The way people interact with your brand matters, and it’s important to think about the journey they take from initial interest to final purchase. In fact, the customer experience should inform every decision your company makes.
According to one report, businesses that focus on optimizing the customer experience (CX) can see up to an 80% increase in revenue.
Before you invest in new technology across your enterprise, consider how that technology could enable customer journey digitization. In other words, while you’re bolstering your own capabilities, you can be empowering your customers at the same time.
Today, we’re sharing a few tips to help you realize all the customer-related benefits of digital transformation.
How to Succeed at Customer Journey Digitization
1. Keep a Customer Focus
When you’re pursuing a digital transformation, it’s easy to lose track of the bigger picture. You can become so hyper-focused on vendor qualifications and technical specifications that you forget the customer side of the change.
As you roll out your implementation, remember that every decision should point back to the customer.
We recommend using advanced data analytics (if you already have those capabilities) to learn more about your target audience and the CX features they prefer. As you gather these insights, be sure to consider all angles of your customers’ perspectives so you can understand the true business value that new technology can deliver.
The 2024 Top 10 ERP Systems Report
What vendors are considering for your ERP implementation? This list is a helpful starting point.
2. Map an Optimized Customer Journey
What would a world-class customer journey look like at your organization? For many business leaders, it would mean a complete overhaul of their existing network. This can be a sobering realization to make, especially if you’ve spent years incrementally updating your systems and processes.
Digital transformation requires you to look beyond the here and now. Simply upgrading your tech isn’t the answer.
It’s easy to pour time and money into sophisticated systems that do nothing to improve your CX. Instead, think about what your customers really want and how they’re already interacting with your brand.
A business process improvement consultant can help you map your current and future-state customer journey. You can use those insights to inform new technology investments.
3. Make it Personal
You can’t over-personalize the customer journey. Studies show that more than 70% of people feel frustrated when their shopping experience feels impersonal, and nearly 75% prefer website content to be customized to their needs.
If you can deliver on those expectations, you will see improved customer loyalty in return.
Digital marketing systems allow you to capture and learn as much as possible about each buyer. This way, you can tailor your content and tweak your strategy to appeal to them on a personal level.
When researching CX solutions, prioritize ones that can automate customer data analysis, so your teams don’t have to do it on their own.
4. Involve the Customer
Designing a great customer journey isn’t one-sided. Rather, it actively involves the buyer and allows them to become an integral part of the planning process.
Sometimes, it isn’t enough to simply put yourself in your buyers’ shoes and use archived data to brainstorm what they want or how they’d act at a certain touchpoint. You may need to bring them into your boardroom to hear their perspectives firsthand. This can be especially helpful if you’re in the beginning stages of redesigning a process.
Such focus group activities should be performed in-house rather than outsourced to a third-party contractor. This way, project teams can hear opinions and feedback firsthand and use those insights to make smarter decisions.
5. Create a Culture of Change
Digital transformations cannot succeed in an anti-change environment. This is true whether you’re implementing an ERP system, SCM system, manufacturing ERP software, or any other type of enterprise software.
A culture that embraces and supports change is willing to pivot when necessary. Employees feel like active participants in the project rather than helpless bystanders. They’re less likely to resist new technology, and they look for ways to continually improve current processes.
Yet, a few inspired individuals can’t get there on their own. You need an active and involved C-suite to lead your digital transformation. This means a C-suite that encourages employee buy-in and participates in a steering committee that makes sure the job gets done. Only when you achieve this internal alignment can you turn your attention outward and start focusing on what the customer wants.
6. Capture Real-Time Insights
Customers change their minds, as well as their preferences, on a regular basis. Knowing this, don’t rely on old data to inform new project decisions. You need the ability to capture customer insights in real-time, right when they occur.
While there will always be a place for traditional marketing research, companies are now turning to artificial intelligence (AI) technology to get close to their customers.
For instance, chatbots can help uncover customer pain points as they occur. These bots use text and/or voice to communicate with customers, understand the support issues they have, and guide them toward a solution.
Businesses can use chatbot data to understand where their processes need improvement and what their customers are talking about. This information is readily accessible as soon as it’s captured, which means less reliance on historical data, which may have changed over time.
Do You Understand the Customer Journey?
To deliver profitable, long-lasting results, a digital transformation shouldn’t solely focus on improving internal operations. It should also center on customer journey digitization and understanding the features your audience needs.
By keeping an outward-focused perspective, project teams can ensure that every decision they make will improve both in-house workflows and the greater CX.
Our business process management consultants understand customer journey mapping and how to identify opportunities for improving the customer experience. Contact us below for a free consultation.
