Thought Leadership
The impending cookie phase-out, increasingly complex data protection regulations and the ongoing development of AI have made the jungle of software solutions ever denser. Companies have to choose between numerous solutions that all pursue the same goal: Optimizing business processes.
In customer service in particular, employees are confronted with a flood of inquiries. Here, it is crucial to have a clear and easily accessible software solution that offers employees and customers the best possible experience. As a rule, companies are often faced with a decision: do they go for the “best of suite”, a complete solution that integrates all functions, or do they opt for the “best of breed” approach, in which the best available individual solutions are combined? A decision that depends heavily on the individual requirements of a company. Nevertheless, one thing remains clear: agility and flexibility are the credo for successful companies today.
Best of Breed: The best of the best as a strategy for success
The ability to respond quickly and accurately plays a key role in customer service in particular. The Best of Breed approach enables customer service employees to use an intuitive and clear platform that meets their individual work requirements, even with a high volume of inquiries. With the Best of Breed strategy, companies select the optimal components available on the market for each area in order to achieve their specific business objectives.
This approach, also known as composability, is similar to a modular principle. Although the origins of composability lie in the 1960s with object-oriented programming and remote procedure calls, today the term describes the idea of designing and managing systems and tools as modular, independent components. Depending on the industry and business objective, various individual solutions are combined to create new, more powerful solutions that none of the previously available applications alone can offer. Cloud-based components such as customer databases and ad servers can be connected via APIs with minimal technical effort. By orchestrating different solutions, monolithic legacy infrastructures are transformed into dynamic, adaptable systems, creating flexibility and efficiency.
Best of Suite: all-in-one approach for business requirements
The best-of-suite approach describes a strategy in which a company chooses an integrated platform that already combines different modules. Such an all-in-one platform should fulfill all business requirements (finance, accounting, HR system, customer service, etc.) and serve as a comprehensive all-in-one solution. Instead of manually combining and coordinating different software components, the best-of-suite approach relies on a uniform solution that covers several business areas. This enables seamless integration and smooth coordination within a single platform, but carries the risk that the solutions for the individual business areas are not among the market leaders.
The choice of the right approach always depends on the individual business objectives. What is certain is that a modular and needs-oriented IT infrastructure in customer service can increase agility and optimize business processes. Increasingly digital communication is also leading to a higher volume of inquiries in customer service. Flexibly adaptable, state-of-the-art software solutions are essential to relieve the burden on customer service teams and improve the customer experience (CX).
Intelligent tech stack in customer service
Strong customer relationships start with strong interactions. Personalized conversations, fast and high-quality responses and customer-oriented problem solutions are the basis for lasting customer loyalty. At the same time, it makes sense to have a system that can structure and prioritize and enables service employees to work efficiently. This allows them to cushion the onslaught of support requests and organize them intelligently. Customer service employees therefore need a clear provision of targeted customer information in order to improve efficiency and performance and shorten response times. In this way, managers can optimize both the customer experience and the employee experience. The best of breed approach and the compatibility of targeted solutions create valuable synergy effects. The providers of best-of-breed systems are able to constantly adapt their features to changing customer needs.
Proactive action and adaptability are fundamental factors in implementing this approach. It is crucial that companies react quickly to dynamic market developments by expanding and replacing solutions or integrating additional components. An IT infrastructure that can be seamlessly linked with other apps and platforms is an ideal prerequisite here. Such an infrastructure enables companies to select tools and processes individually and tailor them precisely to their specific objectives.
A central component of the best-of-breed strategy can, for example, be the use of a marketplace for the procurement of apps and integrations. This offers a catalog of additional apps and integrations that can help companies to optimize and adapt their customer service processes. In addition, such a marketplace covers other business requirements such as e-commerce, analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) or social media and offers companies industry-specific solutions. Companies can therefore combine specific technologies and configure a unique software solution that is tailored to their business objectives. This improves business success and creates a unique customer experience.
Modern corporate strategy: into the future with best of breed and composability?
Managers face major challenges in times of economic instability and uncertainty. These can be divided into three main categories:
- Reduce and prioritize expenditure
- Promoting growth and finding creative ways to increase sales
- Retain customers and help them achieve business success
These tasks pose major challenges for some companies, causing them to remain hesitant and passive. Successful companies, on the other hand, act proactively and adaptively. Digitality and agility go hand in hand. A one-size-fits-all solution has long since ceased to exist. Today, modularity and flexibility are required, both in human and technical terms – because the IT infrastructure forms the basis for business success.
The best-of-suite approach enables companies to have a synchronized and coordinated IT infrastructure right from the start. The implementation of a suite appears less complicated and certainly offers advantages. Nevertheless, the digital era requires companies to be flexible and agile. Customer service in particular reflects the dynamic nature of customer behavior: inquiries must be answered quickly, simply and easily via the preferred channels. To ensure this, the IT infrastructure must be tailored to the individual needs of the company and adapted as required.
So it turns out that even if the best-of-suite solution offers a convenient approach to meeting a wide range of business requirements with a single integrated software solution, the use of best-of-breed solutions is particularly worthwhile in customer service. The integration of modular and tailor-made systems in customer service optimizes service quality, reduces the workload and thus increases both customer and employee satisfaction.
Whether a company opts for the best of suite or best of breed approach depends on the business purpose as well as internal and external factors. However, one thing is certain: the best of breed option offers the opportunity to act adaptably in a dynamic market and in fast-moving times, which is essential in customer service.
