By John Premkumar, Vice President & Head of Delivery – Digital Experience, Infosys
As businesses and consumers move forward, after shaking off the after-effects of the pandemic, the world faces impending economic uncertainty. In a global survey of over 7,000 consumers, an alarming 49 percent of respondents indicate that they are cutting back on online spending. While the Indian economy remains resilient thus far, like their global counterparts, consumers here too are changing the playing field and demanding more from their brands. With one in ten global consumers intentionally uninstalling shopping apps to curb spending, only brands that create robust digital experiences (DX) will survive.
The role of DX in digital transformation
Organisations are embracing the new buzzword, digital transformation. Essentially comprising three aspects – the data, core and experience layer, for any digital transformation journey to be successful, all three layers need to be reshaped and modernised. However, the end-user (a consumer or an employee) will only interact with the experience layer. The end-user does not care if the backend is facing legacy issues, or if the data is transformed. For them, a transformation is complete only when the experience layer has improved. This puts DX at the front-end of an organisation’s transformation journey.
The end-user is smart and demanding
For an organisation, the customer experience enhances the top line through increased profits, revenues, marketing and sales and the employee experience drives the bottom line, making them more productive and successful because of the heightened experience. Today’s consumer is constantly connected, app-native and more confident in utilising tools in their interactions with brands. As per the 2023 State of Digital Customer Experience Report, 79 percent of those polled indicated that digital customer experience is extremely important. Consumer today are bound to brands by their digital experiences and better digital experience translates to better loyalty. 44% of consumers “don’t care” where they transact online, “as long as it works” and 55 percent will not engage with a business that has previously given them a negative experience. Given that every competitor is only one click away, it is imperative that brands curate the best digital experience.
Why DX matters?
DX cuts across all three areas of marketing, sales and customer service, playing the role of an enabler by transforming every interaction. Providing the best customer service is business-critical. DX in an organisation can be compared to a bird catcher casting birdseed to attract birds. DX helps create awareness at the marketing level, scattering the birdseed or creating interest. Next, DX can enable seamless transactions on the mobile app or web interface, to actually capture the bird or make the sale, while also ensuring faultless customer service across all touch points.
DX Impacts business directly
Since DX is an integral part of business strategy, many companies now appoint a Chief Digital Officer to take complete ownership and focus on DX to drive business success. Companies can measure the effectiveness of DX in different ways. First, by comparing sales achieved through traditional channels against sales secured through digital channels. In insurance, for instance, one can measure revenue growth achieved by field agents versus buying or renewal of insurance online. Another means of measuring DX is by using the net promoter score or NPS, measuring marketing effectiveness. A new digital marketing platform should mean an uptick in the NPS. A third way of measuring DX is by assessing the user experience and rating by end users. Finally, DX can be measured based on the customer’s ability to cross-sell and upsell their offerings. When making a sale for a TV, for example, one should be able to weave in the financing and insurance aspects into the same digital platform.
Futuristic technologies such as AI, the metaverse and ChatGPT have become everyday terminology. Brands should leverage these emerging opportunities and find ways to connect their DX data to these new tools. The State of the Customer Report shows that as many as 69 percent of consumers are open to using AI to improve their digital experiences. Going forward, companies should ride this wave of innovation. The ones that surge ahead will be those who can put DX in the business context and recognise that a robust DX strategy will drive profits.
