Digital Customer Experience Must Be More than Meets the Eye

Today’s distracted, preoccupied, and unpredictable customers carry their high customer experience expectations with them as they effortlessly move across their devices and touchpoints. Customers are beginning to demand a unified experience from every company with which they do business.

In the age of the customer, digital transformation is as important as ever. Web features and functionality, design, native mobile apps vs. mobile web, etc. are all features in which we naturally think of in terms of improving the digital customer experience. Yet, everyone is working to improve the front-end experience, so it’s up to you to not only keep up, but raise the bar.

Online retailers such as Zappos and Netflix are obsessed with ensuring a great customer experience in both their behaviors as well as the digital experience. Large organizations like these have a lot of resources to invest in customer experience.  But what about the lesser-known companies that have worked just as hard, if not harder, to create a great digital experience for their customers? Consider New Belgium Brewing a company out of Fort Collins, Colorado. The company is owned entirely by its employees and their non-traditional business approach goes to their customer service as well.  This small beverage company is driving substantial company growth through their digital success. Because they invested in the front and back end and created a new website, as well as launched a new mobile site so their biggest fans could order directly from their phones,  they have seen tremendous revenue and profit growth. Since the employees own the company they are as invested as ever in ensuring it succeeds, keeping customer service on point, is a big part of that.

As an organization you may be thinking, that’s great for those companies, but how should my company invest in the future? One easy yet important place to start is to focus on two dimensions of your marketing: the digital customer experience and digital operational excellence.  You must figure out what you need to improve by leveraging data, assessing existing touch points from the perspective of your customers, and by giving your customers a more personal experience and reaching out to them.

Additionally, consider redesigning the experience you currently offer by adopting a proven user-centered design process.  You should be consistently assessing opportunities and restraints of devices and touch points, while continuing to enhance, test and understand your customers.

With your brand in mind, ensure the digital experience you offer your customers supports your objectives and supports the overall experience and ecosystem of the company. It should create metrics based on your business goals while unifying the overall customer experience in a seamless approach.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, due to the importance digital has in driving customer experience, as well as the major impact it has on company growth, your company should do whatever it takes for digital mastery. Each business should focus on their own set of customer needs, competition, and capabilities that lie internally.

It’s important to keep in mind that businesses should pursue both digital customer experience and digital operational excellence simultaneously. One is not more important than the other and both are critical to improving the customer experience.  By implementing these practical ideas you can make big impacts on both your business and your customers.