The integration of digital technologies into the business processes and company culture has fundamentally transformed the customer experience. Digital transformation is inspiring and influencing companies worldwide to evolve their business models and adapt to the digital transformation journey.
According to Seagate, two-thirds of global CEOs will start focusing on digital strategies to improve customer digital experience. The net global spending on the digital transformation journey in 2018 was approximately $1 trillion. This number is expected to increase to more than $2 trillion by 2022.
‘Digital First’ Approach for Customer Experience
In this day and age, everything starts with digital, so ‘digital first’ means approaching any new opportunity or even problem with the assumption that the solution should be as digital as possible. International Data Group (IDG) says that more than 44% of companies have already started implementing a digital-first approach to business processes, operations, and customer engagement. Digital technologies like mobile devices, apps, machine learning, automation, and more allow customers to get what they almost want exactly at the moment they need it. These new digital technologies have caused a shift in customer expectations, resulting in a new kind of modern buyer. Let’s discuss the state of the ‘digital first’ approach:
- As per a report by ClickZ, 19% of organizations are integrating processes, thus executing changes throughout the enterprise
- The same report says that 18% of companies are executing their digital strategies and making processes on a business unit level.
- 7% of companies are in the maintenance phase, which means they have fully implemented their digital first approach, the report adds.
Image source: ClickZ
A study at MIT found that companies that have embraced the digital transformation process are 26% more profitable than their peers.
“Every digital transformation is going to begin and end with the customer.”
-Marc Benioff, Chairman and Co-CEO, Salesforce
Digital Transformation Trends that are Enhancing Customer Experience
1. Personalizing the digital customer journey
According to Accenture, 75% of consumers are more likely to enjoy the digital customer service if companies provide any of these three services:
- Being recognized – 56% of the consumers are more likely to shop online if they are recognized by their names.
- Being offered relevant recommendations – 58% of the customers are more likely to spend money online when provided suggestions based on their previous purchases or preferences.
- Being remembered – 65% of buyers are more likely to purchase if the company knows their purchase history.
For example
Netflix is an online streaming application that focuses on personalizing the digital customer journey and enhancing the customer experience. Once you open the application, below are some features that are tailored out by keeping the customer in mind:
- It greets you with your name
- Records all the history of what you have watched and analyzes your interests and tastes
- On the basis of your interests and the history recorded, Netflix further provides recommendations to their customers
2. Consistent customer journey via seamless multi-channel
Technology has provided customers with the luxury of multiple channels. According to Accenture, 65% of customers get frustrated because of inconsistent experiences. Sometimes customers feel that a new interaction on a different platform is a new journey. However, customers usually want to feel familiarity so that new interactions on different platforms are an extension of the same journey. One can overcome these challenges by providing a seamless multi-channel as it leads to:
- Consistent Customer Experience: When you provide a consistent customer journey through seamless multi channel it results in customer satisfaction and loyalty, says McKinsey.
- Lower Cost to Resolve Issues: A good seamless multi-channel experience leads to customer satisfaction, which results in happier customers! Happy customers mean less volume for customer care/service channels, which aids the cost to resolve issues.
Companies are connecting business silos, harnessing the potential of their customer data, and driving ongoing improvements to serve the customers with relevant and consistent experience, irrespective of channel or device.
3. Embracing automation
A survey done by Accenture shows that 84% of the consumers preferred interacting with computer automated systems. These automated systems are available any time, these systems are less biased, and fast. Thus, these systems increase the customer’s overall digital experience. In case, you have not used automation as a part of your digital customer experience strategy, then we suggest you start now!
Let’s discuss the advantages of embracing automation:
- Saves Time: Waiting for a response can be time consuming for a customer. Automated responses engage and provide services faster than human advisors or customer care services. Since, in today’s age and time, customers expect service response within one hour irrespective of the time or date.
- Mitigates Prejudice: Sometimes, customers feel that human advisors are being rude or biased. By embracing automation, you are mitigating this risk, since the communication cannot be biased and will be polite at all times!
- Increases Team Efficiency: In order to increase efficiency, the time spent by team members on basic processes like follow-up emails and ticket prioritization should be automated as well for a better digital customer experience transformation process.
4. Improving the user experience by efficient app onboarding practices
Customers always expect to navigate easily through your applications. If the customer is not able to do so, it is likely that they will neither use nor recommend your application further. When we develop apps to aid an enterprise digital transformation effort, we give focus to app onboarding. App onboarding is a systematic process that allows users to comprehend the app and its functions. You can include on-screen guidelines with an interactive virtual assistant providing step-by-step demonstration, further enhancing the customer digital experience. The benefits of enhancing the user experience are:
- When an app is guiding its users it means the application is customer centric.
- It focuses on providing value to the customers and making their life easier.
- An easily usable app results in a great customer experience.
- A satisfied customer is your best brand ambassador and marketing agency, all in one.
- It helps in establishing credibility with the customer.
5. Keeping the customer updated
Keeping your customers in the loop is an integral part of providing a great digital customer service. Keeping the customer updated about what is going on with the product is no rocket science! It comes down to automated processes and real time tracking.
For example:
Amazon is a digital platform that keeps customers updated at all times.
- The application keeps giving updates to customers when an order is reviewed and placed; the payment is complete, when the order is expected to reach your doorstep, etc.
- It also provides real time tracking of a customer’s order so that the customer is updated all the time.
6. Keeping it human
You should always keep in mind that your customers are human, and you need to keep the human element alive in this age of digital customer experience. Human experience will help you in creating long-term relationships and genuine partnerships with your customers. I am sure that a question is popping up in your head, how can we add a human touch to our application?
- Every brand has a story! Start by telling that story to your customers via videos or blogs. Share the history, mission, values and vision your brand stands for.
- Incorporate AI for the feedback! It is always better to get feedback from your customers and work on them. This improves the digital customer engagement and your application will keep evolving.
- Personalized content is the key to keeping customers engaged. It enhances the customer experiences because it is tailored just for their use.
- Invest your time and resources into technologies that will help you learn how, when and why your customers do business with you.
So, what we are saying is:
The potential of digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, big data analytics, cloud computing, machine learning and virtual reality (VR) keep the transformation experience as human as possible.
Getting Started with Digital Transformation
Everyone is talking about the digital transformation trend but it is more about business transformation, which is not as easy as it sounds! Without any question, the use of digital technology increases, but at the end of the day, it is more about a new way of working and thinking!
Let’s talk about the elements that will help you kick start your transformed business landscape, exceed customer expectations and enhance customer experience.
a) Uninterrupted Experience
Users prefer an uninterrupted approach regardless of the channel they are using. Providing a seamless digital channel to the customer by integrating all channels together leads to a better customer experience.
b) Personalized Experience
Customer relationship management software is very helpful to evaluate a consumer’s purchase history and behavior. It assists a company to give a more personalized experience to the consumer since they expect just that.
c) Cloud Technology
Cloud solutions provide an agile and flexible environment to fulfill customer demands swiftly. This technology enables companies to be fast and dynamic, giving them the ability to test new projects that are cost-effective and low-risk. For instance, connecting SaaS applications such as Salesforce enables businesses to collect all information on customers, prospects, and leads within a single online platform. Not only this, but cloud solutions also offer automated notifications to the customers regarding the latest features so that they are never behind their game!
d) Bring Everyone on Board
The foremost reason for the failure of digital transformation is employee resistance. According to a report in Gartner, when everyone works collaboratively and understands the goals, businesses progress twice as fast with digital transformation.
Benefits of Digital Transformation
If you have continuous innovation and enhancement on your mind, you can achieve all the benefits that are offered by digital customer experience transformation. You have to make sure that you have digital transformation solutions handy in case you have to tackle the challenges. It’s best to be well-prepared!
Digital transformation consulting firms help you achieve high-level benefits:
- Digitalization of business operations
- Immense customer insights
- Establishment of digital services
- Efficient resource management
- Enhanced customer experience
- Promote digital culture
- Opens the door to globalization
- Reduces cost
- Better employee engagement and culture
It’s a Wrap
Digital transformation experience is crucial for businesses that want to grow, evolve and be more successful than their competitors. Digital transformation and customer experience go hand in hand. Let’s be honest, these days customer expectations are sky-scraping, and without fulfilling them your business will not thrive or dare we say, even survive!
So, if you want to exponentially flourish, you should find the perfect team to come up with digitalization consulting and customer experience strategies. As long as you are finding ways to integrate new technologies and introducing creative ways to keep your customers engaged in spending money on your application, you are good to go!