Heading a customer experience (CX) transformation can trigger a lot of anxiety. A lot of CIOs and business leaders hesitate to even begin because they are overwhelmed by many challenges of kickstarting change across virtually every silo in the organization. But this reluctance creates major risks for the business. The recent disruptions are compelling companies to change how they connect with and serve customers. Those that fail to meet the rising needs of customers will quickly be left behind. Statistics show that companies that prioritized customer needs and experiences realize three times the returns compared to those that did not. The time for action is now.
The good news is that there is a sure-sort way of driving customer-experience transformations. It encompasses three steps across fundamental building blocks: establish a clearly defined aspiration and goal, build an agile integration approach, and design a strategy for thoughtful deployment of new capabilities, especially self-service.
By carefully merging all three building blocks, enterprises can easily beat the competition. Let’s delve into these bocks in detail.
Build Aspiration and Goal
To drive successful customer-experience transformation, the first step is to align on a crisp definition of the kind of experience users want to deliver. On defining a set of aspirations, they must keep their purpose and brand promise in mind. A lot of companies have aligned their aspirations with these facets. For example, Nike seeks to deliver experiences that are highly inspirational, Starbucks looks to offer the value that’s nurturing and healthy, and BMW looks to provide the ultimate driving experience.
Many of the top-notch companies employ quantitative research and statistical analysis to base their decisions in facts about what their customer wants so they can define a successful CX strategy.
Take Agile Integration Approach
Once they have prioritized the experiences with the highest potential impact on customer behavior, CX leaders identify the internal processes and capabilities they require to substantially reimagine them. What they need is a powerful data integration platform that can harness the true potential of customers.
These modern technological solutions help users design a road map to success and innovation. By integrating customer data into a unified database, users can comprehend their needs faster. As companies gain a deeper understanding of their customer’s requirements, they can take actions to fulfil them on time. This helps them deliver delightful experiences and ultimately value at the speed of business.
Related White Paper: Reimagine your Customer Data Integration
Deploy Self-Service Capabilities
When users are reimagining their data integration approach, deploying solutions that proffer self-service capabilities can be of significant benefit. Integration platforms that are coupled with self-service functionalities put the onus on non-technical business users instead of IT teams to handle large volumes of customer data with ease and speed. They can use intuitive screens and user-friendly dashboards to keep track of the data of customers. And with the help of pre-built applications connectors, they can rapidly create data connections and directly exchange information with myriad applications.
Leveraging these solutions make IT productive to boot. Because the power of integration is given to the users, IT teams can be freed to focus on more high-value tasks, driving innovation and growth.
Companies that fail to keep these three points in mind are not able to implement on their comprehensive CX-transformation road maps, inhibiting growth and value. By creating aspirations and deploying transformative technological solutions, companies can bring outstanding value to their customers and deliver on their brand promise.
In the new normal, customer experience is a competitive advantage. It’s only when companies commit to these three building blocks of a CX transformation that they can gain an edge over their competitors in this age of disruption.