Delivering a great customer experience is hard. There are so many factors that go into creating a great customer experience including strategy, culture, processes, technology and organisational structure. Customer expectations are constantly rising – and what’s seen as exceptional service today, may not be the exceptional service of tomorrow. Businesses need to keep innovating and improving their service, or risk being left behind.
Ecosystm’s recent Digital CX Study found 41% of customers want better integration of digital and physical experiences and 37% have a continuous desire for a better customer experience. The same survey highlighted that 60% of businesses reported using design thinking to improve processes and 47% were investing more in customer experience technologies.
Speaking at a recent event SugarConnected, Tim Sheedy, Principal Advisor at Ecosystm, said, “The battle for the hearts and minds of the customer is kicking into a new gear as digital laggards in Australia strive to close the gap on the leaders, while the leaders are taking steps to get and stay ahead. The challenge today is that customers expect a great experience – so just offering a good experience isn’t enough. We need to build and continuously improve digital and physical customer experiences that are personalised, memorable and consistent.”
The need for continuous improvement
The key to staying ahead, according to Tim, is to approach digital transformation and customer experience innovation as a series of incremental steps and to embrace continuous improvement. Rather than viewing CX and digital transformation as one-off projects, it’s about adopting an ongoing and long-term approach to improve processes, products and services.
Tim warns that the gap between the digital ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in Australia will continue to grow. For Australian organisations to stay ahead of the game, they need to invest in agile processes and modern technology. He advises, “companies have to do much more than just invest in the right technology, they have to address their culture, KPIs, skills and processes too. If Australian companies don’t invest now in playing catch up the gap will become too wide to close in a couple of years and lead to more liquidation and collapse.”
Company structure, legacy technology, and data silos are holding numerous organisations back. Organisations can be plagued with functional and data silos across their business operations. Each team works in isolation from the other teams, unable or unwilling to work together or share customer data. Silos can greatly weaken your CX strategy and hamper your ability to provide a connected customer journey.
Structure your business around your customers
Traditional enterprises are structured around products and managing their costs. The companies that are surviving and thriving in today’s environment have managed to restructure themselves around the customer. “These companies have started to structure themselves around the customer and the customer journey. So, all the people who impact a particular customer experience sit in the same team, with the same KPIs, the same metrics: all driving towards the same outcomes.
“If you look at REA for example, they have an IT team that manages desktops and a tiny bit of infrastructure. But all of their developers, all their architects, and all their security, are out sitting in the product and the customer teams. So, you alleviate the need to try and coordinate separate teams with their own KPIs, processes, and siloed data systems.”
Tim argues there isn’t a “secret sauce” and there is nothing digital innovators are doing in Australia that cannot be replicated. Tim says the proven market innovators at the moment include WooliesX, CommBank’s world leading chat bot, REA and Sportsbet. He stresses that more Australian companies need to leverage the power of solutions like AI that can do the learning and research for you and deliver fast customer insights and intelligence and embrace tools that help them enable high-definition customer experiences.
Digital-first
Most customer journeys these days start online or via a digital channel. It’s why brands are prioritising digital experiences and adopting what’s referred to as a digital-first mindset. Digital-first does not mean digital exclusively, Ecosystm’s research highlights that customers want better integration of digital and physical experiences.
Whether your organisation is a digital ‘have’ or ‘have not’ will dramatically impact your ability to provide your customers with a great experience. Tim advises that around 38% of Australian organisations are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic with many looking to improve customer experience as the means to fast-track their recovery. For those that don’t invest now and let themselves fall further behind their competitors may face a very dark future.