Maximizing value with RTIM: Real-time interaction management benefits unlocked

In the last installment, I shared with you what real-time interaction management (RTIM) is, the factors influencing its approach, how to navigate RTIM challenges, and how to drive RTIM success. In this installment, we take a closer look at how value from RTIM flows directly from the benefits realized from the right RTIM approach and implementation.

Intersectional benefits

RTIM helps businesses enrich customer experiences by determining - in real time - the next best experience (NBX) that can be delivered at any given moment in any touchpoint. Per Forrester, "NBX lives at the intersection of consumers' and businesses' needs." You might be asking: What does this actually look like? A real-world use case of a brand executing a next-best-experience program is the international banking institution, NatWest.

NatWest orchestrates next best experiences for their customers by leveraging AI-powered decisioning and combining it with a robust data infrastructure to connect all their brand channels and deliver personalized experiences in real time across them. Utilizing adaptive and predictive models, NatWest analyzes customer data to determine relevant next best actions tailored to individual needs in their mobile application, retail banks, on the website, or any of their other 30+ connected channels. This approach has produced lift in both their business and customer satisfaction.

Natalie Murray, the Customer Decisioning and Delivery Product Lead at Natwest, details this in their recent breakout session at Pegaworld 2024, "Where we really accelerated and uplifted our success is where we introduced 'always-on' style offers."

This functionality uses a bedrock of real-time decisioning. Brands across all industries can benefit from this approach in many ways:

• Delight your customers with relevant, empathetic, and timely conversations - This inspires brand engagement and loyalty while making your competitors less compelling. According to a 2022 brand authenticity report by Sitecore "nearly nine in 10 say that showing empathy and understanding of what they need in the moment is powerful in building a stronger relationship with the brand (86%)."
• Shifting the organization's narrow focus from just the buying lifecycle to the entire customer lifecycle is a win-win for the business, its employees, and its customers by delivering total value.
• Technology enhances, doesn't replace human capabilities - Artificial intelligence (AI) facilitates the shift to heightened levels of personalized engagement, exalting the experience for all. However, it requires oversight and responsibility and humans must remain in control.
• Brands can claim their channel independence - Customers are everywhere, and integrating the end-to-end customer experience (CX) across all channels is no longer a nice to have, it's an imperative. You must support all channels, but most importantly put your decision-making about customers at the center instead of fragmenting it within each channel.
• Optimal synchronicity - A unified brand (functions, teams, technologies) is a successful brand. When something is broken anywhere along the customer journey, whether in buying stages, servicing, or other, we the customers notice rather quickly. Do not underestimate the impact of bad customer experiences. Using RTIM, coordinate efforts across all stages of the customer journey.
• Always-on customer insights and engagement - Instantly reacting to customers changing behaviors and adapting your response accordingly ensures no moments are missed in any touchpoint. And every single customer moment is the most important one.

Diving deeper into RTIM value

There are many ways to measure value from RTIM systems. Both short-term and long-term metrics provide important insights that guide an organization's marketing and customer experience (CX) strategy. However, overreliance on short-term metrics to drive long-term value is typically not in the best interest of the organization and its customers. Short-term metrics focus on incremental revenue uplift derived from transactional (and generally channel-specific) activities like acquisition, cross-sell, and upsell. What these metrics overlook is incorporating additional activities, such as service, retention, and nurturing, which are also critical to fully inform strategic and operational decisions. Hence why these metrics should be evaluated in conjunction with a longer term profit contribution metric called customer lifetime value (CLV).

CLV measures how valuable a customer is in the context of their entire relationship with your brand, not just on a purchase basis. It calculates (and then forecasts) based on all of the activities that touch the customer in their journey with your brand. Then it weighs the associated costs against how much revenue your brand is able to generate with that relationship. The multi-dimensional approach of this measurement encompasses multiple levels of value creation for an organization including:

• Quantifying the success of acquisition, retention, nurture, and service engagements across all channels
• Connecting revenue and profit to engagement activities beyond product purchases, such as service successes that result in higher customer satisfaction, loyalty, and even referrals
• Driving better alignment between marketing and customer experience teams to optimally educate and nurture customers, gaining value over time
• Improving resource allocation and targeted investments for customer acquisition and retention, based on customer value

Factoring CLV into all NBX decisions is a more reliable calculation that accounts for cumulative profit gains over time. Measuring the long-term value of customer relationships requires an RTIM system that is designed to include this business objective. Merging customer and business metrics that continuously optimize RTIM strategies enables organizations to drive forward-looking profitability that benefits the business, its employees, and all its customers.

Innovation drives transformation

One last benefit to highlight is the innovative aspect of designing and implementing RTIM strategies. It enables organizations with the flexibility needed to adapt and adopt at their own pace. Every organization has a unique structure, culture, and objectives. Although achievable in bite-sized increments, RTIM is ultimately a transformational approach that builds upon its successes and encourages positive organizational and technological change. Think of RTIM in the customer engagement space as a continuum where companies are progressively moving from one phase to the next. All companies are in different stages of automating their marketing and CX systems and aligning their organization and processes to it. The impressive results and benefits realized to date by companies already using RTIM will serve as a showcase for others to take notice. And those that take notice and act will also be on their way to delivering exceptional and differentiated experiences to their customers.

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