So your organization decided to improve every aspect of the digital journey for your customers by acquiring a Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
Great decision! A synchronized user experience will not only improve the digital journey for your customer but will also make the overall workflow inside your company faster and easier.
The first step is taken and the next one is choosing the right DXP for you. It sounds easier than it’s done, but there’s no need to fret – we are here to assist you in choosing the best Digital Experience Platform. Since DXP is a long-term investment, here are the steps that you can follow in order to truly benefit from a fitting DXP.
How to choose the best Digital Experience Platform that will meet your needs?
Naturally, the very first step is getting a list of the DXPs that interest you. For your convenience, we have already prepared an article with the 10 best Digital Experience platforms. We made the list to get you started, but you’re more than welcome to look into other platforms if you wish to.
Now it’s time for us to lend you a hand in the decision-making progress. Naturally, the decision is yours to make, but there is a structure you can follow to find the platform that will offer you the best solution.
1. Assemble the Dream Team
Some of your team members will have to work with the chosen DXP directly. Therefore, including those who will be in charge of maintaining and managing it is crucial. After all, they are the experts of their field and could bring a lot of valuable input to the table. In addition, different relevant perspectives will create a broader view of what the expectations should be in order to get the best out of a DXP.
Typically the Dream Team of the decision-making should include members from marketing and IT departments, with a possibility to include an HR representative if you have an HR department and the DXP will be used for HR purposes too.
2. Define Your Needs and Goals
We know that there’s a great deal of DXPs that already sound perfect and extremely appealing, but many companies that choose a DXP tend to forget the most important detail – their own needs and goals.
Defining your goals, knowing what and how much of it you require is a solid starting point. For instance, if social media integration is absolutely crucial for you, it’s a good idea to make sure that the platform includes the feature. Having your priorities in order can efficiently filter out the platforms that can’t accomplish what you seek.
Moreover, answering a few open-ended questions can be a huge help to get started. The answers to the questions should be discussed and agreed on by all key people who are involved in the decision-making process.
Here are a few examples that can nudge you in the right direction:
- What are our business goals and how can a Digital Experience Platform help us reach them?
- How exactly will a DXP lead us to achieve these business goals?
- How large is our organization and what is the scope of the upcoming plans?
- Which features/capabilities are necessary to succeed?
- Which features/capabilities are not necessary but a useful bonus?
- Do we only need the necessary features or are we open to a few relevant ones as well?
- What is our budget for the Digital Experience Platform?
- How do we want to manage the platform and who will be responsible for specific parts of it?
These are only a few examples of how you can reflect on your needs and goals to create realistic and clear expectations. The questions that you will be using don’t have to be the same but rather examples to inspire your process.
3. Check the Reviews
Yes, this one sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how much time and money the initiative could save.
There’s no need to proceed to the next steps with a company that seems sketchy and with a large number of negative reviews from organizations that have already tried them out.
At this point, it’s likely that you already have a list of different DXPs that caught your interest. Checking the reviews on each of them will help you to filter out the ones that are presumable not worthy of your time. This way, you can move on to the next steps with the strongest candidates.
4. Ask for Demos
Okay, so you have the Dream Team in your ranks and you established what your goals, needs, and expectations are. Also, you filtered out the candidates that have a negative record from the other users. Great progress!
Now it’s time to get in touch with the DXPs that came through and find out if their promises and the actual product match are one and the same.
Yes, it might take a little bit of time and energy to try out the demos, especially when everything already sounds great and you have a limited amount of time to spare. However, sometimes things are not as they seem and you know the saying – better safe than sorry!
It’s completely up to you how you’ll manage the testing, but it’s recommended that everyone in your dream team (marketers, developers, and possibly HR) get to try them out themselves. After everyone got their hands on it, remember to take their feedback into consideration. The feedback, possible confusion, and questions from your team can create valid points that you could express to representatives of specific DXPs.
That being said, demos are probably the most efficient way to really make sure that the platform is a good fit. It also gives you the perfect opportunity to have a walkthrough and find out how different roles could approach the platform. Not to mention being able to get answers to your questions!
5. Put your negotiation skills to use
This step is not a must, but it could help you to spend less than initially expected. That is if the chosen platform or platforms are willing to negotiate in the first place.
By now you should know your budget for the Digital Experience Platform. You know the maximum amount you are willing to spend on the product but of course, wish to spend less if possible.
If you still have multiple candidates left, it can also be an important factor to choose the best one. Through price negotiation, you can discover which provider is service-minded and has your interests at heart.
In addition, if you managed to get a lower price from one of the platforms, you can bring it up during the negotiations with the other one and see if it can offer you an even better price. Naturally, it doesn’t have to be all about the price only, it could be about additional features and perks. In the end, when you know the final propositions from each platform, you can weigh the offers and see which one makes the most sense to your company.
Finally, in the negotiation process, you can bring up the flaws that your team might have discovered while testing the products through demos. This will give you the advantage to get a good deal!
6. Take your pick!
Now you’ve gone through both internal and external processes that will eventually help you to determine which company can provide you with the best Digital Experience Platform.
All that’s left is gathering your Dream Team for the final verdict. Remember to take everyone’s opinions and arguments into consideration while also keeping the interests of your company in mind. Whether you and your team will have a democratic vote or have one member to make the final decision, your company is ready to reach its goals with the help of the best Digital Experience Platform!
Common Preferences
As you know, long-term investments don’t just require a fantastic product. As a matter of fact, the comfort of collaboration, support, flexibility, and overall service might be the final push to commit to a certain platform when there’s a draw. In this case, there are a few criteria that most businesses see as fundamental ones when it comes to a Digital Experience Platform.
Transparency
Transparency is a broad word and in this case, there are a few types of transparency that companies like receiving from DXPs. More specifically, we’re referring to:
- Transparency between your company and the provider of the platform. Honesty, transparent communication, and service-minded professionals are crucial in order to have a long-lasting business relationship.
- Customer data transparency. Often one of the most important criteria that companies have for DXPs is superior customer data transparency, meaning that companies expect to know their customers through their location, online behavior, and preferences.
Personalization
In this age and day, it’s no wonder that customers only want relevant content, products, and services. Similarly, businesses don’t gain any value by being discovered by people who have no interest in what the company does. It has become common sense that the best Digital Experience Platform, or any other DXP for that matter, would grant personalization through every step of a digital journey.
It seems that the necessity of personalization is not going anywhere and this requirement is a must for more companies every day.
Security
Nowadays it goes without saying that a customer’s digital journey must be safe in order to be enjoyable and interactive. Customer data allows the business to create an intuitive journey every step of the way, but as you know, with great power comes great responsibility.
In this case, it’s your business’s responsibility to protect the customer data that you were trusted with. Therefore, every DXP is expected to assist you with that.
To Sum Up
Now you know that there are 5 fundamental steps to follow that can help you eliminate the DXPs that are irrelevant. This elimination game brings to the best Digital Experience Platform that can help you achieve your company’s goals.
Here’s a short recap of what steps will guide you through this overwhelming decision-making process:
- Assemble the Dream Team of relevant professionals who will be working directly with the DXP in your company.
- Define your company’s needs and goals.
- Check the reviews of the DXPs to start the elimination process.
- Ask for demos to see first-hand if they’re what you thought they were.
- Initiate negotiations to find out which one is willing to have a conversation with you.
- Pick the right one!
We hope that this article was useful to you! Remember, whenever you need a consultation or services with web development, our friendly Wiredelta team members are always here for a chat!
