The pandemic made us more reliant than ever before on digital transactions and interactions, we have turned to digital for our social needs and for workplace solutions, and where in person we would once spend our money, we have seen a huge increase in online commerce.
Think of those friends and family who have needed to adopt technology like video calling, and devices to maintain communication, where before they would have had real life, in person interactions. The vast majority of clothing and technology retail closed their physical stores during the lockdowns, so online purchases were necessary for people who might otherwise have only felt comfortable purchasing these items in person. These interactions weren’t and continue to not be one way. The customer experience received from brands needs to be just as good if not better than what the customer expects in a physical store, and technology now allows it to exceed beyond basic transactional interactions, in order to achieve brand loyalty, and gain return custom.
As we start to see some semblance of normality returning to our lives, it is interesting to see the change in expectations of customers, now that they have become used to a more heavily digitised experience. What we see from this is that brand experience for the customer is going to be a huge factor in deciding whether or not they return for future purchases, the reviews they leave, and the inclination to recommend the brand, to become an advocate. To accomplish an amazing brand experience, you need customer data to understand what customers want and expect from you.
To access and download the customer research report that informed this article and to learn to learn more fascinating insights on this topic, click here.
What makes a good customer experience, and is good, good enough anymore?
This is not just retail experience, transactions and interactions go beyond the monetary. I’m reminded of the saying, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel” – Carl W. Buehner. Communications that customers receive must be contextually relevant. Customers like the personalised approach if it helps them through the purchase process, so brands should be treating their prospects as if they know them, anticipate their needs, and reward them to make them feel as though their company actually cares about them. Like the title says, touchpoints are moments that matter.
A good experience is not disjointed, and if these touchpoints are handled poorly, it can be devastating to retention. Imagine a customer waiting for a response to an issue with a product, they probably won’t appreciate an email with new product releases or discount codes shortly after their full price, previous model has just broken and they’re struggling to navigate an automated phone system. And a customer waiting for a delayed flight likely won’t be thrilled to receive a flight sale push notification while their phone battery slowly drains in the airport with mysteriously few electrical sockets. The overriding message here is that personalisation is key to keeping customer loyalty.
What investments can be made to implement these positive changes?
Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 CJO can help avoid these mishaps and enable your brand to personalise to each customer’s journey using machine learning, to give a customer focused experience.
“By strategically using event triggers you can break down silos between business functions. Gone are the days of tone-deaf, disconnected communications from different departments, now you can deliver a congruous end-to-end experience for each of your customers.”
– Alex Holt, Strategic Consulting Director, Edit.
We must attempt to understand our customers, we recommend that brands audit their customer touchpoints to see what data they are gathering. Using this information Edit can target business outcomes into data “asks” – identifying the key data that is needed to either allow a customer journey to happen or a KPI to be measured.
Next, exploring the customer journey allows us to define touchpoints, the key triggers, expected responses, and content requirements. We can then orchestrate how we can approach it, for example, rather than responding to customer interactions on a one-to-one basis, changes could be made to the team structure – are teams structured around specific products, or specific marketing channels, or specific customer segments?
In order to fully engage with the customer, brands need to consider how to integrate with systems that may be controlling the delivery of a communication – e.g., social media sites, advertising networks, websites, emails etc. We want to deliver tailored content to people in the channels that matter to them, this means that content must be optimised to channels.
We need to consider how interactions can be detected, to increase customer understanding (by understanding what communications they engage with and do not, what channels they operate in etc.) and to support being able to plot customer journeys across interactions. Then we can begin to understand the overall journey and the impact individual channels, experiences and marketing have on conversion and goals.
In summary, the technology used is just one part of the solution, the challenge remains in organising around the customer, mapping journeys, changing ways of working and business processes.
To access and download the customer research report that informed this article and to learn more fascinating insights on this topic, click here.
If you think your brand could benefit from Edit solving your data, marketing, or technology challenges, please reach out to us here.
