Blog

What is customer journey mapping and why is it important for an enterprise that needs to optimize its customer experience?

Our Founder and CEO Chip Kahn and President Tim Attinger recap customer experience in 2022 and predict what's ahead in 2023.

OvationCXM's product team looks back at the major advancements to CXMEngine in 2022 with a look ahead to what's next.

If time is money, business banking customers say they've wasted a significant amount just trying to resolve onboarding issues, leading to frustration and attrition...

What are the six obstacles to resolving customer experience problems, and how can they be overcome?

Financial institutions compete today with retail giants embedding financial products into their offerings. How do they compete?

Enterprise-sized companies have little patience when things don't go well in their banking product/service onboarding, according to our research...

OvationCXM surveyed 4,000+ business owners/operators about their banking experiences. Learn what they said...

Learn what businesses reported as their top frustrations in their banking experience in our 2022 Financial Services CXM Impact Report.

The credit union industry is being transformed by mergers and acquisitions that can lead to disjointed customer experiences...

Digital transformation is hard for financial institutions slowed down by inflexible legacy platforms. Learn how CX innovation...

Enterprises looking to transform customer experience quickly, may weigh whether to buy vs. build CX technology...

Founder and CEO, Alfred "Chip" Kahn shares additional details about the announcements made this week, including a new name, funding and a growing customer list.

Boomtown Rebrands to OvationCXM, Lands $20 in Funding amid Significant Growth and Customer Expansion

One strength of next-generation CXM technology is how it unlocks customer data from silos. Sometimes that includes a CRM, but it doesn't have to.

Do you need a CXM platform if you have a CRM? Learn why a CXM serves as a complement to a CRM and fixes fragmented customer journeys.

Digital transformation initiatives only increase the fragmentation of customer experiences. Enterprises are losing control of their customer journeys.

Dive into the true differences between Customer Experience Management (CXM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Increasing interest rates won't stop consumers from flocking to Fintechs. They won’t stop the flight of commercial and business banking clients, either.

That’s why tapping into network effects is so essential for banks to keep up with client demand, lest they lose out to fintechs that can provide a better experience. Thus, becoming interoperable is of paramount importance.

In a world that is increasingly reliant on digital infrastructure that keeps us constantly connected, realizing the lifetime value of a customer starts with ensuring that your product or service is able to provide or tap into network effects.

With massive advancements that have been made in the Fintech space, it would make little sense for banks to forgo relationships with those Fintechs that can enable them to provide excellent customer experiences. Establishing these connections, especially under the bank’s own umbrella brand, benefits banks in myriad ways.

The imperative for today’s banks is to start reaping the benefits of network effects by integrating deeply with fintech enablers. They must gain and maintain complete visibility and control across their vendor ecosystems, so they can seamlessly orchestrate the customer journey.

The trends surrounding banking technology over the past few years tell a very clear story: account owners (individual and business clients alike) demand a digital-first experience.

CXM is about making sure that organizations are ready to face unexpected challenges. It’s a philosophy that places an organization’s ability to be agile and responsive to change (whatever form that may take) at the highest levels of strategic importance.

We are excited to announce the official release of the Boomtown Bot Builder, a new tool that allows anyone to build world-class, AI-powered Virtual Assistants (VA) on a no-code platform!

Departmental Verticals are ingrained organizational structures at most businesses. They provide for a sense of identity, a clear delineation of responsibility, and a concrete reporting structure. However, they can also compromise cross-organizational efficiency if they are strictly siloed. CXM platforms provide a solution for this issue.

Visibility means having an unobstructed view of something. But, what is visibility good for? What value does it provide to organizations, especially those with an ecosystem of partners? We’ll dive into a few of the key benefits that will drive up productivity at any organization.

How does a CXM platform help with regulatory compliance? There would appear to be no connection between the two at all, but that intuition is actually misleading. When we talk about regulatory compliance, CXM platforms allow a level of cross-organizational visibility that is unparalleled.

Banks have a lot to contend with by way of regulatory compliance, and there are more than a handful of federal and state regulators out there that those banks need to keep track of. No matter anyone’s views on these agencies, it behooves those who are charged with ensuring that banks are in compliance with them to come up with agile and responsive ways to make sure they are.

The inability of bank workers to communicate effectively and securely can actually hinder client success, which poses the risk of putting clients through unnecessarily arduous and costly processes, running afoul of consumer-protection regulatory frameworks. It is incumbent upon bank leadership to think more comprehensively about solutions for their regulatory blindspots, including adopting technologies that can give them better visibility into their own client-management policies.

Customer journeys need to make sense, but even more than that, it is on the organization taking them along that journey to design them. They need to take every detail into account when moving a customer along the way in order to maximize that customer’s success in completing a journey.

It would be shortsighted to think that CXM only applies in a banking context, and disregard the benefits it can provide to other financial institutions, such as Credit Unions. Member Experience Management is an area of focus for Credit Unions looking to modernize and keep up with the pace of digital transformation in other financial services verticals.

Even one negative experience can seriously imperil a company’s reputation and ability to present themselves as leaders in their field, and in the marketplace. That should be enough to rattle the cage of any industry leader who thinks that processes that are anything less than cutting edge are going to cut it.

There has been a monumental shift in the way businesses operate - from keeping up with customer demand, to employing workforces that are highly sought after, to keeping up with the latest public health guidelines so that they can protect those customers and employees. There is no sign of any of this slowing down

Customers expect more now, and will only continue to do so into the future. Future advances in technology and novel world events will only serve to heighten that demand. The time to catch up was yesterday, and the time to advance is now.

Release Date: 8/17/21. Bug Fixes, Performance Updates, Bot Enhancements

Customer Experience Management platforms enable banks, fintechs, and other financial services companies to provide comprehensive services to their customers wherever they are. As banks and fintechs continue to collaborate in the future, it will be through the overlays and interconnections that bridge old processes with the new.

Release Date: 8/3/21. Bug Fixes, Performance Updates, Bot Enhancements

Banks will continue to play an essential role in all of our lives, and in revitalizing the economy. The degree to which they are prepared to do that, though, is up to them.

Release Date: 7/15/21. Updated URL, SDK Configuration, Performance & Bug Fixes

The last holdout has given in. As of January 2021, consumers are now able run their entire financial lives — from budget management to investing — online. With the launch of Stripe Treasury, the consumerization of the enterprise has finally come for banking.

Release Date: 6/18/21. Updated performance, UX and mapping options.

Leveraging AI, CXMEngine enables enterprises to orchestrate customer journeys across previously siloed systems.

Release Date: 6/17/21. Customer-Facing Journeys, Communication Performance, Core Updates & Bugs

When your brand depends on providing excellent Customer Experiences (whose doesn't?) delivering them depends on how well employees do their jobs. CX workers are at the frontlines of every business, and they must exceed customer satisfaction goals, so they deserve particular attention.

One of the most challenging aspects of being a team lead or manager is ensuring that your reports are able to deliver on their goals consistently. The best way to ensure uniformity across the team is with a CXM-focused approach.

Banks have so much to offer in terms of expertise, credibility, and established value that customers would be foolish to gloss over them in light of the next best thing. That said, there’s catching up to do.

Boomtown announces launch of CXMEngine with KeyBank and Strategic Partnership with XUP to transform Merchant Services

Release Date: 5/20/21. Bots, Knowledge Templates, Communications, Performance

In pursuing a CXM-focused business strategy, companies deepen their customer relationships, increase lifetime retention, and amplify their value and reputation of their brand in the marketplace.

CXM platforms are built with CXM-focused strategy in mind. In centering Customer Experience Management as the most important driver of organizational value, companies that take this approach find that value increased across the board for every interested party - their customers, teams, partners, and themselves.

The latest in Boomtown’s line of integrations, Seismic is a sales enablement product that allows organizations to orchestrate engaging buying experiences at scale.

Release Date: 4/15/21. SDK, Integration Configurators, Seismic, Performance

Though many businesses have unfortunately had to close over the past year, new ones will have an opportunity to take their place and grow. This provides a huge window of opportunity for banks and their merchant service divisions.

CXM (Customer Experience Management) is inherently different from CRM (Customer Relationship Management), but is nonetheless a vital component of maintaining customer relationships. In empowering operational teams, CXM brings CRM to life.

Wouldn’t it be better for everyone involved if knowledge workers were to move from searching and pulling for the right information, to having that information pushed to them? We certainly think so.

Customer Experience Management is a hot topic, and a hot software category. However, many of the platforms available should look to using another word when describing the capabilities of their platforms - and that word is measurement, not management.

Every team wants to deliver an excellent customer experience. Making sure that your team has a positive colleague experience comes first.

It's almost the end of Q1, and it's time to make sure your sales teams are aligned with the right products.

Boomtown is excited to announce that our latest integration with RingCentral is now live!

Release Date: 3/11/21. General Form, Webchat Options, SDK, Knowle

Knowing that a company can grow and change while simultaneously honoring that company’s original mission and vision are the hallmarks of a successful & long life for that enterprise.

Positive customer experiences depend on positive colleague experiences. The best way to lay a stable foundation for providing both is to approach AI tools with intentionality.

Don't get caught up creek without a paddle.

Don't lose the forest for the sake of the trees.

Release Date: 2/11/21. Knowledge, Forms, Email, SDK

There isn’t a sports team on the face of the earth that goes into a match without a plan. You don’t want someone out in left field who is twiddling their thumbs and not paying attention to what’s going on. Why would you want the teams you work with to be any different?

This partnership offers a streamlined merchant customer experience by utilizing today’s cutting-edge technology and automation capabilities.

This case study evaluates the partnership announced between Google and CitiBank in November of 2020 in relation to customer experience and strategic partnership and ecosystem collaboration. Is this the beginning of the end of traditional finance? Or just the beginning of something better?

Release Date: 1/21/21. Performance updates and bug fixes

Boomtown's reflections on 2020 and our path forward.

Release Date: 12/22/20. Performance updates and bug fixes

Papering over the cracks is never enough. Reputation-ruining knowledge gaps deserve robust solutions.

The key to delivering excellent customer experiences lies in executing on five essential issue areas: Care, Communication, Competence, Collaboration, and Completion.

We are committed to supporting our partners and their partners during a challenging holiday season.

Both customers and the teams that help them can sufficiently sum up each and every customer experience with one of the following words: communication, or torture.

Release Date: 12/3/20. Updates to knowledge, email, and integrations panel

Release Date: 11/12/20. Updates to email, knowledge, solutions panel, and core platform

Owning your customer relationships means consistently providing value to your customers at every stage of their journey.

Also known as the game that no-one wants to play.

What can archaeology and the study of ancient history teach us about 21st century business practices?

Release Date: 10/15/20. Updates to core workflows and fixed bugs.

Some technologies, no matter how old, are too important to replace. That doesn't mean that the processes surrounding them can't be improved.

When sales teams are ill-equipped, money gets left on the table. That's bad branding and bad business - but it doesn't need to be that way.

Release Date: 9/24/20. Updates to core Case workflows and fixed bugs.

To deliver exceptional customer experiences, you first need to define what you want those experiences to be. If you just wing it and hope that your customers will have a seamless experience with your company, chances are low that will happen. Each of these experiences have defined steps that either your customers need to do or you need to do behind the scenes to ensure your customers have the best experience.

Our Universal Product Index also helps new partners start supporting their customers faster since they benefit from all the data and knowledge that we already have on a product that they sell and support.

While working on the new interface, we also spent time adding a whole bunch of new functionality to our knowledge base to get it ready for enterprise partners. We have seen knowledge become a core component of our software and a key part of almost every new software partner that we have signed. We are promising our partners the ability to deliver the right knowledge to the right person at the right time and the new knowledge management system is the foundation for that promise.

You’ll notice that we simplified the left navigation in the new interface. We removed all drop down options and made each main navigation item a single click to enter. All your Views are aggregated into a single list. When you click on a View, it updates the records you see in the list to match the pre-set filters.

We took the “Mine” queue from the previous interface and we turned it into the home base of the app for each user. My Work is where you land when you first log in and it is a summary of all the Cases that you own, prioritized by what needs your attention first.

This is the new Engagement Console. This is a big one so hang in there with me.

With the launch of our new interface, we are making a handful of language updates. While I won’t list every change in this post, here are some of the major ones.

We focused our efforts not not only creating a simple more intuitive layout, but also ensuring that we were helping teams deliver the right answer, to the right person, at the right time.

Release Date: 9/2/20. Continued updates to our new interfacing preparing for full rollout.

Battles are being waged amongst popular fintech companies to own cash and cash deposits. Silently fought, competitors know that a battle over supplying the increased demand for innovative cashless solutions will leave few victors. Who will take the lead, and who will be left behind?‍

MerchantE, a leading end-to-end digital commerce platform, announces a strategic partnership with product support platform expert, Boomtown, that will greatly enhance its overall customer support experience.

Boomtown has partnered with RetailNext to provide safer shopping experiences as retailers enter the next phase of economic re-opening. A non-profit joint venture, ShopSafe implementations nationwide will help get the economy back on track safely.

Digital.com, a leading independent review website for small business online tools, products and services, has named Boomtown to its list of best help desk software solutions for 2020. The guide features 13 top solutions based on customer feedback, pricing, and plan options.

Knowledge Management needs to be re-thought to better serve those working in the modern world. Time spent searching for information can be better utilized actually doing the work that requires it.