Welcome to TalkingCX, as we bring ChatGPT from OpenAI and Graham Clark, VP Market Development for McorpCX, together to discuss the exciting world of experience management successes, trends, and techniques.
In this episode, we delve into the trending topic of Journey Orchestration, a trend (buzzword?) in the industry, that has caused some confusion.
Today, we plan to shed some light on the subject – so let’s dig into it…
Q: What is Journey Orchestration?
Chat GPT: Journey orchestration is the process of creating, managing, and optimizing customer journeys across multiple touchpoints and channels. It involves using data and customer behavior to create personalized, relevant experiences that move customers through the buying process, from initial engagement to conversion and beyond.
Journey orchestration platforms provide a centralized view of the customer across all touchpoints and channels, allowing businesses to create and execute targeted campaigns, track performance, and optimize the customer experience in real-time. The platform is built on data management and analytics, which allows the orchestration to be data-driven, personalized, and automated.
Journey orchestration can be used for a wide range of customer interactions, such as onboarding, upselling, cross-selling, and retention, and can help businesses improve customer engagement, increase conversions, and drive revenue growth.
Graham Clark: Agreed. Though I wouldn’t emphasize marketing (over sales and service) campaigns and maybe not so much on “buying” but there isn’t much to argue with here. And I would definitely point to Journey Orchestration using existing channel investments.
Q: What are the benefits of a Journey Orchestration Platform?
ChatGPT: A journey orchestration platform can provide a number of benefits for businesses, including:
- Personalization: A centralized view of customer data and behavior allows for more personalized and relevant experiences, which can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
- Increased Efficiency: By automating and streamlining the process of creating, managing, and optimizing customer journeys, a journey orchestration platform can help businesses save time and resources.
- Improved Customer Engagement: A journey orchestration platform can help businesses create targeted campaigns and personalized experiences that can improve customer engagement and loyalty.
- Better Insights: A journey orchestration platform can provide businesses with detailed analytics and reports on customer behavior and campaign performance, allowing them to make data-driven decisions and optimize the customer journey.
- Multi-channel orchestration: Platform allows businesses to manage and execute campaigns across multiple channels such as email, SMS, push notifications, and social media, and create a seamless experience across all touchpoints.
- Cost-effective: By automating many processes, journey orchestration can be more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods as it reduces the need for manual work.
- Increased ROI: By creating personalized, relevant experiences and optimizing the customer journey, businesses can see an increase in conversions and revenue growth.
Graham Clark: Agreed again... though hidden in the “increased ROI” statement is the fact that Journey Orchestration can also drive a better return on existing channel platform investments.
Q: What are the components of a Journey Orchestration platform?
ChatGPT: A journey orchestration platform typically includes the following technology components:
- Data Management: A centralized data repository or a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that stores and manages customer data from various sources such as website interactions, social media, and CRM systems.
- Campaign Management: The ability to create, execute, and track campaigns across various channels such as email, SMS, push notifications, and social media.
- Personalization Engine: Uses customer data and behavior to personalize the customer journey and deliver relevant content and experiences.
- Decisioning Engine: A rules-based engine that enables the platform to make real-time decisions based on customer data and behavior, such as determining the next best action or offer.
- Analytics and Reporting: Provides insights into customer behavior, campaign performance, and overall journey effectiveness.
- Integrations: The ability to integrate with other systems such as CRM, e-commerce platforms, and analytics tools to share data and automate processes.
- User Interface: A user-friendly interface that enables marketers to create, manage, and optimize customer journeys, as well as view analytics and reports.
- APIs: The platform should have APIs to allow integration with other systems and custom workflows.
- Machine Learning: Some platforms will include built-in machine learning to help personalize and optimize journeys, as well as for predictive analytics.
- Automation: Automation of various steps of journey, from triggering to execution, with the ability to track performance and optimize accordingly.
Graham Clark: Strange that ChatGPT doesn't mention Artificial Intelligence (AI), characterized by its ability to make highly intelligent, real-time decisions based on large-scale data analysis. Just sayin’….
Q: What do I need to have in place to maximize the impact of Journey Orchestration?
ChatGPT: To maximize the impact of journey orchestration, the following should be in place:
- Clear definition of customer journeys: Define the key stages and touchpoints in the customer journey.
- Data management: Ensure that customer data is accurate, accessible and consolidated.
- Integration with systems: Integrate journey orchestration with existing systems such as CRM, marketing automation, and customer service.
- Cross-functional collaboration: Involve teams from different departments such as marketing, sales, and customer service to ensure a cohesive customer experience.
- Continuous testing and optimization: Regularly measure and analyze the results of orchestrated journeys and make data-driven optimizations.
- Executive support: Ensure that journey orchestration has executive support and is aligned with overall business goals.
Graham Clark: I would probably also want a good feedback system (Voice-of-Customer, Voice-of-Employee, etc.), a digital management platform, a great contact center platform, a great social media platform, and some basic semantic analytics platforms for email analysis among other things.
Q:Who are the leading Journey Orchestration platform providers?
Chat GPT:
- Adobe Experience Platform
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- Oracle Marketing Cloud
- IBM Watson Customer Experience
- MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
- SAP C/4HANA
- Pega Marketing
- Optimizely
- Tealium AudienceStream
- Acquia CDP
These are just a few examples, there may be other platforms available depending on your specific needs and requirements. It's worth noting that many large enterprise companies will also offer their own proprietary journey orchestration platform.
Graham Clark: Oh boy, ChatGPT… I wouldn’t answer your door late at night, it might well be someone from Qualtrics (Usermind), Medallia (Thunderhead), Alterian or Inquba to name just a few. All companies that have leading Journey Orchestration platforms. I think you might want to head back to school!
Q: How much does a journey orchestration system cost?
Chat GPT: The cost of journey orchestration depends on various factors such as the complexity of the solution, the tools used, and the vendor providing the solution. It can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
Graham Clark: Or millions I assume, if you are a global enterprise with thousands of experiences and millions of monthly (or even daily) interactions.
So, there you go! Thanks Graham, and thanks ChatGPT. We hope that helps demystify the topic of journey orchestration.
Summing it up… journey orchestration is a powerful tool for businesses looking to create personalized and relevant experiences for their customers. With the ability to automate and streamline processes, plus comprehensive analytics and reporting, journey orchestration can help improve customer engagement, increase conversions, and drive revenue growth.
Thank you for joining us on TalkingCX…