October 10, 2017
By Carla Johnson
Businesses have been after a complete and seamless digital experience since the day “digital” came about. This keeps getting more important customers are sick and tired of inefficient interactions that don’t feel personal. We’re better than that and they know it.
Companies have to deliver an amazing experience that’s seamless and connected from start to finish. When we talk about customer experience, we all lean back in our chairs and give marketing the evil eye. But we have a lot of ducks to get in a row, not just marketing, before we can do something that’s interesting, unique and actually helpful.
I read an article in AdAge in which the author pointed out how important it is to get to the reality of an end-to-end experience. If we’re going to be amazing and delivering that breadth and depth of an experience, we have to get our arms around strategy, insights, creative, technology and delivery at every place we touch a customer. There’s a lot of large companies that have been able to integrate at a high-level within silos, but there’s few that can bubble this up to the entire business. This means customers have to endure the pain of disjointed systems and ad hoc processes . We end up undermining the entire customer experience and leaving a tons of opportunities on the table.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
We’re hearing a louder call for an integrated experience. And, according to the AdAge author, a seamless digital approach doesn’t take that much longer than slapping together a disconnected mishmash of tools.
Startups and spinoffs have an easier time because they’re working with a clean slate. Established organizations have bigger headache because they have to deal with organizational inertial and people who don’t want to change. In either case, we never get to the point of maintaining a fully integrated mix of digital platforms, because we’ll always be struggling to keep pace. It means our digital nirvana is always a journey, never a destination.
The answer to all of this may lie in a “digital factory.” A digital factory is when you continually develop and integrate new innovations into your digital mix while keeping distractions and day-to-day operational disruptions to a minimum.
Read the full article to learn about the digital factory approach and what it looks like in action.
Photo credit: Deloitte Digital
