A Positive Digital Customer Experience!

Digital Customer Experience – A Brief ‘What’ and ‘Why’?

Digital Customer Experience (DCE) refers to the user’s interaction with a company’s website, social media platforms, mobile applications, smart watch apps, and other digital platforms. A comprehensive Digital Customer Experience would need enterprises to examine all digital contact points where their prospective customers may be present.

Digital Omnipresence

Internet adoption and use have more than doubled since the new century, and have increased by more than 12,975 percent across the African continent alone. Mobile internet users now exceed desktop and tablet users, facilitating greater devolution. Self-service channels have grown in popularity in recent years. Customers rely on mobile applications and desktops for almost every kind of assistance, from house purchases to organizing business or leisure trips to reserving a table at a restaurant.

The digital landscape is constantly changing as technology advances, which creates new possibilities for businesses by broadening their market reach (Ex: more people are banked now because of mobile phone). So, organizations have no option but put serious thought into Digital Customer Experience.

Achieving ‘A Positive Digital Customer Experience’

To start, we should establish a baseline against which the present digital experience may be compared or evaluated. To comprehend and quantify the present customer experience, you must first identify various client contact points and categorize them into distinct journeys.

There are several methods to segment and categorize your customer experience journeys according to your organization’s needs. However, you must guarantee that the analysis’s primary emphasis is on your consumer. The following is an example of one such classification of customer journeys.

1. Exploration & Evaluation
2. Buying Experience
3. Adoption
4. Customer Service & Support
5. Continuous Engagement

Exploration & Evaluation

A critical step in the decision-making process for a new consumer to buy your product or service. Thus, it is critical that all pertinent information be communicated to the prospective consumer in a comprehensible manner in order for him or her to be convinced enough to continue with the purchase. Today’s consumers have a plethora of alternatives. To effectively compete, you must have a good understanding of your client base. Utilize this knowledge to segment your consumers methodically and deliver essential product/service difference in a customized digital experience. This is the critical point at which the prospect converts to a customer and you complete the sale.

Buying Experience

All of the hard work of persuading the buyer about your product/service has already been done; the next step is to provide an excellent purchasing experience. This may get complex at times, since there may be certain standards that must be fulfilled before a product or service can be offered to a consumer ( Ex: Successful KYC is needed for banking & insurance products).You must guarantee that the excellent experience the consumer has had so far is not ruined and that they get an equally excellent onboarding experience. Any new innovation at this stage (buying) will contribute significantly to overall efficiency of increasing conversions, reducing costs, or providing an excellent customer experience for a long time to come.

Adoption

Adoption does not end with the sale; it starts at just that point. Customers must use your product/service continually in order to uncover its value. It is critical to empower / educate your consumers about your product / service through ‘help manuals,’ ‘how to videos,’ or other digital ways. To continue to profit from the product, companies must monitor use patterns and capitalise on the most often used features while improving the least frequently used aspects.

Customer Service & Support

One of the most significant advantages of digitalization has been the realization of the concept of omnipresence (anywhere, anytime). Digital purchasing experiences have enabled consumers to purchase from any location and at any time, creating a new income generating potential for businesses. However, if customer service and support experiences are not taken care appropriately, all of the benefits may simply be undone. Customers should also be able to get help from any location and at any time.

Continuous Engagement

Digitalization has created a one-of-a-kind opportunity for you to effortlessly deliver new goods and services to your end consumers. However, client expectations are also rapidly changing. Organizations must constantly improve and extend their core products and services. Customer experience should be measured, monitored and improvised continuously

While categorizing client journeys into distinct buckets may not be the answer in and of itself, it may instantly offer you with the capability to properly monitor and treat a specific area where there may be challenges.

It’s a Journey !

There are no surprises here; you would have deduced this before. A successful digital consumer experience is a journey, not a destination. The play here is undoubtedly long term, but we can also claim some small winners from time to time. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind on your journey.

• Build Capability
• Focus on Critical Customer Journeys
• Launch & Learn
• Sustainable Talent Pool

Build Capability

At times, the rapidity with which changes occur might be unsettling. We develop our systems and platforms to endure decades in order to get the required return on investment, and therefore, they must be secured against future shocks. It is critical for firms to define a roadmap for their digital transformation journey. One common solution is to establish a Digital CoE (Center of Excellence) to oversee the following competencies.

• Foundational capabilities – Reference architecture, Infrastructure capabilities etc.
• Core business journeys  – Current customer experience, Omni-channel experience etc.
• Emerging possibilities – AI, ML, Blockchain etc.

Focus on Critical Customer Journeys

Where is the maximum bang for the buck? It might be in the form of a new customer journey or in the form of correcting / augmenting an existing one, but identify them and prioritize them above the others. A prioritized list significantly improves the clarity of the entire strategy. Establish a system for collecting constant feedback from clients on existing journeys, which will aid in reorganizing your priority list.

Launch & Learn

Launch and learn from the experience. Customer centricity is a cardinal tenet of any successful client experience; hence, you will need to prepare for customer inputs and optimize the customer journey appropriately. It’s likely that numerous iterations will be necessary before you find the correct chord. So, do not delay…Let us launch and hear from the customers.

Sustainable Talent Pool

Last but not least. You would need to cultivate a talent pool steeped in high performance. This is easier said than done, yet your organization is only as good as your people. Hiring , Outsourcing , Grooming talent – Look at different strategies or combination of them to create a high performing team.

I had intended to create a healthy debate on Digital Customer Experience and by no means tried to be exhaustive. Please chip in with your comments and feedback at ramesh@digid.ai

Digid is Digital Onboarding and ID Verification Solution. With Digid, we help organization create a great customer experience for onboarding their customers while securely validating customer’s identity.