Customer experience have evolved tremendously over the past years. Digitalization have proved to be a boon to the overall experience from customer from pre-sales research to onboarding or purchase to sales and post-sales support. With the rise of e-commerce, social media, and mobile devices, customers now have more options than ever before when it comes to engaging with brands and share their overall experience with others online.
As a result, there is a need for businesses to reformulate their approach towards customer experience to maintain revenue, stay competitive as well as meet the evolving needs and expectations of customers. Failing to meet these expectations can result in lost sales, negative reviews, and damage to the brand’s reputation. 64% business decision makers admit investing in digitalization to enhance customer experience, which is the leading reason.
Businesses need to go beyond traditional customer service and consider each touchpoint of the customer journey, from initial engagement to post-purchase follow-up. To achieve this, businesses need to invest in digital tools and technologies that enable them to offer a seamless and personalized experience to their customers. This includes everything from chatbots and virtual assistants to social media listening and data analytics.
Additionally, businesses must focus on building a culture of customer-centricity, where every employee is empowered to resolve the customer’s needs and concerns. This means providing continuous training for employees to ensure them being equipped with required the skills and knowledge to deliver exceptional customer service.
While formulating the strategy, businesses need to put the customer at the center of everything and focus on the following key areas –
- Digital platform for collaboration helps businesses to create a more customer-centric culture by enabling seamless collaboration and communication across different teams and departments, and ultimately delivering a more personalized and satisfying customer experience.
More than 70% of decision makers agree to the requisite shift to digital platforms both externally (for customer engagement) and internally such as project management tools, internal communication tools, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to streamline workflows, share information and resources, and collaborate more effectively across different departments. This helps businesses to collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback in real-time. For example, customer support teams can use collaboration tools to share customer feedback and insights with product teams, who can then use this information to improve their products and services based on customer needs and preferences. - Omni-channel approach is pertinent to customer experience as it allows customers to interact with a business through multiple channels, seamlessly and consistently. It enables customers to switch between different channels, such as online, mobile, or in-store, and still receive the same high-quality experience, regardless of where they are in the customer journey. Customers today look forward to a seamless omnichannel approach to have a consistent experience regardless of the channel they choose to interact with the business. Almost 60% of technology decision makers realize this and have placed this as the second most important deployment in their organization to attain higher customer experience. To implement an omni-channel strategy effectively, businesses need to first assess the strengths and weaknesses of their current channels and identify areas where they can improve the consistency and quality of the customer experience across channels. They must also invest in the necessary technology and resources to support an omni-channel approach, including data analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and digital marketing platforms. This, bundled with a culture of collaboration and communication across departments and channels, ensures that everyone is working together towards a common goal of delivering exceptional customer experiences.
- Digital interactive documents provide a more engaging and personalized way for customer interaction with a business’ content. Interactive documents can include features such as clickable links, videos, quizzes, and surveys that allow customers to actively engage with the content in a way that traditional static documents cannot provide. Businesses can use software tools or specialized interactive document creation software, that allow creators to add interactive elements to their documents and export them in a variety of formats such as PDF or HTML. These documents can then be shared with customers through email, social media, or the company’s website. It is important to ensure that the interactive documents are user-friendly and accessible on a variety of devices to ensure a positive customer experience.
- Being data-driven helps businesses to understand their customers better and make informed decisions that can improve their experience. Data analysis can assist to identify patterns, trends, and customer preferences that can be used to create personalized experiences, improve products and services, and optimize customer support. With existence of multiple channels, data can be collected from various sources such as website analytics, social media, and customer service interactions as well as customer feedback. This data can be analysed to create customer profiles and personas that can help businesses to understand their customers better and create personalized experiences. This data can be utilized to monitor customer satisfaction levels, identify areas for improvement, and track the effectiveness of customer experience initiatives over time.
Businesses need to ensure appropriate tools and technology along with skilled resources to interpret data effectively. - Personalized experience is expected by customers that caters to their unique needs and preferences. It helps to create a more engaging and relevant experience for each individual customer. By tailoring the experience to their specific needs, preferences, and behaviors, businesses can build stronger relationships with their customers and drive long-term loyalty. There are several ways to implement personalization in customer experience. One way is to use data to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can then be used to tailor marketing and communication messages along with product and services. Another way is to utilize digital tools such as chatbots and virtual assistants to provide personalized support and assistance to customers. To implement personalization effectively, businesses need to collect and use customer data in a responsible and transparent manner. Businesses must also be willing to adapt and evolve their strategies as customer needs and preferences change over time. Ultimately, the key to successful personalization is to put the customer at the center of the experience and to focus on building strong, long-term relationships based on trust and mutual benefit.
By doing so, businesses can create a competitive advantage and drive sustainable growth in the digital age.
Priority Action Items to Enhance Customer Experience
(Average priority rank)
Source – Vision 2023, n=545 CIOs and Technology decision makers
