In our digital-heavy world, it can be difficult for businesses to transform to a digital experience, but more and more small and medium sized companies are finding they need to do that. A successful digital transformation allows companies to increase their revenues and deliver a better customer experience, but many wonder how to make the transition. Read on to learn everything you need to know to make your business undergo a digital transformation.
What is the digital transformation?
Digital transformation simply explains the process of integrating digital technology into all of a business’ facets. Businesses that undergo a digital transformation change both how they operate and what they deliver to customers. Although expanding to digital platforms may feel like an uphill battle, it can have amazing benefits for your business.
Meeting customer expectations is especially poignant for many business owners, as customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable on average than companies that aren’t. Furthermore, 66% of customers believe a business should fully understand their needs. Unfortunately, 47% of companies have not started their digital transformation yet; although, 70% have a plan in place.
Digital transformation and customer experience
The digitalization of our world has led to an overhaul in consumer habits. Algorithms, apps and automation are allowing customers to shop for their favorite things quite easily, while businesses can put things their customers are interested in directly in front of them thanks to machine learning.
Some factors to consider for digital transformation
If you’re ready to make the leap into a digital transformation, great! However, there are a few factors you should take into consideration before making the leap.
- Are you the right leader for this? There’s nothing wrong with realizing that you might not be the best person to head your company’s adoption of digital technologies and strategies.
- Are your employees onboard? Digital transformations will require changes to occur within your company, and you need your employees to fully understand what this means for them. Begin by switching over to your new work methods and showing employees proper behaviors for using them. Also remember to get their input. Employees will likely know more than you about what needs to be digitized as soon as possible and can give you ideas on the best ways to undergo your digital transformation.
- What do you actually need? The digital transformation market generates roughly half-a-billion dollars per year as of 2021, in part due to the many different sectors of the market. From apps to checkout systems, the digital transformation market offers an assortment of different products to make your life easier. However, you likely don’t need some of them in your business structure. This is where a consultant can come in handy because they can help you decide what your business needs.
- Do you have a budget? You may decide that your business can benefit from introducing a completely digitized experience all at one, but is it feasibly within your budget to create all these things? Set a budget and prioritize what systems are critically needed and which your company can hold off on adopting.
How do you offer a great Customer Experience with Digital Transformation?
The main concern for most people is offering a digital transformation to make interacting with customers easer, smarter and faster.
Focus on your customers
Your primary goals need to be your customers and how to elevate their experience. Try to examine your business through their eyes, looking for ways to improve their satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.
Look at any analytical data you may have. Are you reaching your target customer? Or are there some surprises when it comes to who is actually purchasing from you? Tailor your systems to collect as much data as possible about your customers so you can tailor an experience to fit their needs.
Get your organization on board
The biggest issue we see when companies are undergoing a digital transformation is a lack of support across the whole company. Oftentimes it gets placed on the front-end; however, it needs to happen within the entire company.
Get employees on board by teaching them about how these systems can make their lives easier, especially when needing to communicate with other departments. For example, if a customer needs something but can’t come into the store, a back-end employee can create a system that allows a front-end employee to know what the customer needs, check out their purchase and deliver the products to the customer.
Understand pain points
Your customer journey starts the moment a customer is looking for a product until they make their purchase. In store, this is sometimes as simple as a customer seeing a product, putting it in their cart and checking out (impulse purchases). However, the customer journey is actually more complicated than that for most purchases, which may go something like this:
- Customer sees product
- Customer examines options for price differences
- Customer research stores
- Customer adds product to cart
- Customer purchases item
- Item is delivered to customer/Customer picks up item from store
As you can see, there are a lot of factors that go into a customer making a purchase, and each comes with their own pain point. Look to see how you can make this process easier and more streamlined.
Personalize for your customers
Customers want to feel connected to the companies they shop with. Try to look for ways that you can make them feel like a valued part of your ecosystem with personalized recommendations, using their name in emails and text messages and sending notifications. This will make the customer feel connected to your brand, increasing their loyalty.
Deciding to undergo a digital transformation is a big step for businesses, but the increase in revenue and customer experiences is more than worth the time and money it takes to transition.
Technology Consulting Services
Ollen Group is one of the leading consulting firms in the Middle East & Africa region (MEA) offering digital transformation with turnkey solutions from strategy to execution. our consultancy services are up to date with consumer shifts, and the necessary steps needed to find success in the future. Our expert consultants will help your through your journey.
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