CX digital platforms take centre stage

Modern businesses are becoming more agile and benefitting from the countless online sales opportunities. However, very few of these B2B and B2C businesses are using customer insights to confidently seize new opportunities and adapt to challenges.

It is crucial that they embrace a customer-driven culture and understand their customers by learning how they feel, think and act. They also need to understand that products must be designed to meet their customers’ needs – they cannot force products onto their customers.

All their marketing must be targeted on what their customers want and at the same time, they need to provide a first-class customer experience (CX). In order to achieve this, businesses need an in-depth knowledge of the customer.

Although industry research will aid this process, the true insights can only come from the data the company collects over time, which should include customer interests, behaviour and engagement at all stages of the customer lifecycle.

There are a myriad of tools and advanced data analytics to improve the customer experience. Tools like Optimizely (formerly Episerver) enable ecommerce businesses to compete and win in the digital-first economy using experimentation and evidence-based outcomes.

They increase agility to test and deliver impactful experiences and speed time to market; and improve outcomes through unique digital experiences for each customer, at scale.

Taking the centre stage

CX digital platforms have taken centre stage, they empower digital teams to be more intentional in their customer engagements as well as more agile in adapting to changing behaviours and markets. More importantly, they deliver a unique system of differentiation to inspire product and experience innovation using real customer insights.

According to a study by PwC, one-third of customers who have a bad experience will break up with a brand.

A customer-centric culture revolves around the needs of current and potential customers. This is in contrast to a product-driven culture that develops products with little regard to whether customers want them. It’s also very different from a profit-driven culture, one that views customers in terms of revenue and profit.

Furthermore, a data-driven culture supports customer-centricity by helping business leaders better understand what the customer needs and what drives their purchasing behaviour.

Data analytics

Advancements in the digital world have made customer insights more easily accessible, transforming the way businesses operate. Data analytics have become precious and integral assets to marketers, these tools provide insights into customer behaviours and allow business leaders to make insightful and data-driven business decisions.

Track and analyse

To get to know the customer better, one needs to track and analyse every touch point in the customer experience. Data analytics allows one to understand the true motivations behind a customer’s actions. This may also help one find the pain points customers are experiencing.

Collect direct customer feedback whenever possible because customer service is key to all sales protocols. One should solicit feedback in order to build loyalty by meeting the customers’ needs.

Allan Gray creates a personalised CX

With the help of Bluegrass Digital, Allan Gray has created a new, engaging and dynamic online platform that offers a rich user experience with easy access to information and resources, which drives increased user interaction and attracts new customers.

Their website creates a personalised customer experience for new clients, existing clients, financial advisors and institutional investors, supporting localised country-based content can be managed carefully and intuitively within Optimizely, a leading digital experience platform.

Coronation rebuilds its website to meet future requirements.

Similarly, Coronation, a world-class investment management company, has implemented a best-in-class digital experience platform (DXP) for its web and digital offering. The new website now provides a consistent brand experience delivering an intuitive navigation and user experience across the website.

Optimizely’s offering was the obvious platform of choice with its easy-to-use content management interface allowing editors to easily select templates, add content and manage site controls. The powerful publishing workflow allows for distributed content management roles.

Optimizely now provides the platform to enable Coronation with their ambitious Omni-channel business strategy. It provides the tools to drive personalisation using built in AI and machine learning capabilities giving the potential to provide a personalised user experience for new and existing customers.