Why you need to up your CX game
Have you heard of the CX revolution?
There is a tremendous shift happening in the marketing world right now, where the entire rule book for competition is being re-written. Across every industry, we’re seeing indicators that the main competitive differentiation is being made within the field of customer experience.
Beyond the product
In the most recently published Gartner survey on this topic, nearly all companies surveyed (89%) claimed that customer experience will be “their primary basis for competition in 2016”. The study shows that some of the traditional areas of competition are being so finely cut that businesses naturally gravitate towards other ways to become the brand of choice.
This is true even for businesses that are traditionally very driven by product or service innovation, where they now have to adapt to the ever rising expectations for outstanding customer experience.
These are just a few examples of where CX is placed firmly in the spotlight:
- Print companies
VistaPrint are using personalisation cleverly in their email advertising, by projecting the customer’s own images on 3d models of new merchandise – providing a very striking visual experience of what they could provide for that individual customer. - Online entertainment
Streaming TV provider Netflix tracks user behaviour and adapts that information to power recommendations, so that the viewer gets notified of new arrivals that match the profile of previously seen programmes. This serves to create a customised user journey, where the content delivered is highly targeted and relevant to the recipient. - Car dealerships
Many modern car dealers use technology to bridge the gap between the customer and the sometimes sterile environment of the showroom. It’s not uncommon for a dealership to produce personalised videos for customers showing the new car they ordered being prepared for delivery, with a salesperson demonstrating the features or giving some hands-on car care tips.
Buyer behaviour is changing
So what is it about customer behaviour that causes the marketplace to shift so dramatically? Well – the reality is that buyers have always driven innovation when it comes to both product development and service delivery, but with the arrival of highly intelligent software solutions businesses are now able to respond to customer preferences to a much more detailed degree. By monitoring and analysing how products and services are being used, organisations can build entire scenarios behind the scenes – triggered by key steps in the user journey.
Social platforms and integrations
One of the major challenges for many businesses has been adapting to the changes in social media user behaviour. As social communication platforms have grown, the concept of “brand trust” has been replaced with “peer trust”. Customers now spend more time listening to the views of friends, contacts and influencers before making a purchase decision. This means that companies now need to not only engage and listen on these platforms, but also discover new ways to push through the noise and deliver content that will be shared and amplified on social channels. In turn, this also adds to the technological requirements for websites, marketing automation and CRM systems to handle and process the various ways in which customers engage with the business.
Technology underpins the CX revolution
In the quest to become more targeted and relevant for the customer, businesses now have access to an ever expanding toolbox for monitoring and communicating with their audience using technology. There is a genuine drive towards providing value and benefit for the end user, as brands increasingly understand the importance of not only brand loyalty – but brand love.
In the Gartner survey, more than one third of the respondents said their customer experience improvement projects involved significant changes of their business models affecting their very core operations processes, while one third stated they were making changes to the way the customer interacts with the organization.
We’re excited about being part of building the user experience technology of the future. What will you create for your customers this year?
