How Customer Experience Drives Digital Transformation

More and more organisations are being driven to adopt digital transformation, by the rising expectations of the customer. Customers want to be able to interact with you at any time, and on the channel and device of their choice.

To keep up with this “always-connected” customer, businesses need to embrace technology and embark on a journey of digital transformation.

According to research 35% of business executives claim that digital transformation helps them to meet customer expectations and 38% plan to invest more in technology.  This is reflected in the forecast for the Global Digital Transformation Market to grow from USD 469.8 Billion in 2020 to USD 1,009.8 Billion by 2025.

However many organisations haven’t started their digital transformation yet – with some worried that it might already be too late.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is the process of using technology to create new, or change existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.  As highlighted, it is often the customer that drives an organisation to start their digital transformation journey. The customer is now more demanding and more aware of what is technologically possible.

The digital-conscious customer

Technology has transformed consumer habits.  Mobile devices, apps, Machine Learning, automation and more allows customer the flexibility of how, where and when they engage with an organisation.  These technologies are now so common-place they are expected by customers, sometimes more noted by their absence than their existence.

To win over this new, digital-conscious consumer, your business needs to think digital first.

Getting started with digital transformation

To start your digital transformation journey, or to help you if you have already started it, here are some things to consider:

1. Define your strategy

A digital transformation strategy needs to answer the following questions:

• Where are you today?
• Where do you want to be tomorrow?
• What is the gap?
• What are you going to do to get there?
• How much will it cost?
  

It is tempting to jump straight into ‘what are you going to do to get there?’ after you have researched exciting new technologies, but is important to go through each step to make sure you are selecting the technologies that bring most benefit to the business and are not just a gimmick.

Your strategy needs to cover not only the technologies that need to be adopted but also protection from digital disruption. That’s why understanding your current business is critical before trying to harness the potential of digital transformation.

2. Redefine the customer journey

As digital transformation is often driven by customer expectations it is important to focus on how customers want to experience interactions with your business.  This is a great opportunity to reimagine the entire customer journey, and use technology to drastically improve the customer experience.

3. Create an agile, flexible IT environment

The right technology is pivotal in any digital transformation.  Therefore your organisation's digital team need to tightly align with IT ensuring an agile and flexible infrastructure is in place that can adapt and pivot to new technologies and processes.

Cloud technology is an important part of digital transformation as it enables companies to be fast and dynamic. You can pilot and test new projects in a cost-effective and low-risk manner, enabling you to meet customer demands quicker.

Sharing data and connecting applications offers the chance to create a single digital profile of each customer.

4. Personalize the customer experience

Customers are also increasingly expecting a personalised experience from organisations they deal with. If an organisation holds a wealth of data about someone then why should they behave as if they don't know anything. They should be able to access their personal information, preferences and transaction/interaction history.

A good CRM system or database, data sharing and application integration is vital to providing a full view of any customer. As well as enabling a highly personalised service to the customer, you can also create highly targeted sales and support messages.

5. A seamless omni-channel experience

Technology means customers expect to get what they want, whenever they want, and how they want it.  

Many consumers now expect a customer service response within minutes (or sometimes even sooner), and they expect the same response times at weekends. This means an organisation needs to be accessible, 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year. The only way to guarantee instant responses is to use intelligent automation that integrates with business applications.

And consumers are not tied to a single channel. They want to use THEIR channel of choice and even be able to move seamlessly between the different channels without having to repeat their request or information.

Conclusion

In today’s, always-on society, most companies are not left with much choice but to consider implementing a digital transformation strategy.  Digital transformation offers organisations an opportunity to deliver on their consumers expectations of a seamless customer experience regardless of channel, time or place.

But if you want to know more about how Customer Service Automation can help drive digital transformation contact us or call us on 0333 6000 360.