Many would argue that businesses focused on growth should invest in technology and processes that advance their ability to develop engaging customer experiences.There are several factors driving this advice today:
- A flat global economy
- Growing competition
- Empowered consumers
The fact is that the global economy is fairly flat, and there simply isn’t a lot of room for new revenue growth. There’s more competition than ever vying for a slice of a pie that’s fundamentally not growing. To show increase business, many businesses are strategically focused on taking market share—that is, getting customers to turn away from the competition.
While this battle plays out, customer expectations continue to evolve rapidly. Access to technology and the freedom to make informed decisions has put consumers in control across almost every industry. Many consumers are no longer inclined to be loyal to name brands, for example, as new channels introduce them to new options from competitors.
Businesses are responding across industries, including high tech and manufacturing, financial services, and consumer goods and retail. And many of these businesses are leveraging more than one application in the suite because they see the financial value in an integrated and complete CX technology stack for a single source of data.
Businesses Still Own the Customer Experience
As businesses look to address economic and competitive woes, an organizational priority should be to unite and act as one—to break down silos and achieve a more complete view of the customer because businesses still own the customer experience. Many organizations are responding, literally changing their culture and creating executive roles for innovation and digital transformation experts to guide their future. While tactics vary, some overarching unified CX strategies involve the following:
- Knowing the customer/shopper at a deep, personal level
- Unifying customer experiences across channels and devices (omnichannel shopper)
- Growing share through retention and cross-selling, and taking share by better understanding preferences through the data captured (customer lifecycle)
- Investing in cloud-based technology (total cost of ownership savings)
A Generational Shift
The way to gain market share is to invest in innovation, information technology, and customer experiences designed to convert customers. Studies suggest as much as 80% of corporate IT budgets are spent on maintenance. The status quo of current IT is not equipped to execute modern strategies that are designed to take market share. This is where the benefits of cloud-based technology stand out.
Adopting a unified CX platform based on cloud technology is a shift to address overall IT spending. It’s an economic shift as well, one that we’ll see increase. In general, businesses benefit from a unified CX platform in these ways:
- It’s less expensive and drives down capital expenditures.
- It reduces labor costs overall as there’s less to maintain.
- It allows for faster innovation as maintenance costs can be reallocated.
- It reduces the burden of managing multiple technology vendors.
- It’s the product of extensive R&D work dedicated to solving real business CX issues.
But the platform has to work. It has to be truly unified with an intuitive and easy-to-use business user experience. This is the key. Any business owner and CEO will say yes to improving business processes while cutting costs—as long as it’s actually true and it actually works.