Medallia vs. Qualtrics vs. Lumoa: A Buyer’s Guide

Every interaction with your business has the power to build or damage the relationship with your customer – and can directly impact your revenue. 78% of customers have backed out of a purchase due to a poor customer experience (CX). 

The pressure is rising for businesses to step up their CX game. More than 80% of business leaders see customer experience as a growing priority in 2024. If you’re reading this blog post, you are probably one of them. 

But how can you support your customers on all the different channels they reach out on and offer a personalized yet unified response? That’s where customer experience platforms come in. They offer you one space where you can collect all the customer feedback, analyze it, report it, and adjust your cx insights strategy by collecting.

If you are looking for a customer experience platform that fits your needs, we compared three major tools to help you find the right one: Medallia, Qualtrics, and Lumoa.

Why You Need a Customer Experience (CX) Platform

Your business has to operate in a world of many channels: email, social media, phone calls, or chat. At the same time, your customers expect to get the same level of support, no matter if they reach out on Facebook or via email. Customer experience platforms make it possible to manage all the customer data in one platform and reach out to them when they need it. 

In your CX platform dashboard, you can see how your customers behave across all touchpoints and can personalize your interactions with them based on their behavior and preferences. You reach them where they are with the messages that resonate with them. 

You can even find opportunities for cross-selling, upselling, or personalized promotions by using real-time insights and trends generated by AI. 

If you are still not convinced and are looking for arguments for your new software purchase, here are three statistics to prove why CX platforms can significantly affect your business: 

1. Increased Customer Lifetime Value: Customers are 2.4 times more likely to stick with a brand when their problems are solved quickly.
2. Sales through Word-of-mouth Marketing: People are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. 
3. Higher Revenue: 64 % of customers will spend more if a business resolves their issues where they already are.

Platform Overview 

Medallia is a cloud-based CX management software that provides survey features, sentiment analysis, social listening, and AI-powered insights. Medallia is known for its robust analytics and reporting capabilities, providing in-depth insights into customer feedback and trends. 

Qualtrics is the giant when it comes to CX platforms with around 18.000 customers and 3 million users worldwide. The company started out as a survey tool for academics and has grown into a multi-product feedback software. Their versatile platform goes beyond CX and offers solutions for employee experience, market research, and product feedback. 

Companies use surveys, NPS, CSat, and reviews to gauge customer sentiment but often base improvements on intuition. Despite efforts to collect and analyze feedback, employees frequently struggle to pinpoint what affects these metrics.

Lumoa turns the traditional approach upside down. Now, every employee can ask relevant questions and receive detailed, real-time answers directly from customer voices, no matter where the feedback is given. And they can make timely decisions that will improve KPIs up to three times. For example, Lumoa is the first customer experience platform to offer generative AI insights.  

Which Platform Fits Your Needs?

Customer Experience Platforms in Detail

Pricing and Value for Money

If you’re looking for the right CX platform for you, pricing will play a major factor. But the price is not the only determining factor, it matters what value you get for that money. 

Let’s take a deeper look into the cost of each platform: At the moment, neither Qualtrics nor Medallia offers pricing information on their website. You will need to reach out for a consultation first. 

For Qualtrics, the pricing structure is on the higher side, especially for advanced functionalities, and will be based on the number of feedback, users, and features you are using.

Their pricing structure can be complex to understand and the cost will be quite high if you do not need such a versatile solution with many features. However, if you are looking for a one-shop-stop solution for customer and employee experience and you have the budget of a large-scale enterprise, Qualtrics can be the right solution for you.

Similarly, the pricing for Medallia is definitely on the higher side, especially for smaller businesses or organizations with budget limitations. Medallia charges for both “units” and “users”: Units are defined as named individuals in surveys but they do not have log-in privileges such as customer service agents or business consultants. 

Lumoa is the only provider that offers the same pricing no matter how many users you have. There are no hidden fees and you can transparently look at their pricing models and features for each tier on the website. Compared to Qualtrics and Medallia, Lumoa is on the lower end of the pricing structure while offering many of the same core features. 

Implementation 

When we talk about return on investment, one additional factor is the implementation time or “time to money”. How fast can you use the tool that you just bought? 

If you want to test out the software before buying, both Qualtrics and Lumoa offer free trials. Once you have decided to purchase a solution, they will have different timelines for implementation. 

Qualtrics and Medallia are versatile solutions with a lot of features. However, this also means that it can cost a lot of time and effort to migrate and implement. Qualtrics setup process requires an implementation partner who will be involved for several months. 

Lumoa is known for its simple yet powerful solution. It has a set-up time that is months faster than its competitors. Your time to value is shorter and you will get insights from your data typically within one month from the contract start.

Features 

To find the right solution for your needs, you want to take a closer look at the features they offer to ensure that the solution has what you need. If you want to learn more about the AI capabilities of each platform, you can jump to the next segment. 

Qualtrics has been praised for its strong data integration and analysis capabilities. You can create feedback surveys, monitor the responses, design workflows, and assess the quality of the customer experience. Since Qualtrics is a rather versatile solution, you can also do advanced statistical analysis such as regression, cluster, and correlation analysis. Additionally, it allows you to scan text responses for sentiment analysis, trend alerts, behavior forecasting, and research data reports. 

Medallia expanded its capabilities with its acquisition of Mindful, the global leader in contact center callback technology in 2022. Customer service representatives can use Medallia to hear and respond to customer feedback, report the action taken, and whether or not the issue has been resolved. Its omnichannel text analytics feature comes with Natural Language Processing and is supported by AI (more about this in the next segment). 

Lumoa is more specialized than Medallia and Qualtrics. If you are setting up more complex research projects that require features such as branching and randomization, Lumoa, now part of Netigate, has a survey tool that can make complex rules and logic. Additionally, Lumoa focuses on core features to ensure that your customer feels seen, heard, and understood. You can calculate exactly how much different topics impact your KPI (e.g. NPS) and use deep dive features such as highlighting correlations between insights and background variables.

Integrations

All three solutions offer integrations with other tools to collect data for the platform. Medallia integrates with a wide range of data sources such as CRM systems, social media, contact centers and many more. Their integration capabilities are extensive and designed to meet the complex needs of large organizations. 

Qualtrics offers extensive integration features allowing data to be gathered from various systems and platforms such as CRM systems, web and feedback tools, employee engagement systems and more. Like Medallia, Qualtrics is geared towards large enterprises and can offer customer integrations depending on the chosen subscription plan. 

Lumoa can integrate data regardless of the source and offers a high level of flexibility. Most common integrations are similar to Medallia and Qualtrics such as CRM systems, social media or review platforms. 

All three platforms are suitable for enterprises with large data sources. However, your decision might come down to your specific integration needs, data volume and the complexity of the desired analyses.  If you want to find out if each platform has the right integrations for your business, you can have a look at the integration sites of Qualtrics, Medallia, and Lumoa. 

Generative AI capabilities

There is no getting around generative AI in the 2020s and all CX platforms have added generative AI features in the last years.  

Qualtrics launched their generative AI XM/os2 in 2023 and announced that they are investing $500 million in AI innovation over the next four years. AI empowers its users to deliver personalized content and real-time recommendations and to drive automated actions. The work of support agents becomes more productive and the tool helps them to understand the customer’s history. 

Medallia’s AI feature is called ‘Ask Athena‘ and uses machine learning to discover data trends such as sudden increases in negative customer feedback. You can ask Athena questions and get quick answers. Athena can help you respond more appropriately to customer conversations and score the effort you will need to retain them.

Lumoa is the first customer experience platform that uses generative AI. It can help you with creating summaries of feedback and weekly email reports. You can also analyze support tickets and the emotion behind what your customer is saying. Lumoa also launched ‘Ask Lumoa‘ where you can simply ask the AI any questions and get insights based on your data. Think ChatGPT but for your customer insights.

Usability 

When it comes to usability, Qualtrics has some of the most extensive customization options. While this offers a lot of personalization, customers have mentioned that it can be overwhelming for users who prefer a more straightforward approach. If you want to manage more advanced and complex survey projects, you might also need additional calls with support to figure out the interface. 

Medallia is praised for its simple and intuitive user interface. Everyone from the CEO to team members can use it. But just like Qualtrics it can suffer from its own complexity and users might find it tricky to set up some of the more intricate feedback and analytics processes. Customers have reported that you need an IT resource on staff or pay a premium to a 3rd party to manage the solution for you. 

Lumoa may not be the best in terms of visual appeal, but its setup is straightforward and its interface is user-friendly. The UI is designed so that anyone without an analytics background can use it making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise. 

Security and Compliance

Security and compliance are sometimes overlooked but necessary to consider to find the right platform. You want to think about the sensitivity of your data, and regulatory requirements in your industry or region. 

When it comes to compliance, GDPR is especially important if you are operating within the European Union. For businesses operating in the US, HITRUST/HIPPA compliance (healthcare sector) and FedRAMP can be important. 

For security, ISO 27001 is the world’s best-known standard for information security management systems (ISMS). With cybercrime on the rise, an ISO 27001 certification gives the security that an organization meets international best practices. Medallia, Qualtrics, and Lumoa are all ISO 27001 certified.

Qualtrics prioritizes data security with features such as data encryption, access controls and audit logs. As an enterprise customer, you can also use advanced security options. Qualtrics complies with GDPR, HITRUST, and FedRAMP.

Medallia offers robust security features to protect customer data including encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access controls, and regular security audits. Like Qualtrics, it is GDPR, HITRUST, and FedRAMP compliant.

Lumoa is committed to data protection employing encryption, access controls, and secure data storage practices to safeguard customer information. Lumoa adheres to GDPR guidelines and has their servers hosted in Western Europe.

Customer Support and Community

When you are using software, you want there to be great and easily accessible customer support in case something goes wrong. 

Qualtrics and Medallia’s service model leans toward managed services rather than self-service. You will spend a lot of time talking to your Customer Support team to do surveys, make changes in your dashboard, or customize your reports. Both solutions offer consulting services if you struggle with how to set up a survey or want additional strategic tips. 

Lumoa’s dedication to customer experience is not only visible in its user-friendly setup and interface but also in the more personal touch you will experience compared to the larger enterprise solutions. While Lumoa provides support and customer success managers, there are no-in house consultants which the more expensive solutions offer.

Customer Success Stories

Qualtrics: BMW “The XM platform is the right technology to match our vision of making every experience as good as our product experience.” – Craig Westbrook, VP, BMW of North America 

BMW invested in Qualtrics to reengineer its CX program and to drive increased repurchase and return service rates. Through text analysis, integrations, and personalized, mobile-friendly dashboards now every leader in the organization is empowered to act on feedback

Medallia: Best Western   “Medallia enables us to hold hotels accountable and help them manage their online presence directly.” – Michael Morton, VP member Services Best Western

Best Western teamed up with Medallia and Tripadvisor to focus on integrating the TripAdvisor review form into the guest satisfaction surveys Medallia sends to recent hotel guests. As a result, they received 76% more reviews for Best Western and their average rating went up from 3.98 to 4.28.

Lumoa: Huel “Lumoa isn’t just a system that allows you to ask the question. It’s a system that allows you to answer the question.” – Olivia Chambers, Customer Insights Manager 

Huel wanted to use NPS as a more strategic business metric but the current process was manual and difficult to scale. When they found Lumoa, they knew it was the right solution. It enabled them to not only collect data but to also create strategies based on the insights the platform provides. Lumoa also easily integrated with their existing tools such as Zendesk. As a result, their NPS score went up by 10pts and they increased their response rate by 164%. Read the full story. 

Choose the Right Platform for You

When you start evaluating various platforms, Lumoa stands out as a particularly compelling choice for medium to large enterprises focused on efficiently managing teh voice of the customers.

Built by industry experts who recognized a gap in translating customer feedback into actionable insights, Lumoa simplifies what is typically a complex process. It automates collection, processing, and reporting and provides unique AI-driven insights tailored to improve your business’s KPIs. This enables every employee to engage with customer insights effectively and drive substantive change.

While Lumoa offers a streamlined approach, there are other platforms like Qualtrics and Medallia, especially for very large enterprises requiring extensive, multi-faceted tools that extend beyond customer experience management.

Qualtrics is well-suited for those looking for a platform that also covers employee experience, market research, and product feedback. Its comprehensive features come with a complexity and price point that may necessitate additional technical support or resources.

Similarly, Medallia is ideal for large organizations that can allocate resources to fully leverage its capabilities, particularly if seeking an omnichannel CX management tool supported by advanced AI analytics.

The implementation process and cost associated with Medallia, however, are significant factors to consider, as they may impact the time to value and overall return on investment.

Returning to Lumoa, its use of Generative AI further distinguishes it from the competition. This technology not only enhances the platform’s usability but also enriches the quality of insights available.

Employees can ask specific, role-relevant questions and receive real-time answers that draw from comprehensive customer feedback, regardless of the channel. Lumoa’s pricing model, which does not charge per license, ensures that these advanced capabilities are accessible to all within your organization, supporting widespread adoption and maximum impact.

Having served 14 countries and demonstrated significant improvement in customer satisfaction metrics, Lumoa’s global reach and effectiveness are clear. This includes up to 3x in KPIs for businesses that put the customer first.

As you consider the right CX platform for your needs, Lumoa offers a unique combination of simplicity, power, and cost-effectiveness that is hard to match. Discover how Lumoa can enhance your customer experience strategy. Sign up for a demo today.