Summary

• Serverless digital infrastructure is a major trendsetter going forward.
• Dedicated point of presence architecture can minimize distance to customer touch points.
• Resulticks is actively rolling out serverless edge functionality to diverse clients.

The emergence of new-age channels such as IoT promises many enhancements and opportunities for engagement, analysis, and business growth. To help brands capitalize on the ongoing shift, Resulticks is taking the lead on creating a customer experience pipeline, laying down the foundation for a future of truly interconnected, immersive CX.

The first step Resulticks has taken towards realizing futuristic CX is integrating a next-gen edge and serverless infrastructure natively into its technology backbone. 

This move enables seamless communications beyond conventional digital touch points such as mobile and web. It extends the platform’s capabilities to orchestrate rich, impactful customer journeys through, and derive intelligence from an expansive ecosystem that encompasses AdTech, B2B, B2C, and B2B2B/C communications.

Customers today demand instant, contextually meaningful responses from brands that wish to stay on their radar. However, consistently catering to this demand is limited by the capabilities and scale of the current infrastructure powering these interactions. 

Today, when a customer interacts with the brand through a digital touchpoint, it usually takes about one to four seconds before a contextual response can be determined and sent back to them. While some may not view a two-second latency as a major cause for concern, when seen from the perspective of mass engagement, this lag leaves significant room for improvement.

Thanks to the new edge architecture, ably supported by the WebAssembly framework (Wasm) at digital endpoints, native latency can be achieved. This means that the delay can be reduced to less than a second—a possibly 2000-time increase in speed in an ideal scenario—leading to a whole new dimension in customer engagement.

A faster framework

How is this executed?

• At the onset, key functions are processed directly at the customers’ devices (or endpoints) using the WASM framework. 
• In addition, multiple edge points of presence (POPs) are established at markets around the globe to minimize distance to the customer endpoints. The remaining functions will be deployed at these POPs to further reduce potential lags.
• Device technology advancements nowadays render it possible to cache critical customer information and applicable omnichannel business rules at these endpoints, with no compromise on security or performance.
• This facilitates triggering contextual, next-best interactions via the Resulticks one-line SDK (which is embedded in the brand’s endpoints), further developing the audience’s paths towards deeper engagement, conversion, and retention.
  

While a significant portion of requests can be handled in this manner, what about requests that cannot be serviced at the endpoints? 

• They are directed to the nearest POP that handles requests to execute work services and send responses back to the customers more efficiently. Since the edge framework also supports CDN and work services caching, the completion delay of requests is 30 to 50 times less than those arriving at the cloud after passing through multiple API gateways and database servers.

Uncompromised security

By changing a solution’s technology architecture and shifting workload to the endpoints, this evolution could potentially bring critical questions into play about data security and governance.

To address this aspect, Resulticks has implemented the same rigorous encryption and encoding with salting processes used at the backend data stores into the endpoints and POPs. This entails additional defenses against potential breaches—stacking with the multilayered protections and compliance measures already in place.

Additionally, shifting functions to the endpoint further limits the risk of leaking entire databases, as the devices will typically contain only data related to their respective individual users. The brand can thus benefit from a lightweight yet secure framework with faster processing speed and greater scaling flexibility.

A step forward in foundational technology

The advantages of edge serverless technology don’t obscure the benefits the cloud can (and has) delivered. Thanks to auto-scale mechanisms, the cloud offers the flexibility to scale up and down based on the brand’s communication and processing needs. The cloud has afforded brands both increased scale and freed up resources to zero in on more critical activities.

Despite the benefits on paper, the practical applications are not as cut and dry. The typical cloud still requires manual efforts in maintenance and racks up ongoing costs. This arrangement still requires, by today’s standards, serious time and resource investment.

The serverless counterpart, however, is more effective and self-healing, entailing virtually no maintenance. It automatically switches between POPs nearest to the customer within each region should one fail, instead of resorting to one centralized network.

An extra step in efficiency was taken through the establishment of edge databases. These edge databases store customer-related data that the brand cannot directly leave at the endpoint devices. 

They bring data crucial to segment-of-one engagement as close to the end customer as possible by storing it at the regional POPs instead of one cloud database. The auto-heal mechanism built into such databases further minimizes frictions and lags in the delivering and optimization of CX.

Empowering the future of digital customer engagement

Committed to its philosophy of not leveraging technology just for technology’s sake, Resulticks’ motivation to adopt the WebAssembly framework and edge serverless technology goes beyond just greater speed and resource optimization. The core goal is to provide brands the means to create, maintain, and continuously improve experiences that truly delight today’s omnichannel customers.

Interactions and journeys individualized based on the customer’s demands on the move are no longer mere promises. They are real deliverables with concrete business impact. With a 30-50% reduction in processing time for each interaction, the brand can proactively offer its audience seamless experiences and achieve greater customer satisfaction across the board.