Cape Town, 30 Sep 2015
Effective customer experience management, and thus effective competition in a changing market, depends on the business's ability to reinvent itself, says EOH MC Solutions.
Nicholas Leck, Microsoft Solutions executive at EOH MC, notes the digital enterprise is not a buzzword - it is the strategy successful global business disruptors are using to erode traditional markets. "Most South African businesses have been slow to become digital. As a result, they are already facing competition from local start-ups and international disruptors," he says.
What makes a business adaptable in this new digital economic environment? Leck explains the way the customer experiences the business is essentially what the business is. "The philosopher Peter F Drucker said in the 1940s: 'It is the customer who determines what a business is.' So 'outside-in' is not a new concept. What is fairly new is the fact that the modern customer lives a digital life, and therefore businesses must harness digital strategies to engage with, and retain, customers."
Major enterprises abroad are rapidly changing their business and customer engagement models in line with this changing environment, says Leck. Gartner notes 89% of business leaders it surveyed expect customer experience to be their primary basis for competition by 2016, and says by 2017, 50% of consumer product investments will be redirected to customer experience innovations. Meanwhile, Accenture's 2014 Technology Vision survey, polling more than 2 000 business and technology executives across nine countries and 10 industries, found 62% are investing in digital technologies, and 35% are comprehensively investing in digital as part of their overall business strategy.
In South Africa, however, only a handful of industry leaders are actively moving to comprehensive digital customer engagement models, says Leck. "Doing this effectively requires a new mind-set within the business. For one thing, the 'digital divide' between business management, IT and digital marketing teams must be bridged, and the entire enterprise must work together to create an enabling environment for digital customer engagement."
Leck recommends companies embarking on a digital CEM journey assess their operational and customer data to look at trends and bottlenecks, and to determine the preferred engagement channels in order to prioritise their digital engagement projects.
"It is also important to integrate marketing, sales and customer service at the back-end. It is all very well to have digital touchpoints, but the business must be able to tie these touchpoints together to deliver a single version of the truth in order to improve the customer experience," he says. Leck believes that in the process of consolidating and integrating the data and preparing to support the digital enterprise, it is crucial to build on a reputable, solid platform. "This will be the foundation of the digital enterprise and any future channels and applications. It is therefore important that the company invest in a sustainable and industry-leading platform that supports change and agility."
What digital touchpoints should be enabled depends on the business and its customers, says Leck. "Online self-service, or e-business, is proving a top priority for many businesses. Not only does it empower the customer to get answers quickly without having to go through a call centre, it also benefits the business by reducing call centre volumes and associated costs." E-mail and SMS capabilities are also crucial in virtually all business environments, he notes, with SMS, USSD, mobile applications and even social media high on the list of top digital CEM channels.
He says: "Today, customers experience a brand through a Web site, a self-service portal, an SMS, a call centre or even a corporate Twitter account. The customer expects a consistent, caring and personalised experience across all of these channels. To deliver this, employees need to be empowered to see what was said throughout the customer life cycle by having easy access to the right customer information. Offering customers convenient digital engagement is a strong reflection of the pride that a brand takes in its business offering. A confusing Web site and call centre agent who can't get access to your information leaves the customer wondering if the brand really cares about them or not."
Leck notes that an agile, digital enterprise cannot engage effectively when customer engagement channels are run in isolation. "Digital CEM is not a product, it is a philosophy that depends on a business-wide mind-set and culture change in some cases. And the journey has to start now, if South African companies hope to compete effectively over the next few years," he says.
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