Digital Engagement and the New Consumer
In the “age of the customer,” power has shifted from large, established brands to the digital consumer. Technology-led disruption is eroding traditional competitive barriers such as manufacturing strength and distribution power. As these barriers to entry dissolve, a laser-like focus on the customer has become a strategic imperative. Only the organizations that deliver engaging experiences will dominate their markets.
Today’s customers are empowered buyers. They have information at their fingertips to check prices, read product reviews and ask peers for advice. They demand more from the brands they love. No longer confined by time and location, brand experiences must be immediate, relevant and seamless across all channels. Exceptional customer experience is the key differentiator that will deliver competitive advantage now and into the future.
By 2020, organizations that deliver exceptional digital experiences will have a competitive advantage. To get there, enterprises must digitize the entire customer journey—from initial interest to purchase and support. They also need to extract value from customer information, optimize and personalize the delivery of this information, and manage it securely. In a customer-centric era, brands must deliver compelling experiences created through the contextual understanding of their customers, while adhering to established information governance policies and standards.
The Empowered Digital Consumer
Customer experience is the sum of all experiences that occur in the relationship between a consumer and an organization. The ideal experience delivers relevant content, products and services across multiple touch points in a consistent way.
Disruptive digital technologies have introduced new channels for content distribution and consumption, including a complex landscape that gives customers instant access to information from websites, apps, mobile and wearable devices, sensors, and social networks. Mobile devices, in particular, are revolutionizing the digital experience and pushing the limits of engagement. According to research, mobile platforms make up 60% of total digital media time spent last year, with mobile devices accounting for one in four online purchases.
As mobile retail becomes commonplace, mobile payment and mobile financial services will become integral to the functions of financial institutions, banks and global retailers. Digital banking cards will be embedded in mobile devices and used by 70% of physical bank-card users. In addition to card readers, QR codes and near field communications (NFC)—a wireless communications technology that enables mobile devices to communicate based on proximity—will increasingly enable payments using just a SIM card. In the future, NFC will expand to support other uses, including identification, transportation and ticketing.
Mobile shoppers present a huge opportunity for marketers to support the complete customer journey. From consumers comparing prices and making purchases on their handheld devices, to rating their experiences and joining an online community to share reviews, mobile commerce is empowering customers and providing the enterprise with new ways to engage with their audiences.
The Value of Customer Data
Customer journeys are based on data collected across various touch points, transactions, interactions, social media sites and devices. Analyzing this data leads to customer insights—and these must be tied back to actions that drive automated, internal processes and the delivery of content and services. This should all happen in real time, in response to customer requirements to influence their decisions at the moment of need.
Effectively managing customer data is critical to optimizing the customer journey. If an organization can predict customer behavior, it has a better chance at delivering what a customer expects. In these contextualized experiences, the needs and buying behaviors of consumers are anticipated to offer personalized information and location-based products or services at the most opportune moments to buy. To deliver a contextual experience, organizations use tools that combine historical (buying behavior), situational (geo-location) and demographic (profile-based) data. Relevant content is delivered based on preference, past behavior and the device consumers are using, giving organizations opportunities to build brand loyalty and long-term relationships with customers.
By 2020, the digital enterprise will focus on creating a compelling brand experience at every touch point using omni-channel delivery, responsive design, digitization of the customer journey and consolidation of “customer big data” across the enterprise. Customer insight will be supported by designated teams, technologies and budgets. Digital enterprises will look for data-literacy skill-sets that can be used to analyze and interpret data with integrated tools to support the entire buying process. Customer big data will be hoarded and protected as an asset as it grows to a key differentiator. To gain the coveted 360-degree view of the customer, digital enterprises must manage all their customer information securely using a customer experience management (CEM) solution to maximize its potential and minimize risk.
CEM Creates Value across the Customer Journey
To deliver a seamless end-to-end experience across touch points, the digital enterprise will need to integrate front- and back-office technologies and processes with a comprehensive enterprise information management (EIM) approach that incorporates CEM technologies. As part of a comprehensive EIM strategy, a CEM solution helps business leaders turn unstructured data sources into levers of competitive advantage and profitability.
The key to sales and marketing success in 2020 will depend on an organization’s ability to leverage all available data and use it to better understand the customer to deliver compelling experiences. A CEM platform helps create deeper digital engagement across devices and channels with software applications including content analytics, semantic analysis, Web content management, social media, digital asset management and customer communications. These technologies combine to deliver a seamless experience, without sacrificing information governance or compliance.
In 2020, the digital enterprise will consolidate its customer experience solutions on a single engagement platform. As part of a foundational, enterprise-wide information strategy, smart organizations will use CEM to drive a customer-centric strategy to create high-touch, digital experiences that are consistent and personalized, capturing the customer when and where they want to engage—to surprise and delight at every turn.
Learn more at www.opentext.com/orchestrateexperiences.