The path to optimal customer experience in the digital age

Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Singles Day, winter and summer sales: discount battles are almost omnipresent today. But economic success is not only a question of pricing. A good customer experience is indispensable to be able to hold one's own on the market in the long term. And this is all under the sign of digitalization.

Buying a complete living room set, making an urgent bank transfer, holding important customer meetings: What often took place on site in the past can now be done online. The result: companies meet their customers in person less and less often. The pandemic has further restricted physical customer contact - and thus digitized it. The analytics specialist SAS found in a recent study, for example, that the number of people using online banking increased almost as much in just three months during the Corona crisis as it did between 2016 and 2020. And of these digital newcomers, 70 percent plan to continue using the tools and services in the future.

This development makes it clear: customer experience must also function optimally digitally. Because it is a direct competitive factor. According to SAS, almost half of the respondents in Germany are willing to pay more for offers from companies and providers with whom they had a good experience during the crisis. One in three, on the other hand, would switch to the competition after only one bad experience. Price discounts or a successful customer experience? These aspects influence purchasing decisions almost equally. As T-Systems, we therefore support companies with the following measures, among others, in creating a successful customer experience in the digital age:

1.   AI Strategy Assessment: Understanding customer needs better with AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps us to better understand the needs of our customers. For example, by automatically analyzing data on purchasing behavior, we can calculate which customers order which products and when. This allows us to adapt production processes and warehousing to customer needs at an early stage. The result: customers receive the desired goods as quickly as possible and are satisfied.

2.   Innovation Sprints: Strategically plan new approaches

Which new product features would benefit the company's own customers the most? What technologies could advance internal processes to process customer requests faster and more accurately? Innovations are crucial if companies want to prevail against competitors. Important here: a clear strategy, efficient testing of new solutions and finally their clean implementation.

3.   Customer Journey Kickstarter: Achieving the goal with a workshop

In order to offer the best possible customer experience, providers need to know their target group: what needs drive them, which touchpoints they prefer. In a one-day workshop, we work together with companies to develop an optimal customer journey and define areas of action and approaches for improvement.

4.   Customer Experience Platforms: Steering measures uniformly

Digitization strategy, business model, customer relations - all of these should be in harmony. Measures should complement each other, not run past each other. That is why a central platform is so important for success. All needs can be brought together on it. Creative development of new approaches meets efficient implementation.

5.   Digital Strategy Compact: Individuality Wins

There is no universal roadmap to a successful customer experience. Every company has its own requirements and demands, and the same applies to its customers. That's why we attach great importance to developing individual digitalization strategies for and with companies. With a holistic approach that starts with the vision, includes the planning phase and extends to implementation and possible future strategies.

 How do you see the topic? Which aspect of the customer experience do you value most?

• Ensuring data protection
• Using artificial intelligence
• Understanding target groups

I look forward to your answers!