CSG has launched a new, unified engagement hub that it says will transform “uninspired customer engagements” into “extraordinary customer experiences”.
The new solution brings together cross-channel customer data, journey orchestration and analytics, and omni-channel communications to deliver personalised, predictive and proactive customer experiences. Although CSG’s primary target remains the wider telecoms market, the combination of its existing assets and expertise with those of recently-acquired Kitewheel boosts the company’s ambitions to expand beyond its core market – either directly or via the telecoms channel.
Alfred Binford, president of customer engagement at CSG noted that while business leaders recognise the power of customer experience, journey mapping and customer data, they sometimes struggle to bring it all together and take meaningful action. This is the challenge, he says, that Xponent is designed to solve. It will help CSPs overcome the issue of complex and siloed back-end systems, allowing them to uncover insights that can be turned into “meaningful actions at every customer touchpoint”.
“The window of opportunity to wow your customers is fleeting and precious, which is why companies need their technology investments to deliver immediate results at every ‘moment of truth’ in the customer lifecycle. CSG Xponent empowers brands to predict and create the customer’s best next action and drive ROI for the business.”
Alfred Binford, president of customer engagement, CSG
Xponent: what’s under the hood?
Xponent brings together CSG’s existing assets and expertise and combines them with those of recent acquisitions. Among other things it delivers:
- a unified hub to manage all aspects of customer experience and engagement in real time via any channel.
- AI and real time interaction management (RTIM) to determine and pursue the best next-action.
- preconfigured customer journeys and use cases, analytical models and packaged data libraries.
CSG is keen to emphasise that CSPs do not need to swallow the whole pill. They can buy chunks of Xponent to complement and optimise what they already have and to help them gain quick benefits without the pain of major infrastructure replacement. The solution helps them solve the long-standing problem of internal silos by enabling them to take data from any source to create a unified, 360-degree customer record which can be combined with real-time analytics and a library of off-the-shelf customer journeys and use cases.
Omnisperience’s view
Xponent hammers home the value of the Kitewheel acquisition which, as we noted at the time, was highly strategic for the company. There are several points to note. Kitewheel added technology capabilities combined with additional vertical market expertise which gives CSG considerable choice about how to engage:
- directly with large enterprises themselves in key new verticals CSG are seeking to grow their business in (such as financial services and retail)
- to support their CSP customers to improve their own experience across B2C and B2B
- to help CSPs sell capabilities to large enterprise customers
- to help CSPs in their ambition to underpin evolving ecosystems with key capabilities to improve PX or end-user experience.
This new integrated offering strengthens CSG’s play against rivals and takes them into new parts of the BSS stack. It’s a pragmatic move, because it doesn’t require CSPs to commit to a big transformation to start feeling the benefit. (This contrasts with some rivals who advocate large transformation projects.) In fact, this latter point is a fundamental tenet of CSG’s strategy – helping its customers get to the benefits faster.
Even though most CX announcements sit on the B2C side of the market, this move from CSG should not be misinterpreted as a pure B2C play to support its traditional cable and quad-play media business. It will. But vast potential lies beyond this in supporting the evolution of experience in the B2B and B2B2X markets. Business services are what will keep CSPs in the black, and this is a market CSG knows well and is determined to position itself in to benefit from upcoming B2B systems renewal and business model refreshes.