Tackling the Customer Experience Challenge

Dig­i­tal has nev­er been so easy and acces­si­ble. It has become ‘the norm’, rais­ing cus­tomer expec­ta­tions in a way no one could have expect­ed, and increas­ing the num­ber of ways to reach con­sumers, wher­ev­er they are. This is why cre­at­ing a seam­less and effec­tive cus­tomer expe­ri­ence (CX) should be cen­tral to any dig­i­tal strategy.

CX is a top dig­i­tal priority

In 2014, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence emerged as one of mar­keters’ top pri­or­i­ties. In 2015, it dom­i­nat­ed that list, and as Adobe’s lat­est Dig­i­tal Trends report reveals, in 2016, it has actu­al­ly start­ed to define wider busi­ness priorities.

When asked about their sin­gle most excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for 2016, the top three answers from the 7,000 mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als sur­veyed were ‘opti­mis­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence’, ‘cre­at­ing com­pelling con­tent for dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences’, and ‘data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing that focus­es on the indi­vid­ual’, stress­ing how CX is well and tru­ly front-of-mind.

This also shows how busi­ness­es are recog­nis­ing that, along with cre­ativ­i­ty, data has the poten­tial to dri­ve a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, and should be under­pin­ning any cus­tomer inter­ac­tion. This is indi­cat­ed in the report where, when asked to iden­ti­fy their strate­gic pri­or­i­ties for 2016, more organ­i­sa­tions chose ‘data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing’ (53%) than any oth­er. Here we can see that com­pa­nies are pri­ori­tis­ing data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing _because _of CX, not instead of it, a sign of promis­ing things to come.

Of course, the oth­er side of data is con­tent, and expe­ri­ences only work if busi­ness­es can cre­ate and deliv­er this effi­cient­ly. The Dig­i­tal Trends respon­dents agreed, with 94% say­ing that improv­ing the process behind con­tent cre­ation and deliv­ery will be impor­tant in deliv­er­ing a great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence in the year ahead.

The CX challenge

We also know that, while the aspi­ra­tions are clear­ly there, many com­pa­nies are still strug­gling to pro­vide a seam­less expe­ri­ence. Accord­ing to our lat­est Quar­ter­ly Dig­i­tal Intel­li­gence Brief­ing: The CX Chal­lenge, ‘com­plex­i­ty’ was cit­ed as the great­est bar­ri­er pre­vent­ing organ­i­sa­tions improv­ing CX. 48% of Euro­pean respon­dents also rat­ed their com­pa­ny as ‘imma­ture’ or ‘not advanced’ in terms of CX maturity.

This shows there is a gap between the knowl­edge of what needs to hap­pen and com­pa­nies hav­ing the right tools and skills to put these CX pri­or­i­ties into prac­tice. Giv­en this issue, here are the top CX trends we’ve iden­ti­fied which busi­ness­es should consider:

• Cross-func­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion: Today’s con­sumers engage with busi­ness­es and brands across many chan­nels and there­fore expect a seam­less expe­ri­ence. The respon­si­bil­i­ty for deliv­er­ing effec­tive CX has to be car­ried across the whole com­pa­ny in a cross-func­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion that com­bines data, sys­tems, strat­e­gy and workflows.
• Mobile-only: Mobile is not only the most impor­tant chan­nel, as for many mar­kets, it’s the only chan­nel. And this trend is grow­ing, with the Dig­i­tal Trends report reveal­ing half of mar­keters see mobile as a top 3 area of pri­or­i­ty for their organ­i­sa­tion. It starts by shift­ing your strat­e­gy and resources from a web-cen­tric to a mobile-cen­tric foun­da­tion, with a focus on apps and mobile web.
• IoT strat­e­gy: CX man­agers have to start think­ing about an Inter­net of Things (IoT) strat­e­gy. It’s no longer sim­ply about ‘things’, rather the con­nect­ed con­sumer using those things. This con­nect­ed ecosys­tem is set to rev­o­lu­tionise people’s under­stand­ing of CX in the future.
• Inte­grat­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms: The CX Chal­lenge report found that thir­teen dif­fer­ent touch­points were regard­ed by at least half of sur­vey respon­dents as cen­tral to CX. With these touch­points rang­ing from bricks-and-mor­tar stores, web­sites and mobile, to adver­tis­ing, email and social – com­pa­nies need inte­grat­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms that allow them to have a sin­gle view of the customer.

Most of us realise the busi­ness impact of cre­at­ing com­pelling, per­son­al and use­ful expe­ri­ences, wher­ev­er our cus­tomers are. It’s now about putting that under­stand­ing into prac­tice and mak­ing sure we have the right tools, skills and strate­gies in place to make CX successful.