Your organization has bought Customer Decision Hub. Your leadership has bought into the vision. They know that they’re going to drive a ton of business benefit…
Now the rubber hits the road and it’s down to you and your colleagues to make it happen: to set up the infrastructure, pull in the data, integrate with other applications, configure the arbitration approach, create the next-best-actions, and transform the way your organization goes to market.
But where do you find the documentation, the support, and the best practices that have been developed and tested in the field?
My team and I have collected high impact practices out of the most commonly implemented microjourneys, and the most common combinations of use-cases with channels. In this new series of posts for the Pega Community Blog, we’ll provide you with detailed step-by-step instruction on how to implement each, and how to find more of the information you need when you need it the most.
Let’s get started!
Determine the Minimum Lovable Product
At Pega we’ve been involved in more enterprise next-best-action implementations than any other organization, so we know what works well and what doesn’t. Two of the most important success factors are focus and prioritization. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a big, ambitious vision. It means that you need to focus on a starting point and generate the data to create success.
Starting any new program seems daunting, but if you prioritize your goals and the steps it will take to reach those goals, then you’ll have a good starting point. Think about where you can get the quickest wins and what type of data you have to work with. Answers to these questions will help you map out your program. Based on our experience working with customers, a focus on the following four concepts is essential for building out a successful next-best-action program:
- Follow the money: To start, pick a use case that has the potential to generate the biggest return as quickly as possible. Growth (upsell/cross-sell) or retention strategies are a natural starting point for most organizations, depending on the industry, because they typically generate the most value.
- Interactive before outbound: A business may be managing a variety of channels, such as owned digital, agent-assisted, outbound, and paid. We recommend starting with interactive channels first. Why? Two reasons. First, we typically see the biggest uplift in interactive channels. Second, these channels provide the highest amount of one-to-one behavioral data – data that can then be leveraged to fuel your outbound and/or paid next-best-action program.
- Offers and actions are the foundation: We recommend demonstrating success with individual offers and actions before tackling the more advanced decisioning required for offer bundles, as individual offers are simpler to implement and require less change to user interfaces and agent training.
- Start focused then scale the scope: The first phase will be laser focused, but it should show big value. Publicize it. Leverage it to get further stakeholder buy-in. Use it to justify the subsequent product phases. Continuing to prove value at each stage is key to driving the implementation across the organization. Your scope will inevitably scale as your solution drives real business value.
Choose a Microjourney
Following this guidance, the majority of businesses we work with, regardless of industry, start with one of four microjourneys:
- Cross-sell/up-sell on the web
- Retention through agent assisted channels
- Proactive outbound communications
- Placing messages through ad networks
Over the next few months we’ll help you understand the tools that we’ve built to ensure that you can be successful, so that you can be the hero that turns your executives’ vision into reality. Follow the Pega Community Blog and join the conversation on Pega Collaboration Center.
Related Resources
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