by Praveer Chadha, on Dec 7, 2022 5:49:49 PM
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Key takeaways from this blog- Customer Experience Management is critical to business and operations.
- The Customer-Centric approach ensures long-term business sustenance and success.
- Customer-Centric Digital Transformation helps stay ahead in dynamic markets.
Digital Transformation is the buzzword across every industry – how many of the leaders truly understand the magnitude of the change? Most organizations are looking at the new age Digital tech market/products mushrooming in this post-pandemic era to decide and fulfill their requirement of being a Digital First organization. In my view the journey to Digital should start at the Customer end and not at the IT end.
Customer Experience Management in today's world can be redefined referring to the strategies, processes, and tools businesses adopt to enhance the customer experience in using a digital product. Global analysts acknowledge that the Customer-Centric approach rather than Product-Centric one is critical in a business journey. It requires having the customer at the center of all the decision-making processes while developing or adopting a product. It mandates going beyond Product-Centricity, addressing the customer’s pain points, and acting in their customer’s best interest. This customer-first mindset, with a strong focus on building customer loyalty and customer advocacy, is essential for the long-term success of a business’ Digital Transformation journey. The Customer-Centric approach is vital in staying ahead in an ever-changing business landscape.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation integrates digital technologies in all functional aspects of a business to simplify your operations and delivers value to your end customers. It is a cultural change that continuously challenges the As-Is state in order to simplify and evolve the business processes.
Why is the Customer-Centric approach critical in your Digital Transformation?
As a business, you adopt Digital Transformation to simplify your process architecture to improve your turnaround time while meeting customer requirements. Necessarily, you are addressing your customers’ pain points by alleviating lengthy winding procedures and waits.
By focusing on providing a positive customer experience in all your customer interactions and customer-interfacing solutions, and then deciding on how your Digital transformation journey needs to be designed, you ensure repeat business, improve customer loyalty, and influence your business growth. You deliver a message to your customers that they are important.
Enterprises that value Customer-Centricity put the customer at the heart of their business operations, reduce churn, and improve their Customer Lifetime Value or CLV. Hence a Customer-Centric approach is vital when you build or adopt a Digital Transformation product or a solution.
Proactive Approach to Customer-Centric Digital Transformation
A business must proactively drive a Customer-Centric approach in all its business operations, particularly its Digital Transformation exercise. Here is the 12-step journey towards your digital transformation goal, keeping the “Customer First”:- Simplify and realign: Refine and realign your process architecture to improve Customer Experience.
- Adopt a top-down approach: Drive Customer-Centricity top-down. Enterprise leaders should lead the way and incentivize employees to enable customer success.
- Tackle pain points: Seek out practical issues through regular customer surveys. Resolve them through iterative scrums and seek customer feedback.
- Ensure faster turnaround: Use Intelligent Document Processing solutions to improve speed related to paper-based work.
- Synchronize systems: Update data across all your enterprise silos in real-time using Robotic Process Automation solutions.
- Detect interaction patterns: Use AI/ML layers and ensembles for rapid pattern detection in customer interactions. Address them in the nascent stage. Improve customer stickiness.
- Drive Customer-First approach: Go to the customer with a solution to their problem and alleviate their pain points. Adopt a “Customer-first and Company-also” approach. Enabling customers ensures that you meet your own company goals till mid-way. The remaining part then depends on your long-term business sustenance strategies.
- Seek proactive feedback: Build processes to proactively seek customer requirements and feedback. Simplify processes and improve Customer Experience.
- Continuously upgrade: Judiciously gather the pain points of customers and stakeholders on an ongoing basis and constantly improve your processes, products, and solutions.
- Define success based on CLTV: Define and measure your enterprise success based on your Customer Lifetime Value as direct functions of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer advocacy.
- Proactive handholding: Handhold your customers at each step of the journey. Focus on training as well as after-sales service/annual maintenance.
- Drive conjoint growth: Tie the employee KRAs with customer success. Promote the conjoint journey along with your customers-development team-implementation/production team-sales. Reward your employees and internal stakeholders after every customer’s success.
Benefits of a Customer-Centric Digital Transformation
Driving Customer Experience/Customer-Enablement with Customer-Centric Digital Transformation comes with its perks:- Reduce customer churn: Improved customer engagement directly influences customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and hence customer stickiness.
- Improve your Net Promoter Score: Improved Customer Experience Management directly influences Customer Advocacy. It is the best kind of advertisement for your business.
- Increase your Customer Lifetime Value: Improved customer stickiness and advocacy, directly and indirectly, influences CLTV.
In summary
Customer Experience Management drives a top-down Customer-Centric ethos in an enterprise. The Customer-Centric mindset is vital for long-term business sustenance. Customer-Centric Digital Transformation in your enterprise makes it easy for your customers to approach and interact with you. Proactively seeking customer feedback to improve your business products and processes is synonymous with having the customer at the center of your business and hence improving your business outcome.
