Final month, I mentioned the benefits of taking a headless approach to content management for companies that function in unpredictable markets the place buyer channel desire often modifications, and for these struggling to draw and retain expertise as a consequence of outdated and legacy applied sciences.
The digital expertise platform (DXP) has an necessary position to play in delivering a constant expertise throughout your prospects’ total digital journey. This month, I focus on the deserves of all-in-one options to fulfill the wants of your present and future enterprise.
First, let’s discover what we imply by a DXP.
A DXP is a platform to handle digital property throughout a variety of digital channels, platforms and gadgets reminiscent of web sites, cell apps and buyer portals. It allows a enterprise to handle each single contact level they’ve with a buyer throughout your entire buyer journey.
DXPs have rich functionality starting from content material and ecommerce administration to in-built personalization, automation, CRM, CDP, name middle software program and experimentation.
By means of consolidating knowledge from throughout a number of channels and gadgets right into a single resolution, companies are in a position to achieve a single buyer view and ship a extra constant and customized expertise throughout each interplay their enterprise has with that buyer.
So what are a number of the key challenges a DXP may help enterprises overcome?
“Siloed knowledge throughout a number of platforms is stopping us from actually understanding what our prospects are doing.”
It’s the basic conundrum of being knowledge wealthy however perception poor – particularly when companies maintain extra knowledge about their prospects than ever earlier than. And with the demise of third-party cookies in 2024, first-party data will only increase in importance to marketers.
Siloed knowledge ends in a disjointed and unfulfilling expertise throughout each digital and bodily channels for patrons – and leaves companies scratching their heads as to precisely what their prospects are attempting to do, or certainly, who their prospects are.
Sure DXPs reminiscent of Optimizely have a CDP (customer data platform) fully integrated into their platform. The CDP aggregates knowledge from throughout all buyer channels, enabling companies to realize a consolidated, or single view, of their buyer, and permit for knowledge to turn into accessible to everybody within the group.
Moreover, the deep in-built analytics of a DXP allows companies to find out the effectiveness of particular person channels and make data-driven choices (usually in actual time) as to the channels, merchandise and prospects which can be prime income drivers and are due to this fact of biggest worth to the enterprise.
“Our expertise throughout digital and bodily channels is disjointed and never customized.”
As we’ve heard for the perfect a part of a decade, customer experience is the new battleground for brands, but the client expertise hole stays huge. In sure sectors reminiscent of airways, healthcare, retail and banking, the hole in expectation between the significance of buyer expertise versus the expertise they obtain is big.
As an illustration, in a customer experience survey by PwC, practically 80% of respondents stated that have was necessary when seeking to make a healthcare-related buy, however simply over 50% had been happy with the expertise they obtained.
A DXP can allow you to orchestrate extra human and customized encounters to ship experiences that not solely meet the wants of your prospects however anticipate their wants and get them there sooner.
A current report from Deloitte Digital states that in a world the place value and options now not present a aggressive edge, experience is the primary differentiator and driver of growth for brands. Certainly, 56% of U.K. consumers said they would be willing to pay a premium price for outstanding customer service. This determine rose to 65% within the U.S.
“Selections made are primarily based on guesswork slightly than knowledgeable by knowledge.”
Manufacturers want to judge what customized buyer expertise ought to appear like.
At a recent Candyspace event, Gianfranco Cuzziol, Group Head of CRM and Personalisation at Natura & Co Group (Avon, Natura, The Physique Store, Aesop), said that manufacturers have to ask their prospects, “What do you imply by personalization? What would you like from us?” With the expanse of expertise at our fingertips, it’s necessary to not oversee the human ingredient in digital expertise design.
By means of each qualitative and quantitative knowledge, we will construct a clearer image of what prospects really need from their interactions with a model. Conducting buyer interviews allows us to gather suggestions and validate concepts with shoppers, after which mix these insights with behavioral knowledge gleaned from digital interactions.
The most advanced DXPs have clever elements reminiscent of content material and product suggestions, that routinely present prospects the subsequent greatest piece of content material to additional their buyer journey. These instruments base suggestions on not solely historic knowledge – displaying individuals who bought merchandise X, merchandise Y – however by way of capabilities reminiscent of buyer sentiment intelligence, buyer journey mapping, multivariate testing and customer-specific pricing.
“I can’t justify the price of a number of applied sciences to the enterprise.”
‘Better of breed’ expertise is a good idea, nevertheless, managing a number of applied sciences usually will increase the whole price of possession and entails an overhead of managing numerous contracts with completely different suppliers.
Moreover, a DXP has wealthy out-of-the-box performance from superior personalization to CRM, permitting companies to ship a unified buyer expertise throughout channels with out the necessity to construct expensive and time-consuming integrations. Many DXPs additionally provide API interfaces by way of which to ‘open up’ the platform to attach with different microservices, for instance, specialist ERP methods.
A DXP is a great and future-ready funding for high-growth companies that may profit from its highly effective capabilities within the quick to mid-term, slightly than outgrow a digital platform and require a expensive additional re-platform within the close to future.
“The price of new buyer acquisition is just too excessive and we have to improve buyer loyalty.”
With advanced personas, a number of shopping for segments and an expanse of merchandise with various lifecycles, it may be a problem for companies to amass new prospects on the fee they should and on the lowest price attainable.
DXP analytics can spotlight the channels delivering the best ROI and the shoppers of highest worth to your enterprise to maximize your customer acquisition budget.
However to actually perceive the impression of your advertising efforts, it’s important to adopt a ‘test and learn’ mindset. Making a tradition of experimentation, democratizing knowledge throughout groups after which leveraging a DXP to run A/B and multivariate testing throughout channels at scale, allows companies to fantastic tune their campaigns and roll out new product options that drive conversion, decrease buyer acquisition prices and improve loyalty.
Related experiences at scale
Companies that ship a unified buyer expertise are higher outfitted than their competitors. The power to handle your entire digital expertise lifecycle to create seamless, customized buyer experiences fuelled by deep buyer insights and predictive suggestions, is a key good thing about a DXP over different content material administration platforms.
Investing in a DXP is useful for companies which have a number of digital contact factors with their prospects: companies with massive, advanced audiences who have to create linked, one-to-one engagement with their prospects and do that at scale. And for these seeking to simplify and decrease the whole price of possession of their digital ecosystem.
In case you’re nonetheless uncertain as to the perfect digital expertise expertise for your enterprise, book a free technology enablement workshop with our crew of specialists to know the perfect applied sciences to ship in your aims.