Customer Experience is a Sign of the Times at London Event

We gathered together industry leaders to learn how businesses can use Adobe technology to create great experiences into 2018 and beyond

‘ Digital Transformation’ is a term which is regularly used by businesses and the media as a ‘catch-all’ for everything from email to e-signatures, cloud technology to artificial intelligence. But what does it actually mean to businesses? Is it just another piece of jargon – or can the concepts behind it actually add value?

We recently brought together our partners and customers at County Hall, London for our very first ‘Experience Adobe Sign’ event, to find out what digital transformation means to them, the progress they’ve made and to provide an inside look at which technologies are going to change the way we work.

Kicking off the day, David Burnand, Director of Enterprise Marketing EMEA, took to the stage to set out why organisations now need to become an ‘Experience Business’ – disruptors that are transforming their industries by creating and delivering amazing, intelligent and personal experiences. Touching on ‘Reinventing Loyalty’, our research with Goldsmiths University, David discussed how technology has changed traditional understandings of brand loyalty, but that evoking emotional reactions when interacting with brands helps define a positive experience.

Bircan Tulga Photography

We were also joined by Ed Thompson, customer experience analyst at Gartner, who challenged the way many businesses are improving their customer experience – or indeed aren’t bothering to. Thompson noted that any efforts at becoming an Experience Business, whether that’s through digital transformation or changing business practices, must apply to all parts of an organisation, instead of a single department. Whole businesses, from bottom to top must look at how they can stay relevant to customers despite changes in loyalty and those that do so are growing.

Too often it’s the small things, such as waiting for physical signatures to be signed, that are detrimental to providing good customer experiences, and even employee satisfaction. Mark Grilli, VP of Adobe Document Cloud, noted that by cutting down on long waits and increasing convenience – a key measure of ‘new’ loyalty – businesses can really deliver good customer experiences in the digital age. Highlighting the impact of Adobe Sign, research from Forrester shows that for our customers using the solution, the average time to get a signature is 21 times faster, saving approximately 50,000 hours over three years.

Bircan Tulga Photography

One company that’s seen vast improvements in customer experience through implementing Adobe Sign is HSBC. Craig Johnson, Global Multi Channel Retail Banking and Wealth Management outlined how Adobe Sign played a crucial role in the development and delivery of a truly omni-channel experience. This resulted in HSBC customers being able to take activity they used to do ‘in-branch’ – such as signing documents – online, saving weeks on wait times for mortgages and loans.

With the definition of loyalty evolving in the digital era, business leaders are realising that to remain relevant they have to be able to deliver convenient, targeted and personalised experiences. What our Experience Adobe Sign event showed, above all else, is that our customers are confident they can turn to Adobe for the tools and expertise needed to become an Experience Business and drive bottom line results.