Going into 2020, brand loyalty was already losing ground against customer experience as the top reason for repeat sales and businesses were under enormous pressure to provide a seamless journey across multiple sales channels – from in-store to online and everything in-between.

When the world went into lockdown our attention was drawn specifically to the digital customer experience and many businesses had to scramble (and still are) to transform and transfer their services to online solutions that cater to multiple customers with complex needs.      

There’s no quick-fix to becoming a digital-first company, but while the process of digital transformation may be complicated, the principles are quite simple. Whether you’re laying the groundwork for digital transformation or midway through implementation, focusing on the three C’s will keep your project on the right track. 

Consolidation 

We live in a society that loves new things and the next generation of customers is fickle and has a short attention span. To keep up with changing market expectations, you need both an innovative mindset and a future-proof platform that can adapt easily.   

Technology stacks built organically over a long time period often include disparate systems that don’t integrate efficiently, resulting in fragmented workflows and data loss. Upgrading legacy systems and consolidating your technical infrastructure can make a massive difference to your operational efficiency and lead generation activity. 

Content  

A beautifully designed and well-built app, website or platform is powerless without well-written content. Entice your audience onto your site with content designed to answer their questions and solve their problems, and promote your products and services with simplified propositions that are easy to understand. Ensure that content is tailored to appeal to prospects for each product and at each stage of the buyers’ funnel, and that your tone of voice is consistent across all channels.         

Well-written content also needs to be well presented. Consider what device or platform your customers are likely to be using and ensure that your content is optimised for engagement.  

Customer journey

Making sure that your content is discoverable and easy to navigate is as important as the quality of the content. Pathways for different audiences and services should be easy to identify and imagery, colours and iconography should reflect your brand and draw visitors’ attention to key messaging. The user should be led on a journey that includes useful content, clear descriptions of service lines and products, proof points, features and benefits, supported by call to actions.

The best way to test your customer experience is to put yourself in your prospects’ and clients’ shoes – mapping out each customer’s journey will help you identify dead ends and barriers to conversion which are often easily rectified with small, iterative changes to your site.  

Many businesses were already a considerable way down the path to digital transformation before 2020, but this year’s events have accelerated the move to digital-first service provision across all industries and provided a wake-up call to those that were unprepared.  

To find out how to make quick improvements to your online customer experience that deliver fast results, sign up to ORM’s ‘Take Action: Design Better. Faster. Together.’ webinar now.