Developing a digital transformation strategy for an improved customer experience can be overwhelming. There are many considerations to take into account, from the processes to the technologies needed to support them. However, taking a step back to look at the bigger picture from the beginning – with an eye on the personal experience – is a great way to help make decisions about which technologies you should implement to ensure positive outcomes.
Here are some important considerations to help with keeping the customer experience in mind in your digital transformation journey:
Take a look inside. Employees, the people at the heart of your organization and those who understand your customers best, are a veritable fountain of information and should be included in your strategy. Have a brainstorming session to ask them about processes, features and scenarios that could have an impact on your approach and implementation. For example, what are some of the more common complaints they hear? Do they have suggestions about making customers’ experiences more seamless? Or ideas that might simplify their own processes? Working from the inside out will help steer you down a successful path when planning.
The customer is key. These are the people you’re trying to keep or win over, so understanding them, including what they need and want from their experience with your organization, is essential to successful digital transformation. As you begin to develop your plan and strategy, consider the experiences of customers or employees as they engage with you. What would enhance their encounters with you? What can you do to streamline processes? Conducting a survey to learn more about their preferences will allow you to gather data and hear straight from the people you are targeting. Include questions about their priorities, and what they enjoy about their current experiences. If your organization has ideas you are considering implementing, this is also a good testing ground that can help narrow down which technologies will make the best sense for your business, while keeping customers happy.
Keep an eye on IT. As technology continues to evolve, so too will your ability to provide customers with new and improved experiences. Staying up to date on the latest innovations means you’ll know what’s possible for your organization. For example, in the data centre, new technologies including AI can not only save time for agents, but also increase customer satisfaction. Consider an app for an airline that remembers your preferred time to fly, where you like to sit on the airplane and knows your reward point balance with the ability to offer a seat upgrade automatically! With the right technology, personal experiences for customers can be integrated seamlessly into your strategy.
Don’t forget the data. Consumers are addicted to data, and expect it in real time, no matter where they are or what they’re doing. In fact, according to research firm IDC, more than 5 billion consumers interact with data on a daily basis. By 2025, that number is expected to reach 6 billion, or 75 percent of the world’s population. In 2025, each connected person will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds. Many of these interactions will be coming from billions of IoT devices connected across the globe, which are expected to create over 90ZB of data in 2025.
What does this mean for customer experience strategies? In order to provide the best experience possible, organizations need to have the right data infrastructures in place to properly manage this growth as it happens. Ensure that you’re supporting more than just your current and near-future requirements when bringing in technology so you can support customers as their needs, and your business, evolve.
Technology continues to have an impact on how businesses can interact with employees and customers, improving experiences and streamlining processes. Learn more about how CDW helps organizations build a client-centric approach to digital transformation to meet specific business goals.
