With wave after wave of cloud-based innovations and new AI solutions sweeping across the CX space, customer journey orchestration has never been so crucial.
Recognizing this, more CX vendors have moved further into the field.
From CCaaS stalwarts like Genesys and NICE to voice of the customer (VoC) pioneers such as Medallia and Qualtrics - these providers have poured funds into their orchestration platforms.
That investment has enabled brands to build more comprehensive views of their customer journeys, remove pain points, and become more strategic in their AI strategies.
However, some vendors have gone further than others in building out their customer journey orchestration platforms and aligning their innovation efforts with a compelling vision.
Thankfully, Forrester has isolated "the most significant" nine providers and evaluated them to help brands select the best-suited platform provider for their businesses.
How Forrester Defines "Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms"
A customer journey orchestration platform "connects journeys and fosters a culture of data-driven decision-making based on a customer’s path and perceptions as they pursue a goal," as per Forrester.
Yet, in leveraging such platforms, some businesses face issues like integrating real-time data sources and running hyper-personalization strategies for "ever-changing" customers.
In light of these problems, Forrester urges customer journey orchestration platform buyers to consider providers that:
- Expedite seamless data integration to deliver insights at speed.
- Facilitate the adoption of responsible AI.
- Optimize journeys to align customer outcomes with business goals.
Forrester goes into much more detail on each of these within its study.
Yet, for the most part, the report offers an analysis of the nine vendors, which Forrester splits into four groups: leaders, strong performers, contenders, and challengers.
In doing so, the analyst evaluates each vendor across 30 criteria, divided into three central themes: current offering, strategy, and market presence.
How Did the Vendors Perform?
Across the three central themes, here are Forrester’s five top-performing providers of customer journey orchestration platforms.
Current Offering
- Alterian (4.30/5.00)
- CSG (4.00/5.00)
- Qualtrics (3.84/5.00)
- Genesys (3.44/5.00)
- Medallia (2.92/5.00)
Strategy
- CSG (4.50/5.00)
- Qualtrics (4.50/5.00)
- Alterian (4.20/5.00)
- Genesys (3.00/5.00)
- Medallia (3.00/5.00)
Market Presence
- Genesys (5.00/5.00)
- Qualtrics (5.00/5.00)
- CSG (3.00/5.00)
- Medallia (3.00/5.00)
- Engage Hub (2.00/5.00) 5. Quantum Metric (2.00/5.00)
Forrester sheds more light on these scores by offering an overview of the 12 vendors' portfolios and services.
While the study provides many more insights into each vendor's strengths, cautions, and roadmap, here are the headline takeaways for each.
CSG – CSG Xponent (Leader)
Since its 2021 acquisition of Kitewheel, CSG has stayed at the forefront of the customer journey orchestration space. In doing so, it has established data integration, identity privacy, and impact analysis as core strengths. Forrester isolates these while highlighting how CSG's customers highly rate its real-time orchestration and data fusion capabilities. The vendor also stands out for its orchestration maturity model, sector-specific design, and generative AI (GenAI) use. Its Bill Explainer tool – which auto-summarizes changes to a customer's bill - is an excellent example.