Guest Blog: Rolling Ahead of the Game with Digital Customer Experience

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post Shaista Haque writes about a very timely topic, the digital customer experience. Digital experiences are starting to mirror in-person experiences and you better be monitoring your digital customers now!  – Shep Hyken

Scenario 1: Mr. Henry forgot his Internet banking password and is facing issue logging in to his account. He picks up his phone and calls the customer service department. He has been put in queue due to peak hour. After waiting for long time and being transferred to different departments, Mr. Henry loses his cool and disconnects the call.

Scenario 2: Mr. Henry forgot his internet banking password and clicks on the forgot password option. He receives an automated email from his bank on the registered email id to reset his password. He is directed to a web page where he gets the option to create a new password and thereafter his issue gets resolved.

Which scenario looks better to you?

Obviously, scenario 2 is better than the first case where Mr. Henry got delighted with the impeccable experience provided to him. We all at some point in our life interact with a customer help desk to get our queries resolved but are we still relying on the traditional calling system? Or do we still have the patience of staying on hold for speaking to service agents?

Let me tell you the basic rule of excelling in the game of customer experience – “Digital strategy is the need of the hour and if you don’t have it, then you do not have a strategy at all.” Providing superior digital customer service through advanced technology is what organizations should aim at. Digital technologies are disrupting business models and changing customers’ expectations.

Digital revolution has provided brands with the power to engage with more relevant and targeted audience. Organizations with the help of customer engagement technology can now map the customer’s’ journey and record their buying experience through analytics and other platforms. The digital enablement has changed the way businesses communicate. Organizations now understand the importance of delivering true omnichannel experience by taking 360 degree view of customer interactions. The customer engagement technology has enabled businesses to capture huge amount of customer interaction data through various number of channels and applications. The captured data can be used to go beyond traditional engagement programs. This will help the organizations in developing granular understanding of segment behaviour, needs, expectations and buying preferences of potential customers.

The digital savvy customers have aggravated the concept of delight and raised the bar for satisfaction standards. Customers today have become the forefront of any organization. Previously, service departments completely focused on the unichannel mode of communication, where the customers interacted with brands through a single channel- phone. The tech-savvy millennials today expect more and seek for seamless and consistent customer experience online. Studies show that “67% of online buyers have made purchases that involve multiple channels in the past 6 months.” Thus the shift in consumer behaviour and buying preferences has created an environment where omnichannel mode has conquered the world of interactions.

Here are a few ways through which brands can ensure that their digital customer experience is on track to deliver great results.

Analyze Customer Analytics Data: Organizations seeking towards building a great user experience have understood the importance of digital darwinism. Customer analytics data consisting of speech and text interaction captured through customer engagement technology can be used for understanding the consumer demographics and buying behaviour. Based on the gathered information, brands can understand their buyer personas and can accordingly ideate on their strategies for creating seamless experience across all channels of interactions.

Create Customer Engagement Plan: Organizations aiming towards providing unified experience on various platforms need to build their customer outreach and engagement plan. From the very beginning, organizations need to be clear about their objectives. Customer engagement plan should be in synchronization with variety of different purposes for different industries. The main focus of brands should lie on increasing conversions and revenue to acquire new customers for creating brand advocates. A well designed engagement plan provides customers with a platform to express their user experience. For instance, customers can express their experience with a brand through social media, voice, text and other online assistance channels. This helps in letting the customers experience the power of true omnichannel availability of the brand. With the useful information received, brands can nurture customer loyalty and improve their business efficiency.

Set Rules of Engagement: After creating a full proof plan, organizations need to set rules for their engagement strategy. These rules define the customer journey and ultimately help the organizations to build customer loyalty. Creating positive customer experience that has great impact on overall satisfaction level is one of the basic rules that organizations need to follow. Also personalizing communications can help in reflecting a cohesive strategy and brand voice.

“With Digital transformation the consumer, rather than the technology, is in the driver’s seat, and this matters.” – Forbes

Thus, in today’s business environment being digitally innovative is the key to transformation and sustainable growth.

Shaista Haque is a marketing enthusiast at Ameyo. She is extremely passionate about B2B marketing strategies for products that harness the web and social media as customer channels. Armed with this information, she writes about latest industry technologies and how it benefits organizations from small scale to global enterprises. Connect with Shaista on Twitter and LinkedIn.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com .

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article: Are You (And Your Industry) Ready And Willing To Be Disrupted?

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