Building a Digital Customer Experience Strategy

You've heard of customer experience, but what about digital customer experience? It focuses on the digital interactions between your brand and its customers. That includes every time a team member encounters a customer on social media or when chatbots resolve customer queries.

Digital customer experience (or digital CX) is critical because it improves consistency, personalization and loyalty. When you create better digital customer experiences online, you can develop long-lasting relationships with the people who buy your products and services. In this guide, learn more about improving your digital CX strategy.

Digital CX, Explained

Digital CX refers to all the interactions you have with customers on digital platforms. That includes websites, blogs, social networks, email, live chat and digital kiosks. Digital CX can also include call center interactions, but many call centers have now digitized their communications and use chatbots to better engage with customers.

Creating a digital CX strategy involves an awareness of every interaction you have with customers across digital touchpoints. The best strategies comprise processes like personalization, where you tailor communications to customers based on their location, interests, previous behaviors and other factors.

Why Is Digital CX Important?

Research shows improving the customer experience, whether online or offline, can generate a return on investment by improving customer loyalty. In one study, 95% of consumers who rated a company's customer experience as "very good" were likely to recommend that company to other people, while 94% were very likely to make a repurchase in the future. Good customer experiences can also improve customer trust and loyalty. In the same study, 90% of consumers who rated a company's customer experience as "very good" were very likely to trust that company.

Improving digital CX, in particular, is essential for businesses because there's more competition online now than offline. With access to more products and services on the web, consumers are seeking for exceptional digital experiences with superior support. A single negative experience could encourage customers to take their business elsewhere.

Examples of Digital Customer Service

Improving digital CX means improving digital customer service. Businesses with an online presence can do this in the following ways:

Improve Communications with Chatbots

Customers often demand a speedy response after contacting an organization. Automating communications with technologies such as chatbots can quickly resolve customer queries, optimize the customer journey, and improve digital experiences. Chatbots can handle a large number of customer service requests with limited human intervention, allowing organizations to serve a higher percentage of customers and reduce the wait times commonly associated with communications like phone and email. Chatbots are the perfect combination of convenience and automation, making it easier than ever for consumers to get speedy answers, and seamlessly complete their buyer journeys.

The best chatbots personalize communications, reduce workloads for human support agents, and can even upsell and cross-sell products and services. Research shows chatbots can save an organization 30% in customer support costs and increase response times by answering up to 80% of common customer questions.

Learn more about automating conversations with Clickatell's Chat Flow feature.

Live Agents

For more complicated queries, live support agents can quickly resolve problems and improve digital customer service, which ultimately has a positive impact on digital CX. Live agents can communicate with customers 24 hours a day, restore an organization's reputation when something goes wrong, improve the buyer journey and prevent customers from having to wait on the phone to talk to a rep.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of the easiest ways to engage with customers because nearly everyone owns a smartphone. You can use WhatsApp to send messages to customers about product launches, special offers, shipping delays or other goings-on via the internet. As a result, you can improve digital customer service and save SMS costs.

Other Important Ways to Improve Digital CX

Here are some other methods for enhancing your digital customer experience:

• Optimize your website so it provides visitors with a better browsing experience. That might mean improving page load times, creating a more minimalist design or making your pages more interactive.

• Personalized, tailored messaging, app experiences, and marketing. The modern-day consumers expect communications that are uniquely relevant to them, as individuals.

• Self-service, proactive AI-driven messaging solutions that lead customers further through the buying experience and answer frequently asked questions automatically, enabling 24/7 support.

• Create an omnichannel approach to digital CX where you improve customer service and digital marketing across all your online channels — website, blog, social media channels, you name it.

• Use video to engage with digital customers. You can create how-to guides, explainer videos and tutorials that showcase your products and services and commitment to excellent digital customer service. Video remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies.

• Gather customer surveys and feedback to understand the hurdles and friction within your CX, and effectively map out your customer journey.

Final Word: Why You Should Start Thinking Digital

Whether you conduct all or some of your operations online, improving digital CX should be one of your top priorities. When you create better digital experiences for customers on the internet, you can boost engagement, trust, loyalty and revenue. It's that simple!

Clickatell's automated chat self-service solutions, live support, WhatsApp business APIs and other AI-powered services help you maintain a competitive edge over your rivals and improve the way consumers interact with your brand. As a result, you can streamline workflows and grow your digital business.

Connect with a Clickatell expert today to start building your digital CX!