One of the hottest topics for brands and marketers is the Customer Experience (CX) and what it really means, especially today. There has been a great interest in the best practices of creating and uplifting customer experiences to fully delight the demanding customers and put their needs and desires at the centre. But first of all, businesses should redefine their whole perspective into customer experience meaning. It’s not about just the customer service – as most used to think – it’s about the customer journey and all the stages included.
And that’s the critical point to making the CX strategy work. As long as brands notice the multiple dimensions of customer experience, they will be able to elevate all their existing or new tools and transform CX into an exceptional experience that could inspire customer engagement and increase the brand’s revenue.
“These days, you need to think about customer experience as way beyond customer service. And the definition needs to be more expansive,” says Can Kekevi – Accenture.
Brands should focus on meeting the customers and be aware that the last ones now control their experiences, constantly interacting with businesses via multiple devices at any point of their shopping journey. “Power is now squarely on the shoulders of the customer”, reports Marty Weintraub – Deloitte.
To reach that same customer power and exceed their expectations, brands should invest in new technologies – as digital transformation is not just a trend but the core of creating CX – and leverage them properly. Let’s face it. Technology is the answer to all these concerns and the primary driver for the optimized Customer Experience that brands need to create to keep pace with empowered consumers.
More precisely, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are the name of the game! Customer Data Platforms are meant to be the emerging marketing technology tool that can drive high-level results in customer experience. For example, companies can build unified customer personas, update digital identities, and drive reasonable personalized marketing communications through these applications.
How does this actually work? CDP is a packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database accessible to other systems. By collecting, unifying, and analyzing online and offline data from all the brands’ channels, a CDP provides actionable insights that can be passed on to the whole MarTech stack, creating the next best step in the customer journey.
However, according to a global survey of MIT SMR Connections, even if organizations increase their tech investments to boost customer experience, only a small percentage of them is finally achieving the desired results.
The question is, why is that happening, and which are the best practices to reach success?
First, companies should not forget that the humanized factor will always make a difference. Customers are sensitive as it comes to social, environmental, ethical, and governance issues, now more than ever. Through their social media and tech resources, brands can build and promote their good morals and beliefs to protect their reputation and meet their customer database by heart, ensuring they are worthy.
Last but significantly crucial for the companies is to be ready to leverage all the tech tool cases having at their disposal. It’s true that technology makes magic, but only if used smartly. The global survey of MIT SMR Connections found that “random acts of technology” don’t create the desired value without the appropriate strategy. Companies should be ready and leverage the valuable insights they get across all their channels and customer touchpoints to provide a seamless omnichannel CX finally. Customer data intelligence and machine learning in the hands of a well-educated specialized team can bring valuable results and make the magic bob up.
In INTELIQUA, through Eliqua.CX, we enable brands to identify their consumers, analyze their behavior and connect with them in real-time. Among the QC capabilities, we help our clients proactively engage with their customers through a consistent methodology.
Our team is dedicated to the complete day-to-day management of loyalty campaigns, from design to execution, measurement, and beyond. Based on our clients’ specific needs, we can make tailor-made creative proposals addressed to customers’ preferences, building inspiring campaigns.
