Is Customer Experience Only the Tip of the Iceberg?
We're often told that the best way to create advocacy and brand loyalty through business websites is by providing a vibrant, engaging customer experience. The benefits of creating compelling content and making it available on multiple devices and platforms have been well documented. But is content creation and delivery only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to producing dynamic, customer-facing digital experiences and is the ability to provide engaging, high quality customer experience not far more complex than it appears?
Content management system (CMS) selection is one of the most strategic technology decisions any business can make. What few realize is that, by selecting a CMS that does not provide a good fit with their objectives, businesses can struggle to attract, engage and retain customers. It's worth remembering that there's no point in developing personalized, cutting-edge content if you do not get it to the right customer, in the right channel, and in the right context.
Choosing the right CMS for you and your business ensures that this connection is made by allowing compelling content to be shared through the right blend of design, usability, strategy and tonality. For many, the customer experience is all about the front end, meaning "what" is delivered to customers in terms of content and channel. However, we shouldn't forget that the back end experience of the editor or content creator, developer and integrator, is also key when it comes to creating engaging websites. The front-end experience can only be exceptional if the back-end experience is exceptional for the user, too. They are all ensuring a quick time-to-market, and a fast implementation of new features and functionalities that help provide state-of-the art online experiences for customers, ensuring companies reach their corporate objectives in communication and conversion goals.
What a CMS Needs to Deliver
Any CMS worth its salt must provide both back-end and front-end users with excellent usability and thus create a positive global user experience—"global" not only in the sense of worldwide, but also for all user groups along the digital experience supply chain, from developers, system integrators and content creators to customers. Indeed, perhaps the principle reason that some companies struggle or fail to deliver the experience their customers are looking for is that the CMS simply doesn't provide the ease-of-use required delivering it. There are so many (Web) technologies ?evolving these days, including e-commerce platforms, analytics, portals, CRM, MAM and the likes, that no CMS suites can provide them all in the same quality the specialists can. To avoid this scenario, it is imperative that CMS users must be able to work with best-of-breed tools and functions and incorporate all of them inside their CMS of choice in order to provide a worthwhile customer experience.
Put simply, great customer experiences are delivered when a CMS goes above and beyond what you might expect and instead acts as a hub or an integration platform. By integrating all of the individual best systems, a CMS can allow for ease-of-use, efficiency and speed at the back end, and an enhanced experience for customers at the front end.
Today, if customer experience is only the tip of the iceberg for online success, then more focus is needed on the other aspects that lie beneath the surface. What's clear is that although they might not be immediately visible, all elements and users of the CMS play an important role in delivering memorable, lasting and impactful experiences for customer experience and businesses results.
For deeper insights, download the white paper "Beyond Customer Experience Management-What your CMS really needs to deliver" at www.e-Spirit.com/uxpaper
e-Spirit is the developer of the FirstSpirit CMS. Unlike traditional Web content management systems, FirstSpirit is designed for open integration with existing IT infrastructure as well as cloud applications. It offers renowned usability together with full multichannel output capabilities including digital, mobile and print.