Ever-changing consumer demands and fast-growing digital trends are driving Digital Transformation (DX) initiatives globally. Unlike other initiatives that companies kickstart or embrace, DX is purely the demand from the consumer side and is aimed at 100% customer satisfaction.
Given this demand, most companies are already taking the ‘customer-first’ approach and adopting relevant practices to align with that goal. As different surveys conclude, two-thirds of the top executives of global 2000 companies see the organizational future in modern digital strategies aimed at customer experience.
According to studies, 35% of business leaders say digital technology helps them meet customer needs and work more efficiently (40%). Additionally, 38% of these leaders plan to invest more in technology to gain a competitive edge.
By 2023, global spending on digital transformation is expected to reach USD 6.8 trillion. One of the main advantages is that it guides companies to bring products and services to market more quickly, which 36% of businesses see as important.
Interestingly, 79% of companies acknowledge that their digital transformation budget has increased due to the impact of COVID-19. Furthermore, 70% of organizations either have a digital transformation strategy or are actively working on developing one. However, despite these projections, complete digital adoption is still a long way off.
According to the State of Digital Business Transformation Report by Progress, 47% of companies have yet to begin their digital transformation services. Additionally, 59% of businesses are concerned that they may already be too late to start. The same report reveals that 55% of companies believe they have less than a year before they begin to experience financial setbacks and lose market share.
And they believe adopting digital transformation is the way forward! Despite this strong demand, some companies are still far away from the road to transformation. Some misunderstand the DX path, while others think it is an impossible task in a comparable period.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is about utilizing digital technology in all parts of a business to make big changes in how it works and the value it gives customers. Simply put, it’s about changing how a business connects with customers and ensuring they have a good experience whenever needed.
When businesses were asked why they decided to use digital transformation services, almost half said they wanted to make their customers happy and provide a good experience.
Companies that embrace digital transformation create customers who are highly involved and interested.
- Customers are six times more inclined to experiment with a new product or service offered by their favorite brand.
- Your brand is four terms more likely to be recommended by satisfied customers to friends, family, and connections.
- Even when a competitor offers a superior product or price, customers are twice as likely to purchase with their preferred brand.
Moreover, customers who are deeply involved with a brand exhibit a 90% higher purchase frequency, spend 60% more during each transaction and possess an annual value three times greater than the average customer.
But that’s not all.
Companies that embark on digital transformation experience advantages, such as increased revenue and growth opportunities. As per the report by Deloitte, companies with advanced enterprise digital transformation capabilities reported a 45% growth in revenue. Among highly digitized companies, 29% reported a positive impact on growth and innovation, while 41% highlighted a positive impact on sales and marketing. One thing is clear that customers are the ones leading the way.
Recent studies show that businesses that have achieved a high level of digital maturity are much more likely to generate revenue over USD 1 billion than those still inexperienced in the digital realm. It’s important to understand this new type of digital customer to provide a better customer experience.
Useful link: What are the critical components of Digital Transformation?
Customer Engagement- Top Driver For DX Demand
The potential that DX culture holds through efficient utilization of data and technology makes it imperative for every organization globally.
Moreover, customer experience and satisfaction are the top reasons driving firms’ demand for digital transformation services implementation. Companies that can transform digitally are more likely to create high customer engagement.
And the highly engaged customers are:
- 6 times more likely to have new product experiences from the preferred brand
- 4 times more likely to refer the brand to friends and family
- 2 times more likely to prefer the brand over its competitors, despite low pricing and other options
- 90 percent more likely to make frequent purchases
- More willing to spend 60 percent more on purchases from preferred brand
Thus, customer engagement continues to be the top reason for driving the DX demand.
An MIT study has found that companies embracing DX are likely to be 26 times more profitable than the usual ones.
Digital transformation consulting can be a crucial revenue generator, with customers leading the journey. Now, how do you achieve this feat of customer engagement? This requires an adequate understanding of digital customers, user behavior, and ways to reach out.
Understanding Digital Customers and Reach-Out
The digital business transformation trend has transformed how customers think about products and make up for their demands.
Moreover, the increasing usage of mobile and technology devices and digital transformation technologies gave the push to change customer expectations. Mobile apps and interactive online platforms gave product experience due to emphasis, encouraging the buying interest and behavior.
This led to customers rating brands on the first experience they had with the brand products. Thus, ‘digital first’ depends on how you interact with the customer!
Here is where you need a strategic movement in sales, marketing, and customer-facing processes:
- Days are gone when customers contact you directly. Now, the mantra is to let your sales teams find all possible ways customers reach out, either through impactful content or campaigns, among others, to build relationships and educate them about the product.
- For your marketing team, the data-driven marketing strategy, backed by highly-targeted messages and an effective SEO process, is the need of the hour!
- For the customer-facing teams, being reactive is not enough in the ‘digital first’ approach. It would be best to be proactive and highly responsive, tapping all channels for effective customer interaction.
Organizations and business activity need to adopt the ‘digital-first’ approach to achieve successful digital transformation in this area.
Useful link: Global Digital Transformation Market to Reach USD 1009.8 Billion by 2025
Why Do Companies Require a Digital Transformation?
Implementing a digital transformation strategy offers numerous advantages for businesses. Here are some of the benefits you can anticipate:
1) Enhancing Customer Satisfaction
Enhancing customer satisfaction is crucial for businesses. Forbes reports that 96% of customers may switch due to poor customer service. With digital technology, businesses can provide specialized interactions and customer journeys, meeting elevated expectations for fast, efficient service. Implementing a digital transformation strategy enables businesses to gather feedback easily, utilize measurable data, and make impactful changes to improve overall customer satisfaction.
2) High-Quality Customer Experience
A robust digital transformation strategy enables businesses to deliver superior customer experiences and journeys. By focusing on higher-quality customer experiences, businesses foster brand loyalty, customer retention, and positive word-of-mouth. With various digital transformation tools and software availability, businesses can optimize customer interactions and enhance their overall business impact.
3) Digital Data Will Provide Better Business Insights
Digital transformation consulting empowers businesses with valuable data insights, enabling them to adapt to customer needs, identify improvement areas, and uncover market opportunities. Detailed data collection facilitates strategic enhancements across sales, service, marketing, and internal operations. Additionally, businesses starting can leverage industry data sets from global platforms to explore new potential markets. With a digital transformation strategy, businesses make data-driven decisions backed by measurable results, facilitating informed organizational changes.
4) Utilising Data Tools and Analytical Software to View Better ROI
Investing in software and assembling the right team is essential to embracing a digital transformation company. By establishing a data ecosystem, businesses gain a comprehensive and measurable overview of their operations, enhancing profitability and streamlining processes for improved user experience.
By establishing a data ecosystem, businesses can effortlessly achieve the following:
- Discover new customer service channels.
- Identify untapped target audiences and market segments.
- Proactively anticipate potential market threats.
- Access critical business data to enhance processes and customer service operations consistently.
- Develop customized digital processes that drive profitability.
- Tailor and personalize customer experiences.
- Utilize measurable metrics to make well-informed business decisions.
5) Customer Productivity and Communication Will Both Increase
With digital transformation consulting, businesses can experience enhanced customer service performance and productivity through improved communication among employees and departments. By leveraging the right digital transformation technologies, response times become quicker, and miscommunications decreases, leading to more efficient operations.
Beginning of the Digital Transformation
Organizations can leverage digital transformation to gain insights into the preferences of modern-day buyers, effectively engage with them, and meet their expectations through a seamless multi-channel customer experience. Regrettably, out of the USD 1.3 trillion invested in digital transformation, over USD 900 billion has been squandered.
Now that you understand the core idea of digital transformation, it’s time to get on to the actual process. Getting on to a digital transformation company requires a change in organizational culture and flexibility in the environment.
Having the right digital transformation technologies to power your DX initiatives is the need of the hour for most companies. Around 45 percent of companies need more relevant technology to implement DX strategies.
1) Cloud – The Top Priority
As the surveys show, most companies vote for an agile methodology to effectively implement DX initiatives, with more than 86 percent of firms calling ‘cloud‘– the top priority for DX. The cloud environment is dynamic and gives the ability to test, run and execute faster than ever, cost-effectively and under low-risk conditions.
A flexible, agile environment improves responsiveness to customer demands and lets you touch all customer points by harnessing the full data potential.
2) Personalized Experience
A personalized experience is the key driving factor in the DX journey. Thanks to the advanced customers who are okay with companies utilizing their data. Players must understand user behavior patterns and purchase history and make recommendations accordingly. All these won’t be easy without a perfect Customer Relationship Management (CRM) process!
3) Seamless Services
Customers demand a timely response and perfect solution to their concerns today. Thus, companies offering high accessibility to customer gains a competitive edge. Moreover, given the customer behavior across multiple channels, creating a digital profile for each customer is recommended, with the behavior pattern gathered from multiple channels the customers sign in to.
Useful link: Business Transformation Vs. Digital Transformation: A Thin Line of Difference!
Benefits of Digital Transformation
Focusing on continuous innovation and enhancement is crucial to unlocking the benefits of digital customer experience transformation. Ensuring readiness to tackle digital transformation challenges by having solutions readily available is essential. Being well-prepared positions businesses for success in embracing enterprise digital transformation.
By adopting digital transformation solutions, companies can attain multiple benefits, including:
- Streamlined digitalization of business operations
- Deeper customer insights and understanding
- Creation of digital services and offerings
- Optimal resource management
- Improved customer experience and satisfaction
- Cultivation of a digital-first culture
- Expansion opportunities through globalization
- Cost reduction and efficiency gains
- Enhanced employee engagement and positive organizational culture
Conclusion
Digital transformation is revolutionizing the retail experience through the adoption of innovative technologies. A well-defined digital transformation strategy is vital to drive exceptional retail customer experiences. Understanding customer needs and devising a robust roadmap to deliver enhanced experiences is instrumental in the successful digital transformation of retail businesses.
Thus, customer satisfaction and engagement are the core of digital business transformation. So, re-strategize or build your new digital transformation strategy to meet customer demands and offer them a never-seen experience to gain a competitive edge.
With the backing of Veritis, the Stevie Award winner, businesses can execute a comprehensive digital transformation plan. By prioritizing IT as a catalyst for business transformation and tangible outcomes, Veritis enables organizations to achieve process excellence. Explore our digital transformation managed services for deeper insights into leveraging technology to drive business growth.
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- Impact of Digital Transformation in Healthcare Industry
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