CX
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customers frustrated. We’ve all been in such a situation. You ring support to report a delay to a birthday present you’ve ordered. You then message via chat to ask for an update. With the company’s voice and chat tools not in communication with each other, the chat agent is unaware of your phone call. You then have to repeat your details and security answers, and you’re left annoyed, with a negative impression of the company. These frustrations can’t be put down to bad luck. Instead, they are a byproduct of a linear and static CX framework that treats every interaction as an isolated event. Traditional CX relies on ‘if/then’ interactive voice response menus like the ‘press 1 for support, press 2 for sales’ phone menus we’ve all dealt with. And it followed an invisible script which dictates what happens to a customer: if the customer does x, do y. These playbooks ultimately give CX a bad reputation.
CONTINUED understand you. We can all relate to that tedious moment where you realise you have wasted your time and Perhaps the most frustrating CX dead end, though, is talking to a bot for half an hour before realising it doesn’t receive a message via email, and if they miss it, the responsibility is assumed to lie with the customer. In this kind of API-driven system, this situation is corrected by Condition-Based Failover. This means messages or calls are redirected to a backup channel when the primary path fails. Essentially, the system works as the central coordinator. It sets a timer as soon as the notification goes out. For example, if a payment fails, the API waits for a read receipt from the customer’s device. After the API’s preset timing instruction, such as ‘wait one hour’, is not met, a new API message is triggered to a different communication channel, like WhatsApp. Customers are therefore made to feel cared for and appreciated, as they have been helpfully kept in the loop. At the end of the day, a script would run and calculate the number of delayed packages. It would then send identical emails to disgruntled customers who have been waiting all day for their parcel to arrive. With an API-driven system, the moment a logistics team can’t find the parcel on the morning of expected delivery, the warehouse management system is triggered and updates the status. Instantly, the system sends an SMS or email to update you and arrange the next steps. This manages customers’ expectations and saves them from having to take an unnecessary work-from-home day. Another necessity for modern CX is taking accountability for ensuring customers actually receive updates. APIs can help with this by switching communication channels dynamically based on context. Without this functionality, a customer will simply
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Traditional CX relies on ‘if/then’ interactive voice response menus like the ‘press 1 for support, press 2 for sales’ phone menus we’ve all dealt with... ...These playbooks ultimately give CX a bad reputation.
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API-driven CX The problem with fragmented, static CX systems is that they are not designed to respond in real time. Real-time CX demands that communication happens the moment an event occurs. Take parcel deliveries, for example. Traditionally, delays would tally in a logistics database.
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