Stay Ahead of the Game with Enhanced Digital Customer Experience

In this digital age, customers expect a consistent experience that is seamless, intuitive and engaging across channels be it social, mobile or in person. These digitally evolved customers ask for information anytime, anywhere, superior digital products and services, multi-channel experience and personalized, contextual engagement.

Companies today understand how digital impacts their business. As the customer takes the driver seat, they are compelled to bring customer experience at the forefront for business growth. Companies are investing a lot of resources to gain an understanding of the Customer behavior, to be able to build digital products with enhanced customer experience.

A 2016 research report by Forrester stated that 72% of businesses quote improving customer experience as their top priority. A following 2017 research report "Drive Revenue With Great Customer Experience" cited 3 models for measuring customer experience ROI and concluded a strong correlation between customer experience and revenue growth.

Customers engage and transact with the company at many touchpoints and businesses are required to provide a seamless experience across all channels. In many cases, creating a customer-obsessed operating model may require a complete overhaul of the technology infrastructure.

To move at the customer's pace, companies leverage leading technologies that help to improve CX including frontend technology AngularJS, backend technology Grails for rapid application development, microservices led architecture and DevOps for delivery pipeline automation. Companies are bidding farewell to the legacy way of working and are embracing digital transformation. Here are four ways that ensure a superior digital experience:

1.    Seamless experience across channels
Since customers are interacting with brands on a channel of their choice, they are focussed on providing a seamless multi-channel experience. Along with mobile, they are focussing on Smart TVs, wearable devices and other second screens to reach a wider audience and keep them engaged. The different methodologies that brands leverage for providing a seamless customer experience include collaborative design thinking, persona development, top task analysis, user journey mapping, true intent, usability analysis and much more.

2. Internal operations to enhance efficiency
Injecting operational efficiency is the key to provide superior end user experience. Companies are constantly making the workforce mobile, improving organisation wide productivity, automating internal processes and adopting many other Agile methodologies. By using backend tools, technologies, and process automation techniques, brands are able to attain zero downtime and manage customer interactions efficiently.

3. Personalized, contextual engagements to build trust 
Personalized, contextual engagements is one of the most important aspects for providing superior customer experience. Brands can make use of big data, analytics and design thinking techniques such as design discovery, user journey and persona mapping, empathy mapping and usability testing to gather insights to create personalized experiences.

4. Modern technology stack and automation techniques
Many technologies like Big Data, IoT, Analytics, DevOps, and Machine Learning are gaining traction among brands. DevOps is used to automate delivery pipeline to improve efficiency go-to-market faster; content management systems to provide a seamless digital experience and infrastructure monitoring to eliminate downtimes. Brands are engaged in multiple efforts to adopt modern technologies and provide a seamless digital experience to their customers.  

Customer experience is inherently subjective, but its value is evident in terms of increased satisfaction, repeat business, lower customer acquisition costs and increased sales. Today, the customer buying cycle is a self-directed journey where they are in complete control of their interactions with the brand. Digital transformation is helping brands to meet and exceed the customer expectations and has become critical to succeed and stay ahead of the competition.