Five Ways Digital Transformation Is Changing Consumer Experience

After a long year dealing with a pandemic, society is starting to reopen. People are getting the vaccine and businesses are looking to make the most of the economic recovery. 

As COVID-19 impacted the economy, businesses had to look for solutions to manage the situation. For many businesses, these solutions were digital. According to one survey, 97 percent of executives said the pandemic accelerated their digital transformation. With the pandemic forcing people to stay home and practice social distancing, the digital transformation strategy of many businesses focused on the customer experience. Businesses needed to find new ways to serve customers, and they also needed to find ways to protect the safety of customers and staff.

When you look at it all, you see some big changes coming to the customer experience. In this article, you will read about five ways digital transformation is changing the CX.

Better customer support

Customers are not patient when it comes to customer support. Along with that, they want support that is convenient and easy to access. If they have to wait a long time for a response or feel like they have to jump through hoops to get the support they need, they will consider it a bad experience.

One way digital transformation is improving the customer experience is by making support available through a wider range of channels. Beyond traditional channels like phone and e-mail, many businesses now offer customer support through social media, texting, and live chat. Businesses are also starting to deploy smart chatbots to offer customers a more timely reply.

Self-service options

Customers want to be able to handle more of their interactions with a business without having to ask for help. This covers more than just the self-checkout line at the local grocery store; people want to able to handle a range of functions on their own. Customers want businesses to make it easy to do things like check their account status or pay bills without having to contact a support representative.

Many businesses are making this easy by building digital platforms that offer a range of services that customers can access on their own. They can pay bills, check their accounts, update payment options, sign-up for digital demos, and more. 

The non-linear journey

There was a time when the customer journey was very predictable. There was a clear beginning, middle, and end. That has changed in recent years, and now we see customers taking a non-linear journey. They might see an ad in their social media feed only to dismiss it and then gain interest when they find a blog post about the same products weeks later. They might move from having a problem to evaluating solutions, only to circle back and reconsider their requirements.

When it comes to tracing the buyer’s journey, this can make things more difficult. How do you know where to reach your customers with the right content if they are not moving in a way that is predictable? With new digital tools, you can trace the customer journey at different stages and make sure the right content reaches them at the right time.

Personalization

Today’s consumers expect a personalized experience. They want to be addressed by their names and they want recommendations, content, and services that are tailored to their needs. With the right digital transformation tools, businesses can deliver this level of personalization.

When it comes to personalization, the most valuable resource is customer data. When you have the right digital transformation tools, you can collect customer data and use systems to analyze and automate a range of features that will deliver the personalization consumers expect. 

Meaningful human interactions

It might seem strange to invest in digital technology to enable more human interactions, but that is one of the benefits. When you automate tasks that are time-consuming and tedious, it makes it possible for salespeople and other employees to devote more of their time to handling the human interactions that really matter. 

As an example, you can now use systems for generating and validating leads. When employees do not have to focus on this stage of the process, they will have more time to step in when a real person is needed to close the deal. The same is true for customer support. When you have chatbots handling the simpler support issues, you can save the time of human support professionals for the cases that really need them.

Businesses can’t afford to make the customer experience an afterthought. Even if your products are good, customers won’t come back if their expectations are not met. For most businesses, digital transformation is going to be one of the most important factors of delivering a good customer experience.