We have often talked to you about customer experience, but what about digital customer experience? Digital customer experience refers to all the digital interactions that a customer – or potential customer – has with a business, across multiple digital channels. In a world were digital is king, all businesses need to become digital, even if their product is not.
What Does It Really Take to Create a Digital Customer Experience?
Although Digital CX is just one part of the overall customer experience, the strategy requires companies to think differently about how they interact with customers. It is not just about adding digital tools; it’s about figuring out how these digital channels will be perceived and used by customers. Companies need to put the customer in the center, take the customers’ perspective on digital, and turn it into a strategy.
Social media, for example, has made it easy for brands to engage with their customers, and 90% of social media users have already used social media as a way to communicate with a brand or business. Using social media for customer experience allows you to interact with your customers, drive them to share their experience, proactively share helpful information that improves the customer experience, and get consumer insights that can influence your strategy.
More specifically, digital CX excellence, from a customer perspective, is directly linked to the extent to which companies excel in the following six key areas:
Channel Flexibility refers to the ability of a business to seamlessly and consistently switch between different digital channels, while always having the customer in mind. Omnichannel delivery provides consumers with a consistent experience from touchpoint to touchpoint.
Reachability refers to the ease with which a customer can reach a business via his preferred channel. The business must therefore ensure presence in the channels where his customers exist. Think mobile or voice commerce. 86% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if they have a positive mobile experience. Voice commerce is also showing strong rates of adoption and according to OC & C, voice commerce sales in the US are expected to reach $40 billion in 2022.
Service convenience is the extent to which customers are able to ask for quick and live support and see their problem solved end-to-end. Social messaging along with AI and chatbots will allow brands to provide real-time experiences and instantaneous responsive feedback.
Purchase convenience allows customers to conduct transactions easily online and have access to clear and updated information on new products and services. Augmented reality is a trend followed by an increasing number of brands as a way to demonstrate products and provide support.
Simplicity and ease of use. Customer experience cannot exist without having the customer at the center of everything. The website of a business and all its digital channels must have intuitive design, and simple and guided journeys and navigation. Great user experience can be improved by identifying the key actions that the users will take when they visit your site or app, by focusing on your customers’ emotions and starting sketching and testing early in order to get feedback.
Personalization means that a business recognizes each customer as an individual and treats him this way. In essence, it means meeting customers’ preferences automatically. In a report by Internet Retailing, 69% of consumers want to have a personalized experience, yet less than 50% of brands are actually delivering. IoT devices will allow brands to have access to more in-depth data about their customers than ever before.
2020 will be a pivotal year for customer experience, especially when it comes to digital. In order for any business to succeed, a robust digital customer experience strategy should therefore be developed which will align with the larger corporate strategy. What steps are you taking?
