What is a CX platform and how are companies using the analytics from these platforms?

What is a customer experience (CX) platform and how are companies using the analytics from these platforms?

The outlook or perception that a customer builds around a company is influenced by the different channels through which a customer interacts with that company. I call these channels interaction points. The company's website, social media messaging, advertisements and other channels are a few examples of these interaction points.

Tools that enable enterprises to monitor and manage these interaction points are called customer experience (CX) platforms. CX platforms are usually a collection of tools that help companies establish their customer interaction goals. The breadth of channels through which customers can interact with a company is often so spread out that it's difficult for just one solution to monitor them all. It should be noted that exceptions to this will become more frequent as the importance of monitoring customer experience is on the rise.

An important component of any CX platform is analytics. The data collected by CX platforms serve as feedback to different groups or departments in a company, such as marketing, product management, top-level decision makers and more. Analytics helps visually communicate the collected data to these groups in an easily digestible format. Most CX platforms offer built-in analytics as part of the package; however, it's not uncommon for companies to use third-party BI software to analyze this data.

CX analytics helps companies assess the overall experience customers have with their brand and help them take corrective action if anything seems off.