As consumers, we are often the victims of digital processes that break down when they hit the physical world. This weekend, we pre-ordered tickets for a show and arrived at the venue just before it was about to start. Unfortunately, the online process was not fully digital – it required the output of paper tickets in order for us to hand over to the attendant and enter the show.
The screens on the kiosk screamed out a giant “Paper Error” message – signalling that we were to get in a long line up in order to have an agent print us out paper tickets. The good news – the staff were very helpful and efficient and got everyone to their seats on time. But the experience stands as an example of what happens when companies digitize only a portion of the overall customer experience and have difficulty managing the last “physical” mile to ensure a seamless customer experience. Indeed, more than one enterprise IT team has a story to tell about a new digital experience being thwarted by an unforeseen “Paper Error” or disconnected physical process that ends up looking like this to a customer:
The importance of consistency across channels
The first thing that IT teams need to consider when designing digital experiences is that customers expect a consistent level of service across physical and digital channels – as well as the frictionless flow of information between channels – facts that were well captured in a June 2018 study conducted by Ipsos and Medallia.
This concept was well covered in last week’s blog, and bears revisiting with the excellent report created by the team at Forrester entitled “Customers Prefer Hybrid Digital/Physical Experiences”
Figuring out where to start
How then should teams responsible for creating new digital experiences begin? Should then embrace digital requirements first, prioritizing speed to market and potentially opening up gaps between legacy systems and offline communications? Or is it more important to take a holistic approach and take the entire customer journey into account from the start?
In order to answer this question, the team at Quadient turned to Madison Advisors to examine the various approaches that digital leaders are taking in addressing these challenges. They looked at the challenges facing companies looking to digitally transform their businesses, and how customer communications management might be applied against these emerging channels to help deliver a complete customer experience.
According to Madison Advisors:
In the resulting white paper entitled “Keeping the Customer in Mind When Going Digital”, the team at Madison provides guidance on which types of projects might best be matched with a digital first approach, and which make more sense to approach with an omni-channel strategy. To review their findings, access the complimentary white paper here:
