The Path to a Successful Customer Experience: Making DXP Integration Easier

A retailer needed an information-rich experience that would attract and engage online customers to grow its business. A bank sought to provide its members with mobile access to account and product insights, but its complex technology environment stood in the way. A health insurance provider wanted to connect its clients to physician information and answer member questions online to minimize long wait times on voice calls.

Do these challenges sound familiar? A common thread is the need to easily connect data from multiple, disparate systems with a digital experience platform (DXP) to improve the customer experience. Attaining this connectivity across business systems is challenging. Today’s agile DXP delivers the tools to make integration easier, effectively enabling a data-driven enterprise.

Connecting back-end systems and data to the front-end customer experience

The focus on improving the customer experience is nothing new. But the ease with which systems can be integrated and data shared to solve problems and influence audiences is now a reality. Modern DXPs designed with an API-first approach can easily connect back-end systems to front-end customer experiences. Studies indicate that digital transformation focused on customer experience is yielding clear returns in business value. In a recent IDC survey, 61% of respondents saw at least a 5X return on customer experience investments, and 78% said data plays a very significant role in the experience an organization provides. 

Designing and delivering engaging customer experiences is often only as strong as the data integration that feeds it. The migration to cloud-based solutions continues to be a significant enabler in advancing integration and digital transformation. IDC found that 27% of organizations recognize the integration and app development capabilities of their cloud platform are critical components of their digital transformation plans. The ability to access and reuse content from across the ecosystem extends the life of data and adds value to the engagement. 

Connecting the dots between a personalized experience and the data that drives it can have a positive impact on revenue and customer satisfaction. Imagine an ERP and CRM integration with the DXP that provides a transparent view into regionally available inventory, with personalized pricing and a link to a support knowledge base for any questions. With proactive surfacing of data from multiple integrated systems into one digital experience, the customer is empowered to complete the transaction faster and likely with higher satisfaction.

Data integration drives greater business productivity and efficiency 

Data is one of the most powerful instruments in personalization and customer-based problem solving. Aggregating data access across systems increases the value of the information, and it minimizes the duplication of work and the risk of errors in independently capturing data. Integrations between the digital experience and back-end systems can also automatically keep content in sync without requiring a content author or administrator to be involved.

The more democratized content contribution becomes across the organization, the greater the need for an agile DXP. A codeless design interface with integrated components allows content to be kept current, while sharing it across multiple channels to reach a wide range of stakeholders cost effectively. Managing the ever-changing content experiences becomes a complex blending of data, assembled in real time based on device specifications or user preferences. With business teams wanting a more holistic view of the customer, data transparency and information sharing is fast becoming the gold standard.

The opportunities that arise when back-end data is connected to the customer experience include: 

• Empowering collaboration among distributed content authors, designers, and developers with minimized reliance on IT 
• Supporting first-party data collection with fully integrated security controls and permission-based access 
• Making it easier to create and publish content via integrated solution accelerators 
• Allowing customers to access real-time product information and account details

DXPs deliver seamless and flexible cost-effective integration

The digital enterprise depends on technology that provides maximum scalability, flexibility, and portability to accommodate future unknowns. With the right DXP, IT is given many levers to enable greater business agility while minimizing the cost of deployment, upgrades, integrations, and customizations. Enterprise-class DXPs offer a broad set of connectors, templates, plug-ins, and APIs giving developers a choice in how to deliver data faster and respond more quickly to business requests. There also are other benefits:  

• Solution architects can more easily accommodate an agile DXP into their existing tech stack 
• IT can ensure data security, regional data residency, and industry compliance mandates are met
• Back-end developers can fully utilize APIs to provide administrative, data and delivery actions
• Front-end developers can use expanded JavaScript frameworks, GraphQL, and microservices to build supportable custom designed experiences

Meeting the transformational challenge 

Integration is fundamental to a successful DXP deployment and is important to achieving the next level of digital transformation. A modern DXP should facilitate data and system connectivity, enabling businesses to digitize operations, deliver connected customer experiences, and gather actionable customer insights. When reengineering the customer experience, consider an integrated system environment that delivers flexibility, scalability, and decentralized content creation. Planning should equally focus on both the customer experience layer and the operational model necessary to achieve success.