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At a time when many organizations are hyperfocused on reigning in budgets, CX tool sprawl is straining both budgets and teams. Research from the latest State of the Digital Customer Experience report identifies “Limited budgets and resources” at the top digital customer experience challenge (cited by 31% of surveyed organizations).
Organizations face mounting challenges from tool sprawl thanks in part to the proliferation of SaaS platforms. While they intend to enhance customer experience tools, instead they create overlapping features, redundant subscriptions and fragmented data. This hinders progress and creates confusion across teams, who often can’t use the data captured in these tools to generate insights and actions that improve the customer experience.
“When you have data in multiple different systems that don't speak to each other, you’re going to have extra resource expenses to piece the data all together," says Ryan Tamminga, Chief Customer Officer for Alchemer, a customer feedback platform that connects feedback data across CRM, support and analytics systems. Alchemer’s ability to enable businesses to quickly and efficiently move from insight to action on the things that matter most to their customers means Tamminga has plenty of tips for businesses suffering from tool sprawl.
What’s Causing Tool Sprawl?
The problem often stems from a lack of governance and alignment. Teams will independently add customer feedback collection tools to address specific pain points. But without a unified strategy, the tech stack becomes a patchwork of disconnected solutions. This leads to increased costs, inconsistent customer experiences and a heavier burden on IT and CX leaders to justify ROI for every tool in the stack.
Siloed systems are also a top barrier to just understanding customers. According to the State of the Digital Customer Experience report “Siloed systems, technology integration challenges and/or fragmented customer data" is a top-3 CX challenge for 28% of organizations. Further, 26% of teams report that their tools specifically "don't integrate in a way that helps us gain understanding" of customer behavior.
Integrations – Not More Tools – Drive Better Outcomes
How can organizations improve their tech stack and reduce tool sprawl? CX leaders should treat their tech stack as a dynamic system designed for agility and measurable outcomes, rather than just a disjointed collection of features. When evaluating or enhancing any customer experience tools, industry experts recommend regular audits, a focus on interoperability and mapping tools to actual customer journey friction points.
Today, leading customer experience management companies bundle features that once required separate vendors into larger platforms, making some point solutions redundant. Moving to a consolidated system eases the resource burden many face thanks to fragmented systems. ”It’s not the most effective use of your resources when people have to be trained on many different systems and to understand different capabilities just to get their jobs done,” Tamminga said.
Integrations provide a powerful way to improve CX outcomes. "You’re missing an opportunity If you don't put the feedback into the hands of the people talking and engaging with your customers in the systems that they're using to drive those engagements. And I don't know how you can say you close the loop with your customer unless you actually close the loop with your customer in the systems that manage and engage those interactions," Tamminga said.
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The three pillars of a modern CX tech stack:
- Collection: Gather feedback across channels (surveys, apps, web)
- Connection: Integrate feedback with systems like CRM and support tools
- Action: Trigger workflows and follow-up in real time
The Time for Tool Consolidation Is Now
It’s a common misconception that more tools equal better CX. In reality, fragmented CX stacks create silos, duplicate work and deliver messy data. At a time when 19% of organizations state that reducing operational or customer service costs is a primary driver for their CX priorities, reducing tool sprawl will help them in this area. As such, 20% have made tool consolidation an investment priority for the coming year.
As organizations look to reduce tool sprawl, many are shifting toward platforms that combine feedback collection, integrations and automation in one system. Companies like Alchemer focus on connecting feedback to the tools teams already use — helping organizations move from insight to action faster.
Alchemer helps organizations turn customer feedback into action. With flexible survey tools, powerful integrations and automated workflows, Alchemer makes it easy to collect feedback across every touchpoint, connect it to the systems teams already use and act on insights in real time. Learn more at alchemer.com.