Qualtrics’ Groundbreaking Experience Management Launch Makes It Possible for Organizations to Close “Experience Gap”

Qualtrics last week announced the Qualtrics XM Platform™, the world’s first experience management platform designed to address the growing experience gap––the gap between what organizations actually deliver and expectations from the market, customers and employees. Similar to how Salesforce and Workday have defined the evolving CRM and HRM categories, Qualtrics is creating the experience management category. The first solution in this space, the Qualtrics XM Platform, will help companies measure, prioritize, and optimize the experiences companies deliver across the four foundational aspects of business—customers, products, employees and brands.

Experience management helps organizations close the experience gap and achieve four key outcomes:

· Customer Experience: Delight customers at every touchpoint;
· Product Experience: Build products that people love;
· Employee Experience: Improve employee engagement, retain top talent, and develop leaders;
· Brand Experience: Create differentiated brands that people want to associate with.

According to Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics, “There are two types of data: operational data and experience data. For too long, organizations have been looking exclusively at data about the past—the operational data or ‘O data.’ Where companies fail is in not leveraging experience data, or ‘X data.’ X data is the human-factor data, the beliefs, emotions, and sentiments that tell you why things are happening and that help predict what is going to happen next. And while there are plenty of technologies to help companies manage their operational data, until now there hasn’t been a technology that makes it easy to capture and understand the X data.”

Smith continued, “Because most organizations are O-data rich, and X-data poor, this has led to a huge gap between most companies’ ability to know what’s happening and understanding why it’s happening and how to adapt programs in real time. We call this the ‘experience gap’ and Qualtrics XM™, our experience management platform, is the key to helping companies close this gap.”

Growing Experience Expectations
The combination of new technologies, rapid advancements in customer experience (CX) programs and a younger consumer population is creating an immediate need for a platform to measure and optimize experiences across an organization. Millennials and Generation Z are fast becoming the largest population groups in the world. Both groups have higher expectations when it comes to brands, the products they buy and the experiences around them.

“The internet of things, wearables, self-driving cars, cashier-free stores, automated home assistants, Wi-Fi connected ordering buttons and deliveries by drone are leading the frenzied pack of experience expectations,” said Smith. “But to deliver great products and to provide delightful customer experience requires employee excellence across the organization. A company’s ability to win in today’s business environment depends on its ability to create amazing and consistent experiences across all aspects of the business.”

Customer Acclaim for Qualtrics XM Platform

“Over the last 18 months, our partnership with Qualtrics has enabled Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty to more effectively support and manage our engagements with customers in over 30 countries. By having Qualtrics as a global platform integrating customer experience, market research and business data, we can better focus on the aspects of the customer journey that will not only have an impact on business performance but also will deliver the best customer experience,” said Allison Windon, Global Customer Experience Director at Allianz. “A key part of this approach has been to effectively use the insights gained to drive a customer-focused cultural change within our employees. And, as we look to the future, an experience management platform will become more and more important, as it is only through truly engaged team members that our customers can have the best experience.”

Qualtrics Insight Summit Event
The Qualtrics XM Platform was announced at the annual Insight Summit where over 3,500 global attendees hear from the world’s top brands, universities, and researchers about combining operational data and experience data to provide incredible experiences to stakeholders.

The Qualtrics XM Platform is available now. Visit https://www.qualtrics.com to learn more.