webex Connect's event scheduler is another pre-built component that developers can configure in a few steps to schedule communications leveraging these integration capabilities. 

3. Plug-and-play with pre-built and custom integrations

Customers today expect brands to know them and their unique preferences like their friends and family do. In the retail sector alone, research shows that businesses that delivered personalized communications saw customer satisfaction scores increase by 20% and a nearly 15% increase in sales revenue.

Enabling personalized and contextual interactions effortlessly is now far easier with Webex Connect's integration capabilities. It is a centralized hub that enables IT to orchestrate and manage customer interactions across all customer touchpoints and lends itself to various industries like - customer service, retail, banking, travel, logistics, automotive and many more. Developers can leverage a wide variety of pre-built integrations to systems like CRM, contact center engines, e-commerce, database & storage to name a few. 

Integrations with leading third-party systems like Salesforce CRM, Zendesk, and Fresh Works  are offered as pre-built out-of-the-box integrations that make it easier for developers to draw information from and design personalized customer journeys. These nodes can simply be dragged and dropped to be plugged into a customer journey without having to code or re-program for every use case. The integrations further empower contact centers with advanced integrations like Google Dialogflow embedding virtual assistants that can handle multiple conversations concurrently adding to the contact center’s efficiency. 

If a customer requires an integration that is not pre-built it is possible to develop custom integrations that can then be stored as permanent nodes within the flow builder. Developers can now configure these integrations once and reuse them across multiple interactions and journeys. These can be configured and reused using REST/SOAP APIs ensuring faster go-to-market and reduced developer effort and operational costs for the enterprise.

4. Manage customer consent and streamline downstream processes 

Enterprises usually have separate tools and systems that handle the downstream processes of customer communications like encrypting customer data, managing and storing customer consent, and more. Webex Connect provides extended integration capabilities in a single platform for enterprises to ensure compliance, streamline downstream processes and perform advanced analytics based on customer responses. 

Most digital messaging channels and communication regulations require customer opt-in to send proactive communications. Customer consent needs to be captured and stored in a centralized place and validated each time a customer interaction is triggered. Webex Connect simplifies this process with the ability to configure data feeds to post such information to required systems to ensure regulatory compliance. 

Summary 

The Webex Connect platform’s integration capabilities cover a wide range of applications for enterprises looking to eliminate data silos and fragmented customer journeys to deliver frictionless CX. From bringing disparate systems together to embedding leading third-party applications or creating new integrations, Webex Connect makes orchestration and automation of customer journeys seamless for developers and customers alike. 

Try the platform first-hand for free with our developer sandbox or get in touch today to speak to our experts.