Digital Customer Experience Strategy- Everything You Want to Avoid!
It’s no surprise that every customer now seeks an ever-evolving, seamless digital experience carved out specifically to cater to their needs.
In fact, according to an HBR Survey on Digital Economy conducted in 2020, 40% of respondents believe customer experience is the main reason they enter the world of digital transformation.Well, the foremost step to creating a holistic digital customer journey for any business is to build a concrete digital customer experience strategy. It gives organisations the structure they need to fund the automation and digitalisation of manual employee work.
And to arrive at a point where the company starts to build upon its own digital customer experience strategy, it first reaches the stage of what is known as digital transformation.
What exactly is digital transformation?
In simple terms, digital transformation is the gradual introduction and eventual integration of technology into all areas of a business. The core purpose of this transformation is the automation of as many processes as possible.
The change is primarily brought to create a more unified experience for customers while cutting labour costs, thus, generating higher revenue.
You can only create a successful digital customer experience strategy after thoroughly deciphering the multifold facets of digital transformation. And one of the most vital parts of such a transformation is developing a system that is both fast and dynamic.
However, fret not, cloud telephony can help you create a stellar digital customer experience strategy easily and transform your business operations.
Where there are problems, there are solutions!
It is inevitable that when an organisation steps into this vast space of technological transformation, mistakes occur.
Errors and loopholes are unavoidable consequences in any process aimed at evolving a pre-existing system.
The good news? They generally arrive with more than one solution for betterment.
Here are the five most common digital customer experience strategy mistakes that you can correct or, even better, avoid.
1. Digital consumer experience strategy is a race and has a finish line
The assumption that consumer experience strategy formulation is a process with a final output and not a perpetually evolving phenomenon is deeply flawed.
Digital transformation comes without any certain ends, budgets, or a specific set of objectives. It evolves as the organisation does, allowing more personalisation and interaction for the customers at every step.
Moreover, assuming that digital transformation comes with a definitive finishing point can result in a lack of competition and overall stagnancy for the organisation.
Regina Salazar, the CIO of the Global Product Organisation at Whirlpool rightly states, “In reality, we have been on this journey since computing was first applied to automating business processes, and candidly, that transformation isn’t, and likely will never be, complete.”
2. Overlooked User Experience (UX)
An effective digital customer experience (CX) is mainly based on UX and website design. While both UX and CX are greatly intertwined, it is difficult to know which one works better for an organisation in the longer run.
Even if a website is aesthetically sound, if its users cannot navigate without obstructions, the chances of them leaving the site and moving to a competitor in the interim are significantly high.
Put simply, the neglection of UX can be fatal to how a customer responds to your business operations. Overlooking its intricacies can directly affect the client base of your company.
In contrast, a smooth, rather rhythmic UX can guarantee affirmative publicity as customers help with word-of-mouth marketing by referring your business to their friends and family.
Additionally, a well-designed website must note the fonts and colors it uses, the resolution and quality of images that go up, validity and factual accuracy of all text and figures, and enough optimisation that deems it fit to be phone-friendly.
In a nutshell, businesses like yours must create and develop a specific digital customer experience strategy before rushing to technology providers in website design.
Technology vendors are just the tools that facilitate the job of digital transformation. They are not the job itself.
3. Not giving enough importance to customer data
Collecting, analysing, and understanding data in an attempt to enhance CX is paramount. Ignoring valuable customer insights in ways that are both ethical and interpersonal can add to the competitors’ benefit.
This is where cloud technology comes to the rescue. It comes with a host of features such as real-time data analysis, call recording, and call monitoring. These help you determine customer needs and make data-driven decisions.
Consequently, you can attract consumers in more significant numbers.
Personalised greetings, special birthday coupons, and being mindful of a customer’s location are only some of the many ways that define how close-knit a company’s dynamic to its customers can get.
Poor, half-hearted usage of customer information can lead to customers feeling unseen and undervalued. It can even lead them to cut all ties with your business.
An excellent example of how correct customer data usage can benefit your company and target audience is the ‘Recommended’ section on OTT platforms.
Platforms like Prime Video and Netflix sieve through chunks and chunks of content to present a customised watch list to every single user that signs up.
Today, leading brands such as Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc., are going the extra mile by investing in AIs with powerful analytical capabilities to study collated data on a macro and micro level.
AI processes massive data aggregates in real-time, identifying trends and loopholes, otherwise invisible to the human eye.
4. Fear of adapting to the latest technologies
Digital transformation is all about embracing new technologies, simplifying and aligning business processes in easier-to-understand, consolidated forms.
The goal behind this transformation is to adopt a more stress-free approach and give customers an experience that keeps them hooked on your brand.
However, it’s not easy for companies that have used traditional operating systems for decades to adapt to the new concepts of speed and agility.
Such organisations need to understand that by trying to coax everything new under the old, worn-out systems, the opportunity to bring the consistency that today’s tools have to offer gets missed.
For instance, earlier, processes like customer onboarding in the banking sector would trap people in an endless tunnel of meetings and documentation. But today, with a tech-savvy approach and the change in the way they communicate, banks have automated the entire process!
It has resulted in both—an increased economy of time and a better, secure system for customer details.
To find a rational yet economically beneficial solution to a business, the decision-making panels must explore and invest in the field of change management.
Hendryx-Parker, co-founder and CTO of Python web application development company Six Feet Up, rightly sums it up as "To avoid this pitfall of useless complexity, decision-makers must invest in change management and have conversations with their stakeholders.
They must get everyone on board about the benefits of embracing new technology and inventing streamlined processes to break through the complexity ceiling."
5. Lack of defined goals and customer feedback
The amount of attention a business pays to changing consumer preferences and expectations plays a vital role in retaining customers. This, in turn, also affects the digital customer experience strategy.
If a company is not goal-oriented and lacks clarity on what it seeks to achieve, it can create a sense of distrust and distance amongst its consumer base.
Therefore, setting a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goal that determines how successful your company can become in the long run is essential. This builds a two-way path of trust and goodwill between both parties, further fuelling your business’ and customer’s journey.
Additionally, it’s the primary responsibility of any corporate to provide room for constructive feedback. Listening to your customer’s opinions will help you create more robust relations with them.
So, you must take feedback from your customers, actively act on it for better customer experiences, and ultimately, improve your digital customer experience strategy.
To sum up
A well-thought-out approach to digitally transform your business can do wonders for you and your customer’s experiential journey. It can help you strengthen your image and build a strong digital customer experience strategy.
All you have to do is:
➔ Always put your customer first, and
➔ Build a holistic perspective that is not limited to traditional practices and understands the importance of digitalisation in today’s customer journey.
Remember, the changes taking us all closer to digital reality are not company-driven, instead customer-driven.
Authors Bio
Kritik Verma is a marketing enthusiast with a specialization in digital marketing. He is currently working at Servetel, leading cloud telephony providers offering IVR Services to boost business success. He enjoys cycling, travelling, indies music, and reading about the latest digital marketing trends.
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