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Written By: Colin Shaw | Beyond Philosophy
In case you missed it, the world has gone online!
If you haven’t gone online with your Customer Experience, too, it’s time. To be honest, if you haven’t begun, you’re late. The digital transformation of your present Customer Experience is long overdue.
Consider this graph of which devices customers use at home:
Nearly everyone has a computer or smartphone, and close to three-quarters have a tablet. All of these connected devices are delivering Digital Customer Experiences. This chart makes it all too clear just how critical the impression your digital presence makes on your Customer.
In our Customer Experience Consultancy, we see a few common errors made by organizations as it pertains to their digital transformation. Here are the top six:
- Letting the bottom line dictate the end product. Most digital transformations occur to save costs not improve the Customer Experience. However, this approach is short-sighted. When you frustrate and annoy a customer online these days, they are just two clicks away from having a social media heyday with your brand reputation. In fact, 59% of 25-34-year-olds share bad experiences online, and 58% of customers won’t come back after a negative Customer Experience.
- Most corporate apps are clunky, not Customer-centric. Most corporations lack the technical skills to produce a slick app. In other words, corporate apps are, for the most part, clunky. They are not, for the most part, customer-centric in their approach. Why? IT develops the apps. IT people, for the most part, are not the most customer-centric individuals in the world.
- Not everyone believes. No matter how many times you present your vision for your digital transformation plan, there remain those in your organization that just don’t feel it. They prefer to operate as they always have and consider “all that online stuff” not part of their department. Eventually, they silo themselves off from the rest of the company. This result is destructive to the goal of the digital transformation; it should look across the enterprise—all of it.
- Everyone is doing it. No matter what your company does, there’s an app for that. However, many of these apps are a waste of time and precious phone storage! Consider the apps that you download for when you have a car accident. The average driver will have an accident every 17.9 years. So…why do we need an app on our phones for an occasion that may or may not happen once every 17.9 years?
- Missing an opportunity to reinvent. We see this all the time as Customer Experience Consultants. The digital transformation only replaces the existing process with a digital process and makes all the same mistakes the current process does (operationally focused instead of customer-focused user experience). However, it is a missed opportunity. This process is a chance to start again with new, customer-centric thinking.
- Not thinking outside the square. New ideas are paramount to a great Digital Customer Experience, particularly if your physical Customer Experience needs some work. This means thinking outside the square. We worked with an insurance company. We reduced their steps of the customer journey from 24 steps down to four steps by employing new patterns and approaches.
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So what can we do differently?
As Customer Experience consultants, here are some areas we have identified as common opportunities organizations have in their Digital Transformation for their Customer Experience:
- View the process as an opportunity to create a great Customer Experience and start again, not just more of the same.
- Use your digital transformation like a Trojan horse; to get people in your organization thinking about putting the customer first and other important Customer Experience concepts.
- Make the digital experience easy.
- Reduce costs from other departments using the boon of technology.
- Cut through silos and bring them on board with the transformation.
- Employ integration and Omni channel approach to present a consistent Customer Experience, whether they are online, on the phone, or on the show floor with you.