According to Pega's survey, real-time decisioning can play a critical role keeping customers happy, reducing churn, and improving the customer experience in the face of ever-increasing expectations.

68% of respondents said keeping up with increasing customer expectations was their top priority, and those already using real-time decisioning solutions reported happier customers (63%), reduced churn (61%) and even an increase in the acquisition of new customers (55%).

82% of respondents familiar with real-time decisioning agreed that COVID-19 has made the use of real-time decisioning technology more important, and 77% agreed that business success requires engagement with individual customers based on their behaviour and preferences.

Despite these benefits, there are barriers to adopting real-time decisioning.

78 per cent of those not currently using real-time tools said these barriers involve people.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 30% of these non-users pointed to a lack of skilled people, and 29% reported a lack of support or sponsorship from senior business leaders.

This group also cited technology or operations issues (58%), a lack of data or analytical capabilities (29%), regulatory and/or compliance constraints (26%) and 23% blamed poor or outdated technology.

Only a minority of companies already using real-time decisioning tools are applying them consistently. Just 38% said they are re-scoring and re-decisioning on a real-time, continuous basis. By using the technology in real-time and not hourly, daily or weekly, organisations could start to see far more tangible benefits, Pega said.

"The world's getting smaller and more digital every day, and organisations have to work hard to provide a customer experience that stands out in an increasingly crowded marketplace," said Pegasystems general manager of 1:1 customer engagement Rob Walker.

"Moments of opportunity can open and close in a second or less, and real-time decisioning tools can help grasp them by taking into account a customer's immediate context and using it to significantly increase relevance where it's needed most. The time to tear down implementation barriers and embrace real-time decisioning is now. Companies will be rewarded by staying one step ahead of the competition and providing a hyper-personalised experience that will delight customers by being relevant."

Pega's report Real-time decisioning, real results is available for download.