2017 Predictions #13: Using Developer Platforms to Help Customers

To give you a jump start on the new year, we asked industry experts about their predictions for the future of location, marketing, and technology in 2017. We'll be posting their responses over the next month here on the Yext blog. Follow us on Twitter @Yext for new posts, and tweet at us with your own predictions.

Douglas Hanna
GM, Developer Platform, Zendesk

As more companies open up their platforms to developers, consumers (and businesses) will gain new ways to bring a variety of tools and services together. This is great for customers and for the businesses that enable these newly integrated experiences, but will also come with increased consumer expectations. Open platforms executed poorly can do more to hurt the customer experience than help it.

All platforms of 2017 – both newly opened ones and already very mature ones – will need to think about how to truly deliver on their promises of improving the customer experience and journey. What are the ways that companies can take advantage of the integrated data and tools to enable effortless experiences? How do they use data from multiple sources to predict (and avoid) issues before they happen or make an experience more efficient? In an increasingly omnichannel world, how and where can customers engage with your platform?

The new platforms of 2017 will need to keep these challenges in mind and existing ones will need to think about how to evolve with the ever increasing technology and consumer expectations.

This post is part of a series of 2017 predictions from industry experts.