The Neuroscience of Customer Experience (CX) & Digital Transformation

There is a new CX balancing act—the need for digital and a want for human.

After 15-years of doing retail mystery shops and lecturing Customer Experience (CX) at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), Ian Rheeder shares the human science behind great Customer Experience Management (CEM). In this short article, he shares an avalanche of brain-science that has made the topic of CX easier to understand and implement.

There are just two things that are important to our business—a clear strategy and great customer experience (CX). From advertising to every interaction, CX is the overall customer experience (or accumulative perception) of our company. Service is just part of CX.

Traditionally, Customer Experience Management (CEM) was always designed before Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Senior management was heavily involved in the design of the CX (the customer journey), thereafter, CX was monitored using CRM at all touch-points. This means CX has always lead CRM. So CRM tracked CX and improved CX at every touch-point. However, because of the digital transformation of the hybrid-workplace, this traditional CX process must be challenged. Advanced CRM software now needs to be imbedded into CX from the start. There is a new CX balancing act—the need for digital; and a want for human touch.

So let’s now look at how we can use the below top-10 golden nuggets, spawned by neuroscience, to improve the world of CX.

1. The human brain is not a business organ; it’s a social-organ:

2. Happiness boosts innovation & boosts sales:

3. The Last TouchPoint is Lasting:

4. STOP Trying To Delight Your Customers:

5. Mirror Neurons:

6. Humans are pretty switched off consciously:

7. The opposite emotion of Trust is Disgust:

8. The opposite emotion of love is indifference:

9. We can only do one new thing at a time:

10. Best way to build trust:

To monitor our CX (using CRM), the two best metrics by far are the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Scores (CES). Thereafter Time To Resolution (TTR) or First Time Fix Rates (FTFR).

Ian Rheeder

Ian draws on the practical knowledge of 17-years of training marketing teams, was the founding member of the SA Marketing Association, founding member of CXSA, and was The Past President of the Professional Speakers Association.  Before starting his own marketing consultancy in 2005, Ian was the marketing & sales director of the global zipper giant, YKK. Before that he gained his experience consulting to over 30 international brands.

Digital Transformation & Customer Experience (CX)

Background

In today’s customer-led business world, most businesses are not facing digital disruption –

they’ve already been disrupted by Industry 4.0. In fact, digital tech and customer centricity is not a differentiator anymore, it’s the new foot-in-the-door of survival. In 2022 a massive 28% of consumers are weekly buying groceries online[1].

Bridging the offline-online divide, consumers are walking around with super-computers in their hands (cell phones). With 24% of consumers opening apps when in a store, and 18% taking photos, digital convenience and efficiency has fast become a basic human need[2].

Blinded by their Industry 4.0 Digital Strategy though, many companies are simultaneously losing the human touch, and it’s now Industry 5.0’s challenge to make Industry 4.0 feel more human. Why? Because there’s definitely “The need for Digital” – yet digital must be balanced with “The want for Human” too. But not all businesses are purely on-line. Business-to-business (B2B) sectors are in need of more human than digital—so it’s important to get the balance right for your particular business model.

Would it help if you knew your customers’ deep personal preferences?

To launch an improved customer experience, big-data can be scraped and analysed. In the hope that they will wipe-out your existing business model, this is what new competitors are currently focusing on. As Google Chrome phases out cookies in 2024, collecting first-party data isn’t a maybe, it’s a must to personalise the customer journey.

Using data analytics, businesses can pivot when they have a detailed 360⁰ view of their customers’ recent behaviour. This is especially true when the artificial intelligence (AI) can predict a customer’s next move or request. In this way, customers and companies co-create products and improve touch-points, raising the barrier-to-entry for disruptive new competitors.

Will you be relevant in 3-years from now?

The biggest fear for most CEOs, is remaining relevant in the near future (this includes price relevance). Thankfully, most CEOs also agree that their competitive advantage—or way to customer loyalty—will be based on superior customer experience (CX).

Let’s look at six tried and proven steps to embrace Digital Transformation, whilst improving CX[3].

[1] Hootsuite, 2022

[2] Gartner, 2022

[3] Hernandez, J. and Clamp, A. (2017).  KPMG. Customer First. How to create a customer centric business and compete in the digital age.

Step 1 of 6: Creating a Digital Customer Strategy

The first of the 6-steps are for the EXCO to describe to themselves, what the end Digital Transformation goal should look like.

1. 360° Customer Profile: The goal is a single customer view, allowing you to treat every customer differently. The key is to consolidate all the rich customer data in one single database or place.

2. Merging Data Ecosystems: Social Media data, browsing data, with internal financial data needs to merge. Then get decision engines to model and predict behaviour.

3. Focus on Customer’s Core Issues: Use customer insights—especially their biggest issues—to lead focus-groups, and innovate better solutions, before your competitors do.

4. Support Products with Digital Services: Because more customers are discovering the efficiencies and cost-savings of online, digital is the low-hanging-fruit. Globally, 58% of those aged between 16-64 buy something online weekly; and in South Africa it’s still very impressive at 47%[1]. Entice customers to interact with you on a daily basis, allowing you to collect first-party data, helping you improve on the customer journey.

5. A new Evolved Business Model: The Apple iPhone was successful mainly due to the App Store platform of mind-blowing apps. This “platform” was successful because thousands of app developers designed complimentary products to load onto the iPhone. This is where your ecosystem of “partners” collaborates to deliver your overall value proposition.

[1] Hootsuite, 2022

Step 2 of 6: Creating a Digital Customer Experience (CX) Action Plan

To create a competitive advantage, the fusion-team of leaders (digital & marketing experts) must first define their vision of what the CX journey must look like, and roughly how CX will be measured. A brainstorm is required to discuss how leading, digital-enabled journeys can be applied to the business. The five stages of Design Thinking would have been used to guide the CX process (i.e. Empathise, Design, Ideate, Prototype, Test). A guiding principle is to first get the basics right at every touchpoint, and then only think about the “delight” factors[1]. An overwhelming majority of CEOs agree that the way to customer loyalty will be based on superior digital CX.

1. Define Vision: Unifying vision in line with brand values and company culture. Make sure your company is capable of delivering.

2. Customer Research (voice): Combined operational, social media data, and feedback from (i.e. NPS, CES comments).

3. Balance Return-on Investment: Decide where more will need to be spent and where to cut back on costs. CX is not all about growing sales, but also reducing costs. Because “Consumers punish bad service more readily than they reward delightful service[2].”, focus on getting the basics right.

4. Design Thinking for best CX: Stanford Business School’s Design Thinking Model is critical. The 5-steps are: Empathise (research), Design, Ideate, Prototype, Test.

5. Execute change: Changing the customer journey normally requires a change in business structure (i.e. people structure, operating models, digital processes). This often requires “silo busting” – making sure that all departments work together “digitally” to serve the customer journey.

[1] Dixon, M., Freeman, K. and Toman, N. (2010). STOP Trying to Delight Your Customers, Harvard Business Review, July-August.

[2] Dixon, M., Freeman, K. and Toman, N. (2010:116). STOP Trying to Delight Your Customers, Harvard Business Review, July-August.

Step 3 of 6: Digitise Front Office: Sales, Marketing & Service

Digitising Sales, Marketing & Service (front office’s operations) must operate as an integrated-seamless whole. This is especially important as advertising could have created a “service anticipation gap’. The front office —in real time —must have a view of the end-to-end supply chain, and keep the customer informed of on-time-delivery-in-full (OTDIF). Great selling is service, and vice versa. For instance, if the service is excellent, the customer may easily purchase more. What’s more, the majority of a salesperson’s time today should be spent on other activities (OTDIF); and a service staff’s time may be spent on selling.

1. Human Understanding & Digital Marketing: Do off-line (human) research to understand customers’ needs. Then do your data analytics and find the insights to refine the customer journey.
2. Human & Digital Sales Segments: Buying habits are changing. Get your off-line (human) sales channels (face-to-face segment) perfected whilst also focusing on perfecting your digital sales channels (digital segments). Capture valuable data on your CRM platform.
3. Transform Customer Service: Digitally integrate your service (field service & contact centre) so customers experience a seamless-low-effort experience, no matter who or what channel they contact. As AI advances, use chatbots more.
4. Omni-Channel Integration: Mobile digital channels are most common, but companies must plan around both mobile and natural human language/conversation channels. Most customers attempt self-service first (i.e. AI chatbots/virtual agents), because e-mail response is slow and call centre queues are long. What is crucial here for the CMO, is to blend creativity with data to prescribe new tactics and predict future needs.

Step 4 of 6: Digitally Connect Your Entire Enterprise

Between 1998 to 2019 Apple expanded from 8 to 17 different business units (SBUs), fragmenting the organisation and creating silos.  So Apple’s leaders had to become cross-functional experts, and were forced to deliberately collaborate with other SBUs. They had to be deeply knowledgeable about all SBUs[1]. In short, the EXCO had to be a fusion-team of experts to digitally connect the entire enterprise.

Remember, the main objective of digital transformation is to make more sales through customer centricity. The key is to design a digital system that supports both the employee and the customer. It’s generally accepted that an “outside-in” process is key, where the customer creates the journey. However, the “inside-out” approach is arguably more important today, because this inside, end-to-end value chain, needs to be innovated and supported by employees too. The entire value chain must be connected from back-office (off-stage) to the front-office (on-stage)—all connected using data flow. The Aberdeen Research Group has observed a 270% faster annual growth rate for those companies who have digitally connected a seamless value chain[2]. The advantages are seamless service, responsiveness, OTDIF, agility, efficiency and consistency.  Aberdeen have also cited that 269% higher chance of retention vs. companies with a weak omni-channel strategy. What’s more, the customer lifetime value (CLV) of someone who buys both in-store and online is 30% higher.

1. Analyse The Customer & The Brand: Using your brand positioning strategy, plan consistent pricing and personalised customer experiences at every touch point.
2. Relevant Products & Services: Ensure that the value chain delivers consistently, with special attention to on-time-delivery-in-full and invoiced-correctly (OTDIFIC). Build partnerships with companies in the value chain to increase speed and OTDIFIC.
3. Breakdown Technology Silos for Seamless Service: Use big-data analytics to give a 360⁰ view of the customers, whilst allowing omni-channels to anticipate and interact.
4. Breakdown People Silos for Seamless Service: Work on employee engagement and align all functions to serve each other internally, whilst also serving the customer. Silo busting requires trust[3] (the best money maker on earth), digital data flow, communication, shared goals (KPIs) and incentives.

[1] Podolny, J. M., & Hansen, M. T. (2020). How Apple is organized for innovation. Harvard Business Review, 98(6), 86-95.

[2] KPMG, 2007:23

[3] Haederle, M. (2010). The Best Fiscal Stimulus: Trust. Miller-McCune.

Step 5 of 6: Data Analytics & Insights

The use of predictive analytics is doubling every year, and has become the top area of investment[1]. To improve sales and retention, the CX must be data fed with customer data and market (i.e. competitor) data. Data-driven insights, using complex algorithms embedded at touch-points, will help predict a customer’s next request. 

1. Scope you data analytic strategy: The company’s technology capabilities must be aligned with data and analytics. Of key importance is to align your company’s objectives and KPIs with the data strategy.
2. Technology: Link internal and external data that represents the “voice of the customer” and internal “voice of the value chain”.
3. Data Models & Analytic Engines: Data analysts need to create data models, and then share the data using visualisation tool. Data is scraped from Social Media, ‘Voice of The Employee’ (sales & service) and ‘Voice of The Customer’.
4. Interpret Insights: The company can observe dashboards of key metrics and proactively action system-wide changes to improve the customer journey.

[1] KPMG, 2017:28

Step 6 of 6: Digital Transformation

To improve your business model, the strong forces of technology cannot be ignored anymore. Delivering Digital Transformation has become easier due to IoT, broad bandwidth, the metaverse, cloud computing, social media, the ability to analyse data in real-time and mobile technology. In South Africa, over 80% of Internet is accessed with a cell phone and over 75% of banking is done on a mobile device. To deliver end-to-end digital transformation, consider these steps.

1. Cell Phone Channel is key: Most websites are accessed using a mobile phone, so make sure the user-centric experience (UE) and user interface (UI) reflects perfectly on your platforms.
2. Customer Digital Platforms: Sales, Marketing, Service systems need to scrape data into the cloud. Consider online CRM systems to compliment your cloud-based strategy. This digital transformation should include natural language chatbots, robotic process automation (RPA), virtual reality and augmented reality (i.e. Google Maps, SnapChat).

Don’t forget that humans are 80% emotional and only 20% logical[1]. Which means that you need to empathetically engage all their senses. Secondly, the human brain is more ‘social’ than any other species[2], so the company that thrives at Digital Transformation will connect and socialise better than their rivals. Lastly, the missing link for today’s CX, are highly trained staff, who are not just empathetic, but solve problems fast[3].

[1] Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Putnam.

[2] Gilbert, D.T. (2012). The Science behind the smile. Harvard Business Review. 90, 1/2.

[3] Dixon, M., Ponomareff, L., Turner, S. and DeLisi, R. (2017). Kick-Ass Customer Service. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 95, Issue No.1.

Ian Rheeder

Ian draws on the practical knowledge of 17-years of training marketing teams, was the founding member of the SA Marketing Association, founding member of CXSA, and was The Past President of the Professional Speakers Association.  Before starting his own marketing consultancy in 2005, Ian was the marketing & sales director of the global zipper giant, YKK. Before that he gained his experience consulting to over 30 international brands.

Microsoft expands cloud services in South African data centres to drive growth and competitiveness

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform are now generally available in Microsoft’s enterprise-grade data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Microsoft’s move further reinforces its commitment to investing in South Africa and increasing cloud capabilities. Through innovation, agility, and resilience, this will enable organisations in the public and private sectors to accelerate growth.

The multiple hyperscale data centre locations within South Africa now provide Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform online services to support organisations as they reimagine ways of doing business to adapt to the rapid pace of change in today’s world.

“Leaders in organisations across industries and sectors are focused on finding ways to improve the flow of innovation and knowledge across the business in order to respond to market changes, customer needs and specific business and industry challenges at speed. They need digital solutions that break existing silos between data sources, people, processes, and insights,” says Karin Jones, Director Business Applications GTM at Microsoft South Africa.

Through South Africa’s expanding data centres footprint and an ongoing investment in Microsoft Business Applications, commercial cloud services are becoming available and extending. This provides leaders with the portfolio of digital solutions they need to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and ensure business continuity and disaster recovery.

Microsoft Cloud provides a flexible platform, productivity, business applications, as well as intelligent software for rapidly storing, analysing, and acting on data at scale and securely. Additionally, it makes it possible for people to connect with business resources – data, documents, databases, networks, and systems – wherever they are, at any time. Through this, collaboration, sharing, productivity, and learning are enhanced.

By delivering these cloud services from South Africa, local companies can move their businesses securely and reliably to the cloud while maintaining data residency and sovereignty. As a result, they will be able to comply with regulatory requirements.

Combined with the launch of Azure Availability Zones in 2021, they are further supported by the low latency, resiliency and high availability of business-critical applications and data that comes with in-region data centres – guaranteeing uptime and continuous access to critical data, applications, and workloads.

“Organisations in South Africa are increasingly recognising the value of the cloud, driving continued growth and adoption,” says Jones. The IDC State of Cybersecurity in South Africa report showed that nearly half (48 percent) of organisations in the country are using cloud as a platform and driver of digital innovation, and 61 percent of South African organisations said they were spending more on cloud solutions in 2021 than 2020. South Africa’s public cloud services market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.5% through 2025, up from $1.6 billion in 2021.

New services continue to open up opportunities. Integrating cloud-based services and products with industry-specific clouds – such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services – can help extend the value and benefits of the cloud even further. Microsoft’s cloud portfolio includes these capabilities, solutions, and tools to help organisations transform – driven by Microsoft Business Applications and the capabilities of Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

In this era of connected operations, Microsoft Business Applications provide organisations with integrated, purpose-built, adaptable business solutions that allow them to manage specific business functions, foster customer relationships, and quickly create low-code solutions.

On top of the Power Platform layer is Dynamics 365, a pre-built set of applications that helps companies optimise operations, empower cross-functional innovation, and improve customer engagement. With these apps, companies can quickly onboard users, deploy them quickly, customise them for their own workflows and processes, and provide ready-made business scenarios for marketing, sales, commerce, supply chain, and customer service.

Anyone in the organisation, from business users to professional developers, can build, test, and deliver customised solutions tailored to meet their unique needs in production with Power Platform, a low-code/no-code solution. IT resources are scarce, so the solution requires minimal coding. “This means businesses are able to adapt and respond to rapid developments in real time,” says Jones.

“Microsoft’s ongoing investment in local infrastructure and the expansion of cloud services in South Africa is helping build the capability and improve operational efficiencies of organisations of all sizes across sectors. This will accelerate digital innovation in the country by enabling businesses to become more agile, resilient, and competitive. This in turn will help unlock broader economic growth for South Africa,” says Jones

Customer Engagement Trends

The customer is the centre of every successful business, and digital technology allows you to interact with them in more ways than ever before. It is also important to remember that customers expect more as well. A lot more.

Create a bad experience, and you’re more likely to lose that customer. Improve your customer’s experience and get more business.

The question is, how do you create better customer experiences that will encourage new business and loyalty from your customers?

New business opportunities are being created as a result of seismic shifts in the global business landscape. Customer-experience-focused executives understand that a linear process based on megaphone messaging is no longer sufficient to connect with customers. Hyper-personalised, orchestrated journeys, which elevate customer experiences, are the future of marketing. Customer-driven journeys that deliver customer-centred messages in real-time will succeed.

Create personalised interactions

It is essential that customers have the ability to construct their own paths to purchase decisions in order for personalisation to succeed. A better understanding of customer needs will enable organisations to develop hyper-personalised messages that are more tailored and relevant. Further, there needs to be a greater focus on nurturing and retaining long-term, high-value customers.

Drive personalised interactions with real-time customer journey orchestration

Engage customers in real-time with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing. By applying these technologies, organizations have the ability to establish close relationships with each of their customers, and they can communicate with them in the channels they prefer, with a great deal of assistance from artificial intelligence.

Personalise customer experiences, messages, and channels with Artificial Intelligence

In order to provide personalised service to customers, organisations should consider the range of experiences their customers have with them. Dynamics 365 Marketing uses AI to help determine which channel—email, text, push notification—a customer will be most receptive to. Business users of this application can also draw on a new AI-driven content library to help select the content elements that will resonate better with the customer. Focus on your best opportunities.

Dynamics 365 Marketing supports:

• Real-time customer journey orchestration.
• Customer-led, event-based journey triggers.
• AI-driven recommendations for channels and content.
• Stronger integration with Microsoft Teams for nurturing webinars and meeting attendees.
• Works well with Microsoft’s customer data platform, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
• The collection of detailed feedback using Dynamics 365 Customer Voice surveys.
• The development of customer trust with a secure, unified, and adaptable platform.

All of which help you win customers and earn loyalty.

Optimise customer journeys

Dynamics 365 Marketing provides real-time customer journey orchestration to help organisations understand, orchestrate, and engage their customers better across marketing, sales, commerce, and service. Dynamics 365 Marketing has a unique, direct connection to data and insights from Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and can use its continuously updating, multi-data source segments dynamically.

Enhance engagements

Marketing technology requires substantial amounts of data to understand, orchestrate, and engage customers at scale and in real-time. The more data available, the higher the likelihood of intervening at the right time, in the right way, and prompting the next best action. The number of touchpoints per customer per journey is increasing. Capturing data across those touchpoints and making sure it is fed into the next customer interaction using advanced AI is vital.

Design end-to-end journeys

Customer journeys orchestrated by Dynamics 365 Marketing are based on real-time interactions across email, mobile, social media, custom channels, and in-person touchpoints. They reach customers in a personal way, encouraging greater understanding between organisations and customers to win customer confidence and loyalty.

Engage in real-time 

The next leap in customer journey effectiveness is the introduction of real-time responses to customer-triggered events. AI helps guide a journey to refine the message, offer, and delivery—and assists in conducting dynamic experimentation to determine the content that resonates best—all with unprecedented speed. When a company can rapidly adjust to triggering events that indicate a change in customer focus or signal a new activity, customers then know that they are valued.

Use analytics to monitor and measure success 

Activating digital selling and marketing makes it easier to collect data for sophisticated analytics. As part of your analytics process, ensure that your customer journey orchestration software offers a set of built-in analytics dashboards and cross-journey insights to improve journey effectiveness and achieve your business goals. In real-time, monitor your customer journeys and channel KPIs and guide evaluating performance metrics for messages and channels. Is a social channel effective for a specific interaction? Thoughtfully designed analytics capabilities can provide the answer.

Orchestrated customer journeys: essential to success 

Organisations must deliver personalised messages that customers can identify with explicitly or implicitly—the right message, at the right time, using the channel that customer prefers—to show that they understand and care about their customers. Strong, sustained growth is a constant requirement for every business. But in today’s world of uncertainties, organisations must not only reach new customers; they must strengthen existing relationships. Demonstrating a commitment to customers is now centre stage in forward-thinking organisations. Customer-led, real-time orchestrated customer journeys are the way to help existing customers progress from one-time engagements to repeat customers to fans of the company.

The Four Hurdles To Jump In The
Digital Adoption Race

With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, it was as if the entire world went digital. Companies enabled remote work, retailers encouraged online shopping, and staying in touch with loved ones became entirely virtual. Although so many aspects of our personal lives have been transformed through digital services, there is still a great deal of work to be done when it comes to digital adoption within the workplace.

Let’s take a look at some of the challenges companies face when it comes to digital adoption and how we can help you overcome them.

Change Management

The ultimate goal for most organisations is to create happy clients who return. A digital-first strategy should not only enhance customer service but also create a meaningful and positive experience for employees. However, even investing in the most advanced software money can buy will yield a low ROI if no one in the organisation wants to use it.

This is where we can help you through change management. We focus on changing the mentality and approach throughout all the levels in your organisation in order for the implementation of new technology processes to be met with enthusiasm and optimism instead of resistance and fear of change.

A 2021 Digital Business study mentions that businesses who adopt a digital-first strategy can expect an average revenue increase of 34%.

Digitally-adept Employees

According to a study published, employees spend an average of 22 minutes every day figuring out how new applications work.

To decrease and potentially eliminate this time expenditure, companies need to prioritise the onboarding process of new employees, upskilling existing employees while tackling challenges linked to data processing, customer intimacy, speed and customer journey optimisation.

In order to drive digital adoption and boost a digital skillset, organisations have to work on making the interaction between humans and machines as natural as possible.

In areas like automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence; innovative applications that provide and organise information into usable data in real time is required. So are the skills to utilise the software.

Instilling Curiosity and A Hunger To Learn

In life there is always something new to learn. So, implementing the same lifelong learning culture and mentality within your organisation will help keep your company on top.

Investing in your employees and regularly upskilling them with crucial digital know-how is vital to guarantee scalability and sustainability. This will dramatically increase the ROI derived from the implementation of new software and creates more room for innovation as employees gain an understanding of digital workflows and processes.

Strategy Supportive Solutions

A digital-first strategy and its supportive solutions go hand-in-hand. One cannot thrive without the other.

Many businesses realise the need to transform and that being digitally enabled will help them gain a competitive advantage. However, there are many businesses that feel they’re missing the mark when it comes to solutions that support their strategy.

As we know with digital infrastructures and software, updates and changes in technology occur so frequently that traditional training simply can’t keep up. Combining that with the fact that people forget 90% of their training within a month, it’s easy to see just how important it is to have solutions that support your digital strategy.

Here’s Where We Come In

To compensate for the training and retraining programmes, you need to have an agile solution that provides performance support, such as a User Adoption Strategy which happens to be our forte!

If you’re ready to become a confident, digital-adept organisation, click below.

What Are The Top 5
Digital Transformation Trends

Over the last two decades, most global companies have had the luxury of digitising over time, so why is it such a buzzword in 2022? As technology changes, companies need to be agile enough to adapt to the changes. Digital transformation is not a once-off deal, it’s a process that’s constantly evolving.

If you’re looking to get ahead of the cultural shift, there are five digital trends that are set to take off in the near future.

What Is Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is fundamentally shaping new ways for businesses to improve experiences, from internal departments to the end-consumer. It’s a cultural shift that involves adopting new technologies and harnessing the benefits to improve innovation, value, and efficiency.

Because of the pandemic, hybrid work models have been the forefront topic across the globe. We’ve had to change the way we work and interact with customers in all areas of business. It created a space where we had to shift the way we collect and integrate data while implementing a new space for employees to thrive.

Benefits Of Digital Transformation

Successful digital transformation can unlock business potential and help you  increase your return on investments. Based on their transformational efforts, the following benefits highlight what most companies find rewarding.

1. Improved Data Collection

Digital transformation optimises the way businesses collect and translate data. This means that departments can integrate raw data into insights across numerous touchpoints.  This is fundamental to accessing a single view of the operations, customer journey, production, and finance. With this, you can use data-driven insights to improve workflow efficiency and enhance customer experiences.

2. Managing Resources Effectively

From marketing and sales to C-suite, every department will be able to leverage off integrated applications, software and databases – a centralised portal that optimises business intelligence. This is a sure way to help keep employees connected while managing their day-to-day operations.

3. Access To Data-Driven Insights

You can now unlock insights that meet the needs of your customers. This is the perfect way to create a more effective customer-centric strategy. Data-driven insights not only help you become more agile, but it also helps you make informed decisions, improve operations and discover new business opportunities with sufficient market evidence. If you’re an enterprise that places high-value on data, you’re set to see competitors use more data insight practices and collaboration.

4. Improved Customer Experiences (CX)

One way to deliver a seamless customer experience is through digital transformation. Transformation affects the cadence of how your sales and marketing team discover new prospects. The challenge for most brands starts with the customer experience. Customers have limitless products and services offered to them day-to-day and it’s important to break through the noise. One way of enhancing CX is to give customers autonomous control over their data. When you provide the right features to meet customers’ needs, this will help your team manage expectations and earn long-term trust.

5. Shifting Digital Culture & Collaboration

Trends predicted that by 2020, “83% of enterprise workloads” will run on the cloud. Approximately 41% of these workloads were predicted to run on public cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services. Private-cloud-based services were predicted to have an additional 20%, while hybrid cloud platforms accommodated 22%.

Not only do these tools deliver effortless collaboration, they also help your enterprise move forward digitally. In order for your business to remain sustainable, the latest digital shift is a crucial one.

With this, upskilling and digital learning can be enforced and employees are able to take advantage of the benefits.

6. Increasing Digital Adoption

In the evolving digital space, Implementing the right digital assets will elevate your business from the inside-out. Getting your employees to help drive the mission is a crucial part of your transformation.

To achieve business objectives, finding an effective user adoption strategy is a great place to start. Whether it’s increasing CRM user adoption,  implementing AI applications, or both — It’s important to find the relevant strategy that meets your business needs and employees’ capabilities.

Top 5 Digital Transformation Trends For 2022

Getting to know what’s ahead in the digital landscape will help you understand the why’s and how’s. Take note of the digital transformation trends that are set to take off in the near future.

1. Protecting data and efficient cybersecurity

Now more than ever, cybersecurity and data protection has become the next priority for 2022. During the course of the pandemic, customers spent more time on smart devices and companies were forced to move to hybrid work – having to adapt to new technologies in the process. As a result, a lot of companies recognise that automation and applications need to be secure in order to earn customer trust.

With that being said, customers are going to see a lot more high-placed value on security features that are being deployed to applications and software.

2. Automation

Small businesses are likely to adopt and automate processes going forward. It’s predicted that within the next year, automation will go as far as medium-to-large enterprises due to more accessible solutions. Whether you conduct business in manufacturing, market research or customer support, a number of businesses will start implementing a combination of digital assets into daily workloads.

3. Cloud Solutions

Cloud-based services are incredibly scaleable, cost-effective and easy to use. As more enterprises move away from on-premise safekeeping, running applications on cloud platforms have become a ‘must-have’ solution. Where security is concerned, cloud platforms come with improved cybersecurity features that help keep data and sensitive information safe. In addition, your team will be able to collaborate more effectively and the cloud’s scalability allows big data to thrive.

4. Hybrid Models (Working From Home)

Brought to you by the pandemic, hybrid working is set to become part of a permanent business model. What we can expect in the next year is an increase in employee expectations, and as the future of work heavily relies on connection – organisations will be forced to adapt. For instance, connecting virtually with colleagues is becoming a common hybrid solution for most. To drive productivity and employee retention, you will need to deliver digital-first solutions along with connected experiences that fit into the work from home space.

5. 5G and The IoT

Introducing the new age of mobile communication, the 5G network is set to define interaction on another level. When you invest in 5G and expand on the internet of things, your business will improve its cost and production. It will also become a concrete benefit for organisations that have adopted hybrid working. Greater flexibility, responsive networks and improved security are just some of the benefits that accommodate a connected future.

Digital Adoption Strategies

Within the last year, it was reported that 73% of businesses failed to meet the value out of their digital transformation efforts. According to forbes, 70% had failed adoption programs due to employee resistance. Businesses may understand the value of digital transformation but they’re not getting the value from these assets because of poor adoption practices.

Adapting to the following strategies will help you get the most out of your digital assets:

1. First explore the digital assets that your business needs and plan how you’re going to roll out new technologies. You can do this by creating awareness in phases. Use the first phase to highlight how the benefits will help your employees’ manage day-to-day workload.

2. Create a workshop or event to drive hype around the new digital asset/s. You can successfully onboard employees by showcasing a detailed presentation and answer any questions that they may have. This could include training activities, benefits of the technology, and how it fits into the enterprise as a whole.

3. Poor communication leads to poor decision making. Start providing departments with the right know-how to prevent future project failures. Open up and support staff by letting them ask questions. Until the user gets comfortable with the tech, it becomes relatively easier to achieve adoption.

4. Training doesn’t always come with a one-size-fits-all approach. Tailored learning can be super beneficial when dealing with new processes. People tend to learn and upskill at different stages, so be sure to personalise training.

5. Following up from time to time will allow employees to grow with your transformational efforts. It also helps them feel confident enough to implement future digital assets more effectively. Start surveying how well the programs are working and identify any gaps that are hindering growth and development.

Bottom Line

Companies are continuing to digitally transform their workforce. With the latest predictions, you’ll be set to deliver steady, high-value solutions to your customers — while fostering happier, more productive teams. In addition to this, you’ll be able to improve operational efficiencies every step of the way.

Explore the future scope of digital transformation. Learn how The CRM team can help you get there.