• What We Do
    ○
    • Sales Technology Consulting Services
      ○
      • Sales Technology Consulting Services
      • Stakeholder Analysis & Sales Technology Audit
      • Sales Technology Selection Strategy
      • Sales Technology Vendor Moderation
      • Sales Technology Adoption Program
      • Sales Technology ROI
      • Sales Technology Strategy
    • Research/Advisory
      ○
      • About Clear View Reports
        ○
        • Outbound Prospecting / Agent Assisted
        • Sales Enablement / Content Management
        • Sales Skills Development and Reinforcement
        • Sales Technology and Training Selector
  • Sales Tech Selection Resources
    ○
    • Certified Sales Technology Landscape
    • Tools and Guides
      ○
      • Sales Tech Stack Selection Tool
      • Sales Technology Buying Roadmap
      • Sales Technology ROI Guide
    • Sales Training
      ○
      • Sales Training Solutions
      • Certified Sales Training Landscape
  • Learning Center
    ○
    • Sales Technology Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
  • About
    ○
    • Contact Us
    • Our Story
    • News & Press
  • Sales Technology Selection Tool
  • Book a Discovery Call
Vendor NeutralVendor Neutral
  • Services
    • Technology Consulting
    • Sales Technology Strategy
    • Precision Tech Selection
    • Vendor Management
    • Sales Tech Stack Optimization
    • Seamless Tech Adoption
    • Sales Tech ROI Framework
  • Tools & Resources
    • 2023 Enterprise Sales Technology Landscape
    • Sales Tech Stack Selection Tool
    • Sales Technology Buying Roadmap
    • Sales Tech ROI Guide
  • Insight Hub
    • Sales Tech & Innovation Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Contact Us
    • News & Press

Sales Tech and Innovation Blog .

Industry Experts and Thought Leaders

Buying Sales Technology and Training is hard. We’re here to help with curated content from leading experts, thought leaders, and analysts.

Scroll Down

Customer Experience Powered Digital Transformation: Why You Need it, How To Do It

Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it

Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it

The customer is king, right? Most organizations would say so. But how many follow through with actions? In the words of Benjamin Franklin: “Well done is better than well said.”

Customer experience overtook price and product as the reason people buy and keep buying two years ago.

So, if you’re leading one of the 89% of sales enablement teams that are launching digital transformation projects this year, ask yourself this: are you starting by looking at the software, or who the software impacts?

The customer experience is not the end result of your organization’s digital ecosystem… it’s the reason for it. 

Let’s get into why customer experience must inform every digital project you embark upon – and how you can flip the thinking in your organization to start with the customer experience, and make good on your claim that customers are #1.

Customer Experience Goes Digital

According to McKinsey research, businesses are three times more likely to say that at least 80 percent of their customer interactions are digital when compared to before the pandemic.

Customer experience (CX) has gone digital. You buyers are online, app-native and they’re rating how you’ve kept up. 

Whilst traditional CX looks at the overall interaction between a brand and its customers – so all interactions digitally, in person, across any possible given touch point – the rise of e-commerce and omnichannel digital opportunities, means that Digital Customer Experience (DCX) could arguably now be the most important aspect of CX – and research from Forbes reinforces why. 

Digital transformation and a focus on customer experience can generate a 20-30% increase in customer satisfaction and economic gains of 20-50%.

If 80% of customers interact with exclusively your digital touchpoints, optimizing these and harmonizing these across channels is vital. 

In fact, Forbes again, companies with the strongest omnichannel experiences retain 89% of their customers on average, compared to 33% retention for companies with weak omnichannel customer experience.

"According to McKinsey research, businesses are three times more likely to say that at least 80 percent of their customer interactions are digital when compared to before the pandemic.

80% Of customers interactions are digital

Change is the only Constant

To be clear right off the bat – digital transformation with a focus on digital  is not a one-time deal. 

Consumer preferences change constantly, tech develops, your organization evolves… you will never have ‘finished’ digital transformation if you take a customer-centric approach. 

And this realization is a strategic game changer. 

The best companies – the ones that understand DCX must be in constant evolution – are the ones that also understand that their strategy is not defined by the CEO, but by the customer. 

Given that consumers are willing to spend 17 percent more with companies that deliver great customer service (according to American Express) your organizational hierarchy might need a re-think. 

Responsive adjusting and refining tech to match customer expectations and needs sets the best companies apart… and as well as increasing brand loyalty and repeat business and reputation, the benefits feed inward: research shows that 40% of business leaders believe DX with a focus on customer experience has improved operational efficiency. 

But this approach delivers more: business insights, connectivity through the entire organization and ultimately higher revenue. 

Remember that the bar has already been raised: seamless DCX is standard. Anything less, jarring. Bear in mind that 88% of online shoppers say they wouldn’t return to a website after having a bad user experience. 

Consistency of experience throughout a sales journey, across multiple channels – which adds value to customers’ lives is your bare minimum. Your goal isn’t merely to deliver, it’s to delight. 

And you’ll be rewarded for it: highly engaged customers buy 90% more frequently and spend 60% more per purchase (compared to the average customer).

But of the $1.3 trillion that was invested in digital transformation in 2019, more than $900 billion was wasted. (Our blog on the wider impact of digital waste explores this topic further.) 

We wonder how many of those billion dollar failed strategies focused on the company, rather than the customer…

Analyze - Ask

How do you go about evaluating where the ‘pain points’ exist in your current customer experience?

Analyze the data and ask everyone. 

Data – the length of a sales cycle, onboarding times, adoption rates, customer service response times, and on the customer life cycle – can be a starting point to red-flag possible hot spots where frustration for the customer may exist – but it’s by no means going to give you the whole picture. 

So speak to your sales teams. Find out what their challenges are, frustrations, pain points. Be curious as to how they work, how they connect with customers… and the feedback they receive from them. Explore what your highest performing salespeople do – and what they do differently to your core performers. 

Unsurprisingly, your most valuable insights will come from customers. Cultivate and curate conversations with them: feedback emails, 1-2-1 sessions, polls, surveys, social listening.  

Companies make the mistake of assuming that the absence of negative feedback means that everything is fine, or positive… but listen to this: research reveals that, in most cases, customers don’t actually tell you they’re unhappy. In fact, only 1 in 26 unhappy customers actually complain – the rest just never return. 

Start conversations with your customers now: don’t take their silence for their support.

2022’s Customer ex trends you cannot ignore

The above will give you insights that will drive your next DX project… but stay alert to the generic customer expectations that are becoming ‘as-standard’ for digital customer experience and what the future state for customer satisfaction could look like. Organizations that are relentlessly curious about changing needs, wants and tech will be able to anticipate the answers here. 

Talk to my bot 

Beyond self-service, customers want to self-search. Gartner estimates that by 2030 over a billion service tickets will be raised automatically by customer-owned bots. Today, 67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative.

Personalization

Whether in personalized mail, name recognition, purchase history or recommendations, the customer likes unobtrusive personalization and is broadly happy giving their data to achieve it: 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from businesses that personalize their experience.

Omnipresence across channels and platforms

Customers want to work across the channels they choose, and for the patchwork of digital touchpoints to be brought together seamlessly… whether in sales, communications, or post-sales services. Disney Resorts are the standard-bearers here: taking omnichannel to the next level. Their mobile app EXPECTS users to connect whilst they’re actually on site at the resorts: buying tickets, pre-ordering food and seeing real-time data on queueing times to make the experience magical. Things not quite right? Users can engage with real-time support or real-life reps: all of whom understand the customer’s experience thanks to a unified database. 

Customers want connection. 

Customers are increasingly asking for the familiarity of messaging services they already use like Whatsapp: where 68% of this app’s users believe it’s the best way to engage with a brand. 

Into AI

1 in 3 business leaders say using AI to move from automation to prediction will be the next big consideration in driving ROI. Businesses that harness the potential of AI to predict customer needs and delight customers at scale, will stay ahead of the curve

Their experience should define your ecosystem

Your employees are key to your organizational ecosystem, right? They need care, attention and you provide it.  You also strive for their development – and consciously explore and nurture their potential. 

See software – and the methodologies you build around it – in exactly the same way: employees, tech, strategy and process are moving and changing parts in a digital ecosystem.

This term matters: as reframing your mindset to view your operations as an ecosystem, will reframe your actions. 

Rather than managing it, you tend to it. Rather than buying it, you cultivate it. View your organizational ecosystem as something that will thrive, survive, or die on the care you give it. And acknowledge that this care is constant. 

Any DX on the back of CX research will only lead to successful adoption and impact if you embrace your organization’s life-long commitment to sustaining it, and evolving it. 

Consistency around training, adoption, feedback, support and team buy-in is crucial. And that doesn’t happen in 90 days. 

Onboarding is over, everboarding is as standard. 

A healthy digital ecosystem returns more than a great set of processes and happy sales reps: it delivers the point of your entire endeavor… to nurture the happiest customers and generate the highest revenue. 

More than two-thirds of companies now compete primarily on the basis of customer experience – up from only 36% in 2010. In their future of CX report, PwC surveyed 15,000 consumers and found that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience. 

Customer experience driven digital transformation is no quick fix, but it’s clearly vital to how you strategize for your businesses’ growth. And the co-constructed digital experience that is produced will deliver returns for your organization, if the tech is underpinned by your commitment to both its adoption and ongoing development. 

If you’re taking the first step on the road to digital transformation, a map is going to be useful: and we think ours will steer you in the right direction. Download our Sales Technology Buying Roadmap for a step-by-step guide to selecting the right tech. 

We can also support your analysis of the customer journey and your sales teams’ pain points – as well as advise on how to nurture the ecosystem you build through everboarding, systemization and bespoke consultancy. 

Book A Discovery Call
October 12, 2022 Dan Cilley
  • Sales Technology Stack Audit
    The Top 10 Reasons to Audit Your Current Sales Technology Stack Sales technology is constantly evolving, and it's easy to end up with a cluttered, misaligned...
  • Sales Tech Procurement for 2023: Trends and Strategy
    Sales Technology Procurement 2023: trends and strategy If there's one thing that's certain as we head into 2023, it's that little is. In a shock departure from...
  • How Company Culture Drives Sales Tech Stack Adoption
    How company culture drives sales tech stack impact and adoption Culture is the heart around which the lifeblood of the company courses. Research by Deloitte has...
  • Sales Technology and Organizational Resilience through sales tech strategy
    Enhance Organizational Resilience through Sales Tech Strategy Excellence After months of the sales tech sector being spent in a state of nervous apprehension, the good news...
  • AR and VR Feature Image
    AR and VR - harness innovation in the digital world for real-world impact on your organization Science fiction has often been the precursor to scientific reality Science...
  • CRM: the rights and wrongs and how to make them work for you
    CRMs: the rights and wrongs and how to make them work for you… A run-down of the problems we see as typical in CRM usage and...
  • Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it
    Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it The customer is king, right? Most organizations would say so. But how many...
  • 3 stage sales saas procurement test
    3 Stage Sales SaaS Procurement Readiness Test: Take It Now Things we know: SaaS companies are big and getting bigger. The fastest-growing SaaS companies grow their teams...
  • SAAS Mismanagement and the Unseen Impacts - Sarah Carey
    Employee Spotlight - Sarah Carey - Unseen Impacts of SaaS Mismanagement Attaining utopia with sales technology ... ...ecosystems isn’t an easy feat, whether it be trying to align...
  • SaaS Sustainability and Digital Waste: deal with it now, or face difficult questions about why you didn’t The carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and...
  • Triage Sales Tech Stress and Eliminate it
    Triage Sales Tech Stress and Eliminate It Insight, impact, growth: three times Vendor Neutral triaged organizations’ sales tech stress, and eliminated it. Cloud adoption grew by a...
  • 3 Red Flags to Failing Sales SAAS Ecosystems
    SaaS applications make up 70% of total company software use: if Sales SaaS fails to deliver, then so too does your business.But how do you...
  • Implement A Systems Approach
    Grow Revenue And Enhance The Customer Experience Through Digital Culture Transformation Digital transformation is not a new concept. Digital initiatives have been on the rise in...
  • We’re in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. Is your manufacturing business implementing digital transformation in the most effective way?
    Are You Ready for Industry 4.0? The Digital Transformation of Manufacturing According to many in the manufacturing industry, we are currently in the middle of the...
  • Top ERP Transformations That Support buyers
    Top ERP Transformations That Support BuyersB2B companies are currently up to their necks in "digital transformation." They're moving at a rapid clip to enhance the...
Vendor Neutral Empowering Business Enabling Growth Logo with Tag line
  • 888-411-8908
  • info@vendorneutral.com
  • Book a Discovery Call
Instagram Linkedin Twitter Rss

Consulting

  • Stakeholder Analysis & Sales Technology Audit

Research

  • Certified Sales Technology Profiles
  • Certified Sales Training Reports
  • Clear View Reports

Information

  • About Us
  • News and Press
  • Contact Us

Sales Technology

  • Sales Technology Solutions
  • Sales Technology Selection Tools
  • Sales Technology Consulting Services
Sign up for our newsletter
  • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Copyright © 2022 Vendor Neutral LLC. All Rights Reserved