Organisations drive digital transformation through creating systems of engagement, based upon rethinking how to engage with their target audiences. Most of the innovative systems of engagements are purpose-built to meet key customer demands and are aligned to specific behavioral contexts over a defined engagement timeline. Customers discover, explore, buy, use, ask and engage in the digital realm. And it is well worth it for companies and organisations to know exactly what is going on, and how.
Most new business initiatives require digital engagement thinking and transformation. Line of business and IT executives tend to approach the critical systems of engagement decision making question: how do we get there from here through a prioritised strategy?
Here is the thing. Your customers do not care about systems of engagements, SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. However, they do care about getting the information, the product, the service they need – right now. Rest assured, your customers will judge you on their digital customer experience.
Hence, creating innovative systems of engagements is not a technology decision – it is a business decision. And it is a critical one given the desired outcomes – increase in satisfied customers, increase in expansion net new business, continuous innovation, and reducing operating expenses, among others.
Most of these outcomes, if not all of them, depend on the digital customer experience and how well you proactively and preemptively manage it. Have no doubt; your customers will expect you to manage it. So, while your chief marketing officer may talk about managing switching cost considerations amongst disgruntled digital customers, the real equation is simple, and in today’s connected and hybrid world, it executes very quickly.
If the customer experience is less than expected and the options in the market place are greater than one, then you are at risk of losing a customer. Your customer will win, and maybe one of your competitors will, too.
If the risk of losing customers is real, then exactly what do you know about the customer experience your systems of engagements deliver? And, equally important, if the customer experience is not up to par, then when do you know about it?
Can you confidently answer the questions below? Or, at the very least, do you know what you do not know?
#1 How critical is the customer experience to you, and who is responsible for it?
#2 What is your customer experience management capability and maturity level, what do you need it to be, and when do you need it to get there?
#3 How do you prioritise and size customer experience management investments, and who drives linking customer experience management to value?
#4 What role do your technology partners currently play in terms of helping you deliver an impeccable customer experience, what role do you need them to play, and starting when?
Forrester Research found that less than a third of organisations have a coherent digital strategy. Nothing to be alarmed about, but it does suggest that there is still work to be done. Managing the delivery of your systems of engagement customer experience is not trivial. For starters, it is all about visibility. You cannot manage what you cannot see.
There is a substantial amount of critical customer experience telemetry in-play, when a customer is using your apps or websites. The more diverse tools and products you use to capture this telemetry across servers, networks, storage, infrastructure, web services, databases and ultimately the applications themselves, the more likely it is that you cannot separate the critical data points from the not so critical ones.
When that happens and it does, you cannot respond in a timely fashion. And, customers today are not too patient.
Rationalising the monitoring tools you currently use for network, infrastructure and applications, not only creates clarity and agility, it also helps you reduce operating expenses and release resources to drive innovation. In any event, whatever tools and products you use, these should be fully integrated with one another, providing one version of the truth in one, role-based and unified view.
Optimising the digital customer experience delivery is a likely option once you know where your customers are, how they are getting to you and how they are interacting with you. Some systems of engagements may even need preferential delivery capability and capacity.
Managing the digital customer experience silo by silo is not rethinking, and it will not get the job done in today’s hybrid environment. If you have outsourced your network, your infrastructure, your application management then how do you know, and when do you know you have reached your goal?
Maybe you need to rethink how you manage the customer experience altogether? As the saying goes: If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. You should make that decision, and not leave that to your customers and competitors because you did not manage the systems of engagement customer experience well.
- Key takeaways
- Creating innovative systems of engagement is not a technology decision, it is a business decision
- If the customer experience is less than expected and the options in the market place are greater than one you are at risk of losing a customer
- If the customer experience is not up to par when do you know about it?
- If the risk of losing customers is real exactly what do you know about the customer experience your systems of engagement deliver?
- If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs
- It is all about visibility. You cannot manage what you cannot see.
- Managing digital customer experience silo by silo is not rethinking, and it will not get the job done in today’s hybrid environment
- Managing the delivery of your systems of engagement customer experience is not trivial
- Maybe you need to rethink how you manage the customer experience altogether?
- Rest assured your customers will judge you on their digital customer experience
- They do care about getting information, product, service they need right now
- Whatever tools you use these should be fully integrated with one another providing one version of the truth
- You should make that decision and not leave that to your customers and competitors because you did not manage the customer experience well
- Your customer will win and maybe one of your competitors will, too
- Your customers do not care about SoE’s, SaaS, PaaS and IaaS
In today’s digital world filled with choice the customer will always win, but can your business also be a winner asks Kristian Thyregod at Riverbed Technology.
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