Digital Customer Experience

Digital Customer Experience

What is digital customer experience?

Sum of all the online interactions a customer has with your brand known as Digital customer experience. It can start with your company's website, but could also include mobile applications, chat bots, social media and all other channels where the point of contact is virtual. And what is important here is the perception that customers receive. Is it cumbersome and frustrating to ask for help or place an order, or is the process frictionless, memorable, and delightful?

3 fundamental ingredients to a good digital customer experience.

Success – did the customer complete their task and achieve their goal?

Effort – was the process smooth and easy?

Emotion – did they come away from the interaction feeling good?

Why digital customer experience matters now?

Would you pay more for a memorable experience, provided by a brand you like? In the coming years, your customers most certainly will. More than prices or products, experiences that spark powerful emotions will shape buying patterns and brand loyalty. Take into consideration these new trends:

· 67% of customers will pay more for a great experience

· When they have an emotional connection with a brand, consumers have a 306% higher lifetime value and are more likely to recommend to others (71% vs. 45%)

· When the problem is service related, versus product or price, customers are 4x more likely to turn to a competitor

The message is clear: Your brand needs to become an experience leader, or your prospects and customers will look elsewhere.

Managing the digital customer experience

Consumers have come to accept that providing data to companies is a necessary part of digital. However, they expect brands to know them in return. Marketing leaders often talk about putting customers first, but the reality is 42% of companies don’t ever ask for any feedback.1 Customers can sense this disconnect. They know when the human element is missing. Your challenge is to proactively seek out and fix broken experiences long before they drive customers away.

Companies that take time to do the hard work of mapping the customer journey always come out ahead. You can’t create unique experiences until you know when and where customers interact with your brand. With this in mind, it helps to think of DCX management as a four-step process:

· First, you need to really know your audience. What kinds of emotions will create the sparks within each segment?

· Next, identify personas within those audiences. What characteristics do the customers in each persona have in common?

· Now you’re ready to address each phase of the customer journey with relevant content and experiences. Do you have each part of the funnel covered, top, middle, and bottom?

· Make sure to personalize digital experiences each step of the way, even if you start with just the basics

Best practices for improving digital customer experiences

  1. Understand the how and why of CX

  2. Research your key customer journeys in depth

  3. Know your audience(s)

  4. Provide users with easy ways to provide feedback

  5. Track and diagnose potential high-level problems within your digital experience

Digital customer journey mapping

You can see the stages customers go through from first discovering your brand all the way to their first point of purchase and your relationship with them moving forward.

Business benefits of DCX excellence

A great digital customer experience is a must have for every business in today’s time. Brands that combine the three essential components of excellent products, powerful digital experiences and memorable human relationships have more engaged, happier, more loyal customers.

· Reduced customer churn rates

· Higher customer retention

· Higher lifetime customer value

· Greater brand equity

· Reduced costs of service

Challenges for Digital Customer Experience

· Siloed Mentality

Friction in the customer journey leads to frustration and a poor user experience. To provide a superior CX, organizations must provide seamless transitions across all digital channels. This means that customers should be able to choose their preferred communication channels and that their data is visible across the entire organization.

· Lack of Experimentation and Iteration

Designing an effective customer experience requires an iterative approach. Organizations should focus on getting their first version out as quickly as possible. From there they need to see how customers respond, collect data, and improve upon the initial version based on customer feedback.

· Lack of Customer Input

The key is to establish a system for collecting customer feedback, such as surveys, and processes for implementing their suggestions. Yet many organizations fail to solicit, review, or make sense of customer input.

· Poor CX Design

Many organizations fail to understand the importance of user and customer experience design. For instance, developers may add unnecessary features or complicated navigation. A poor user experience stifles growth and customer retention. Effective CX design principles transcend a single product to the organizational level.

Digital customer experience leaders

Following are few examples of companies who used a well-defined Digital customer experience strategy to flourish their business and to cater to their customers better:

· Chick-fil-A: Increased online revenue through customer engagement and loyalty.

· Brompton Bicycle: This company has delivered a personalized and relevant customer experience across 48 markets, fueling growth and boosting customer loyalty.

· Thule: Manage content diversity across different markets and languages, for powerful e-commerce experience.

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