How to Choose the Best Customer Experience Management Software

The best customer experience management software packs unified omnichannel data, AI designed for the frontlines, dedicated support and innovation, and more into one powerful platform.

Done right, customer experience management helps companies cut through the noise and understand everything that’s happening for their customers: across channels, touchpoints, and interactions throughout the customer journey. Advanced brands lean into customer experience (CX) to figure out what customers really care about and turn these insights into action. Actions that not only save organizations time and money, but create new opportunities to generate revenue and loyalty. 

None of this is possible without a best-in-class CX partner. Industry-leading customer experience software platforms like Medallia set teams up for success. In a major way. 

In fact, according to the most recent Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Medallia, organizations using the Medallia customer experience management platform achieve $35.6M in value and an ROI of 591% over three years with payback in less than six months. That value comes in part from $20.1M in increased income, resulting from product improvements, stronger customer retention, and gains in customer loyalty. Plus, operational efficiencies, driven by breaking down silos, aligning teams, improving employee engagement, and accelerating innovation, can help companies unlock a whopping $13.8M in savings. 

So what sets the best customer experience software like Medallia’s apart from the rest? The difference is clear.

What the Best Customer Experience Software Delivers for Brands

Top-tier platforms have evolved beyond basic surveys and dashboards. They move fast. At the speed of real time and AI. No generic insights, no generic recommendations. Everything’s personalized, tailored to help each individual employee deliver what each individual customer expects. They’re capable of handling millions of inputs, have a proven track record of working across enterprises, and, most importantly, are designed to help you create real financial impact.

Here are some of the key features you can only get with the best customer experience management software solutions.

Omnichannel customer experience features that tell the whole story

1. Unified omnichannel management

If the customer experience management software you’re considering is built around surveys, move on. Surveys only provide a fraction of the insights you need to measure your customer experience, make improvements, drive revenue, and strengthen customer loyalty. 

You need a platform that collects data from signals everywhere—from surveys, emails, phone calls, live chat sessions, text messages, social media interactions, app and website behavioral data, operational data, and other critical customer experience and employee experience data—unified together in one single view in real time. 

AI that helps team act, fix, innovate, and improve faster

2. Conversation intelligence

Most customer experience professionals (75%) say that customer feedback surveys alone aren’t enough for understanding the customer experience holistically, according to our new Medallia Market Research report, Conversational Intelligence: The New CX Advantage. 

Conversation intelligence technologies like Text Analytics and Speech Analytics use AI and natural language processing (NLP) to transform unstructured data from conversations between customers and brands across channels like voice, chat, email, and messaging into insights designed to improve the customer experience and helps companies drive KPIs like first-contact resolution, upsell rates, and revenue per customer. 

You want a platform that offers AI-powered Text Analytics and Speech Analytics capable of instantly analyzing your millions of pieces of omnichannel data and translating them into metrics like sentiment, impact scores, customer effort, and more.

By using Conversation Intelligence, you’ll be in good company. Our Medallia Market Research report finds that:

• CX leaders are 6x more likely to use conversational intelligence in a meaningful way vs. laggards
• Most (73%) fast-growing brands plan to increase their CI investment
• 88% of professionals who are already using CI say it’s valuable

3. AI for all employees, from the C-suite to the frontline

The best customer experience software makes AI-powered insights available to everyone across the enterprise with role-specific, actionable priorities for all teams, from the front line to the C-suite.

For instance, Medallia’s Frontline-Ready AI™:

• Offers AI-powered coaching
• Gives frontline teams—store associates, branch staff, support reps—insights they need to fix issues
• Includes an accountability loop where managers can see the actions frontline teams have taken and the impact they’re having on customer behavior

Enterprise-proof architecture

4. Easy integrations with all the systems your business relies on

If your platforms live in silos, expect disparate data that doesn’t lead to useful insights, creates operational inefficiencies, and offers up a disappointing ROI. 

A customer experience management software platform shouldn’t be on your short list unless it offers seamless integrations with the systems and tools that play a critical role in your business success, such as your customer relationship management (CRM), workforce management, customer support, and business intelligence software systems.

5. Simple, powerful features users actually want to use

Skip overly complex, unintuitive tools. The learning curve required will only hold you back. You want a user-friendly tool that will get all of your users across departments quickly up and running and unlocking immediate value. 

Frontline teams from the world’s leading brands use Medallia’s tools every day to stay on top of shifting customer sentiment and emerging issues. These users log in to our customer experience management software’s mobile app nearly 600,000 times and view almost two million different reports and insights on a weekly basis. That’s the kind of engagement that’s only seen on today’s most popular social media apps. 

6. Success that scales with your business

You want a system that will grow with you, not stunt your growth. The customer experience software you select should be able to process and analyze millions of customer signals, work with your company’s unique organizational structure, offer the proper permissions and role-specific reporting, and keep up with reorgs, product changes, and shifting business priorities. 

7. A system that checks every governance, security, compliance, privacy, and reliability requirement

A best-in-class partner will have a proven track record of enterprise deployment and reliable performance and offer enterprise-grade controls for compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other similar privacy laws and compliance reporting.

Dedicated support and innovation

8. Strategic advisors who work with you to meet your objectives

Medallia’s customer experience software includes the dedicated support of our in-house industry experts who have teamed up with the world’s leading brands to build customer experience programs that deliver business value. 

9. A roadmap of product investments that will make your CX program even better

A best-in-class partner is able to fulfill product feature requests and is invested in continuous, relentless innovation that fuels your bottom line.

Clear impact

10. The business ROI your C-suite expects

As we said from the get go, today’s best customer experience management software platforms make a difference where it counts the most, helping brands generate millions in value and savings. The results Medallia’s customers have seen are beyond impressive; they’re transformative: 591% in ROI and up to $35.6M in potential gains and savings. 

Don’t Manage CX with a Dated System

Medallia’s all-new Guide to Choosing a CX Partner lays out what’s at stake for companies that invest in the wrong customer experience software: Missed opportunities to make more money and reduce risk. Wasted resources. A frontline workforce that’s not as effective as it could be. 

It’s the difference between operating at the speed of your customers and making moves hours, days, or weeks behind.