5 Rules of the Digital Transformation of Customer Services

In case you haven’t noticed, the primary characteristics of a competitive advantage for your organisation have shifted as companies go online and your domain becomes instantaneously worldwide.

The conventional methods of dominating distribution channels, saturating retail, and methodically growing your brand recognition are no longer effective. The true goal is to consistently win large customer preference.

Consumers have evolved. Consumers today have high expectations, immediate needs, and are self-sufficient. Furthermore, they desire an engaging omnichannel experience as well as significant brand interactions. To appeal to today’s digital consumer, new rules must be followed, and an eclectic combination of old and new marketing methods will be required.

Customers Expect a Personalized Experience

Features, availability, and brand are only the starting point. Customers today swiftly move past these and place a competitive priority on the experience of others, as represented in reviews and social media, as well as their own overall experience with your sales process, delivery, returns, and assistance on their timetable.

Luckily, putting the customer first is already at the center of many organizations’ strategy.

According to IDC research, two-thirds of CEOs of Global 2,000 companies will shift their focus from traditional, offline strategies to more modern digital strategies to improve customer experience by the end of the year, with 34% of companies believing they’ll fully adopt digital transformation within 12 months or less, explaining the increase in digital spending.

Before Covid-19, consumer expectations were already on the rise. Technology was smoothly integrated into the life of Generation Z. Because they were particularly adept with our personal data, direct-to-consumer companies (such as Glossier or Parachute) were already teaching us to expect a level of hyper-personalisation.

However, when the coronavirus struck, digital transition accelerated dramatically. As a result, consumer expectations about what companies might accomplish for them with a more digital experience skyrocketed. Now the customer wants much more than a simple digital transaction. Companies demand anticipatory, personalised experiences across the whole consumer journey now that they have their personal data.

Companies should employ three tactics to ensure that their experiences meet the increased expectations of their customers:

Make brand scores a major KPI for the whole customer-facing company, ideally using real-time data rather than a snapshot looking back in time.
Create the necessary data and technology foundations to support critical use cases across the client journey.
Align individual and group goals across the customer journey so that any gaps across functional silos such as marketing, sales, and customer service are invisible to the end user.

As an example, the Walmart website now suggests more products that customers may be interested in based on previous purchases. The Walmart homepage is personalised for each shopper based on their location, local weather, and previous search and purchase history.

According to Accenture, 75% of clients are more likely to purchase from a company that:

Recognizes them by name,
Understands their purchasing history, and
Recommends products based on previous purchases.

The nicest thing is that they are willing to let companies use their data.

Source: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/accenture-interactive-index

However, in order to capitalise on this opportunity, you need to invest in CRM. You cannot treat your consumers as individuals if you do not use CRM. And it’s impossible to deliver a unique experience if you don’t keep track of how your company interacts with them.

Strong Online Presence is Key

Consumers judge a book by its cover, and the Internet is your book cover. 70% of your consumers’ decisions are made before they even begin to engage with your company, therefore in order to have a chance at generating a sale, you must have a strong online presence and be where your customers are looking.

How can you ensure that you have a strong web presence? You need to have a solid website with exceptional content that appeals to your target audience. You need also be found in a Google search — and not just in a search for your name; you need to rank for the keywords and phrases that people are looking for. Good reviews, as well as getting your content published by other respected blogs and media outlet sites, are quite significant.

Forget About Large Corporate Brand

Consumers no longer have faith in corporate branding. They believe in personal brands. People seek to connect with other people. They expect individualised and memorable service from people they know, like, and trust.

At its foundation, marketing is about making promises to a certain consumer. It necessitates a personalised approach as well as brand personification. Consider this. If your brand were a person, would you consider it a friend or someone you’d want to avoid?

Algorithms and Data Are Required to Compete

Manual tracking and sporadic surveys will not keep you competitive in today’s high-volume, fast-changing market. Today’s digital leaders all use a digital platform—a collection of algorithms stitched together to collect and analyse critical data—and dynamically tweak their algorithms for each transaction.

You need a platform that is at ease with the worldwide scale of today’s market, with its many social and economic cultures, trends, and requirements. Simple measurements and your personal industry knowledge cannot keep up with all of the relevant competition dynamics.

Be a Part of a Larger Ecosystem

In its early days, Apple was able to outperform other mobile phones partly because it fostered an ecosystem of software developers who produced iPhone apps to fulfil every consumer niche and demand. Amazon attracts third-party merchants by providing them with tools and methods that make everyone a winner in the marketplace.

In many circumstances, increasing the ecosystem is so critical that your best competitive move may be to spend in promoting ‘competition’, such as Tesla giving away its battery patents without royalties to other automakers in order to build the ecosystem.

Final Thoughts

In the business world, one thing hasn’t changed: competition. It’s now more intense than ever, with the cost of entry dropping and new players from all over the world quickly joining the fray. As a result, it’s more crucial than ever to stay up to date on the latest trends and rules. Don’t be fooled into thinking that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow.

So, now that you’ve learned the new rules of today’s digital customer, how should you adapt the way you sell your company?