Transforming the Customer Experience
Buyers demand an experience where cross functions work seamlessly.
To win in today’s market companies across industries need to prioritize the customer experience in everything they do, not just in sales, but in marketing, services and increasingly even their business model and even business model. It requires a rethinking of how you go-to-market and engage customers throughout their purchasing journey. And for companies looking to transform the customer experience (CX), digital is no longer “optional.”
Optimizing the Customer Journey With a Customer-Centric Digital Experience
Digital technology has changed how companies conduct business and how customers interact with the businesses they patronize. However, accurate predictions of change are rare. Early technology had limitations, and many organizations were cautious as they began adding to their digital infrastructures. Many had or continue to use silo-based IT infrastructures where customers interact with the organization using numerous separate channels, each with its own employees, procedures and technology.
Distributing customer interactions across numerous touchpoints creates problems. The overall experience can feel out of sync when interactions vary across the touchpoints that customers consider important, such as placing orders, paying bills or requesting technical assistance. CX transformation aims to align business processes around a unified set of methods, technology and goals.
Repositioning Your Business for Success
A successful CX transformation drives customer engagement earlier in the process, increases conversions and improves customer retention by ensuring the customer is able to engage with you when and how they want.
CX transformation prioritizes customer-centric shifts in four key aspects of the business:
- Goals: Analyze your company’s vision and strategies to achieve it.
- Personnel: Align your digital channels by focusing your employees on a customer-centric program.
- Processes: Structure processes to focus on the customer in order to boost performance.
- Digital: Implement new cross-compatible systems that unify digital touchpoints, moving away from fragmented technology that detracts from CX.
Benefits of CX Transformation
Reorienting your business’s approach to prioritizing customer experience is a smart investment of time and capital:
- Customer satisfaction and retention: Customers notice when a business puts them first. They will appreciate your willingness and ability to provide useful information, direct them toward helpful resources and facilitate a smooth experience with your digital platforms. As a result, they will be more likely to return.
- Employee engagement and retention: Encouraging inter-departmental collaboration around a common mission can help your staff feel connected with the company, and they’ll want to be a part of its future.
- Financial gains: CX transformation helps your revenue organization engage prospects earlier in the process, convert leads and grow customer relationships.
- Service cost reductions: Improving your ability to respond to customers’ needs will help you optimize your business processes and employee performance. Your team will find satisfactory solutions faster so you can optimize every business day.
- Dexterity: A CX transformation will uncover data that helps you continually satisfy customers with products, services, digital capabilities and other offerings that meet their always-evolving needs.
Implementing CX Change in Your Organization
CX transformation includes four essential steps.
- Align Top Management
Key leaders within your organization need to work together to put the customer at the center of business goals. Reorientation may require significant change to your vision and how you hope to achieve it. Exercise attention to detail when assessing your company’s goals, practices and messaging so you can find areas for improvement.
- Perpetuate the New Culture
With executive leadership buy-in for a customer-centric vision, you can now solidify that mission within your business’s culture. Make your organization’s new identity part of job descriptions, employee newsletters, office décor and team events. Then, reward employees who successfully carry out your customer-centric mission in their performance.
- Optimize the Customer Journey
Assessing the customer journey is a way to further improve vital processes. Identify the functions that they find the most important along their journey, such as opening an account, submitting a payment, resolving a technical issue or requesting details on a product or service. Then, investigate the ones your customers use most frequently, the devices they use to access them and ways you can design them to improve digital cohesion.
Now, it’s time to enact change. If necessary, update your IT infrastructure to enable internal collaboration and ensure smooth transitions along each step of the customer journey. You have an opportunity to experiment, consider customer feedback and change your approach accordingly.
- Use Customer Insights to Improve Your Processes
Your business should collect real-time data regarding customer needs and habits as they pertain to the customer journey. This way, you can establish a feedback loop that encourages ongoing improvement.
Audit your technology and processes to ensure they promote smooth transitions between points along the journey. Customers should easily find what they are looking for and receive useful assistance from your customer service team when necessary.
Why Is CX Necessary in the Age of Digital Transformation?
CX transformation helps improve sales, customer satisfaction, employee engagement and long-term flexibility. During a CX transformation, your business will reorient its vision, strategies, internal processes and technology to facilitate the optimal customer experience.
Implementing a CX transformation strategy requires top-down alignment around customer-centric goals. Similarly, all digital channels must synchronize and enable collaboration between departments. You will also have the customer’s needs in mind as you experiment with new ways to improve their journey. CX transformation is an ongoing process, so be ready to adjust as you collect new customer data.
Uncover More CX Insights With Alexander Group
CX transformation can yield tremendous benefits for your organization, but many businesses lack the resources to handle the process independently. Alexander Group partners with you to deliver a customer-centric transformation that optimizes the journey across numerous channels. We bring proven methodologies and a rich repository of data to help you drive CX transformation and lead to a greater return on your investment.
Alexander Group hosts numerous events and produces expert insights to help further your organization’s mission. Contact us for more on CX transformation and other services.
