Charles Darwin wrote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives . . . It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.” That was a prescient insight. He could have been referring to the world of 2022.
And so, welcome to our era – The Era of Tectonic Change. But how are business leaders to navigate it?
Pandemic Taught Big, Painful Lessons
Business leaders faced a hard truth during the pandemic: their business models were fragile. And they never saw it coming.
Overnight, manufacturing shut. The service sector mothballed. Supply chains crippled. Remote and hybrid work arrived full stop. The world will never be the same.
Now, we are facing a new crisis in the form of a severe recession. Even some of the world’s biggest businesses are now biting the bullet, with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce all cutting back on staff.
The knight in shining armour? Well, in the last crisis – the pandemic – that was video conferencing. This time around, composable CX may emerge as the saviour that gives businesses the necessary flexibility to navigate this challenging economic outlook.
Welcome to Composability
Businesses that pivoted during the pandemic and adapted to its new reality came through it with a new modular mindset. And they are ready to thrive.
In the post-COVID era, forward-thinking companies understand that it’s about planning multiple scenarios with the mindset of adapting and improvising. Gone is the traditional five-year plan.
Enter composable CX. By harnessing “composable applications,” businesses can combine traditional development, packaged apps, APIs, and no-/low-code.
With the latter, businesses can create apps without involving a developer and quickly pivot to meet new market trends. That is the future of customer experience.
The Future Is Now. Composable CX Is Here to Stay.
No company can do everything well. With a composable CX stack, businesses mix and match the best features and benefits to meet shifting customer needs.
Moreover, with a composable CX stack, businesses can change a piece of software without starting over. An unchangeable monolithic stack means that leading technology in one year is outdated in two.
After the pandemic, many businesses realized this, having depended on often a single provider to cover all the critical elements of CX, like the contact center.
Such an approach comes with other risks attached. Giving an example, James Cox, SVP Marketing at LumenVox, states:
“Unexpected acquisitions can force companies to migrate to the parent company’s cloud. Engineering priorities change. Costs increase. Innovation decreases. You’ve lost control.”
Then there is the issue of cost. A single provider prevents alternative pricing models. It’s their price or the highway.
Worse, professional services make implementation more costly than the software itself. Scaling it can blow a hole in operating costs.
A composable CX stack provides flexibility to save. It allows businesses to control their own destiny.
Paraphrasing Darwin, adaptability is the ultimate weapon. Composable CX allows companies to set pricing based on their needs, not just the vendor. If one vendor suddenly raises prices, a company can shift to a new voice entrant offering better technology.
It Starts With Voice
Speech is often the place to start composable CX. Why? Because high transcription costs and inflexible licences aggravate businesses attempting to reign in operating expenses.
“Our customers start with speech and voice recognition because it can improve customer experience whilst reducing costs simultaneously, and the technology is changing fast,” adds Cox.
“It is a component that is both critical and easy, low effort and high reward.”
But there are hurdles. For instance, contact centers that use voice biometrics might want to add virtual assistants, but their voice provider can’t provide them.
That’s Where Lumenvox Helps
During the pandemic, licensing agreements drove substantial cost increases in contact center operations. Those businesses with a composable CX strategy are now looking for alternatives.
“We offer modular options to deploy anywhere,” James Cox said. “Our customers typically have huge investments in legacy systems. We offer flexible solutions to suppress cost increases.”
LumenVox provides a broad set of advanced voice solutions. It offers flexibility and control to integrate applications in any environment easily – on premises, multi-cloud or a hybrid model – at scale.
Click here to learn more about LumenVox.
