Building Strong Roots of Digital Customer Experience with Drupal

As a part of the audience, we unanimously measure the quality of experience by one simple factor - how long does it take to get what we want.

Right?

In today’s customer experience economy, organizations are no longer compared on the basis of their direct competition, but they are compared on the basis of the services they provide to their end users.

And according to the National Retail Federation, the e-commerce growth for the US grew from 3.7% to 4.2% in 2017, which included tech giants like Amazon, E-bay etc. These techies were successful in reaching the customer funnel ecosystem. 

'How' you may ask?

Well, they acknowledged that the key of constructing successful and best in class digital experience was through website users and their experience. 

Why Digital Customer Experience is Important?

Satisfied Customer usually returns and buy more, they tell other people about their experience. Thus, it is important for organizations to understand that end-to-end experience is essential for future growth as well as customer loyalty of a company. 

A customer satisfaction survey conducted by B2B International conveys the importance of the customer's expectations. The study reveals that it is crucial for businesses to improve their ability to deliver great digital customer experiences. 

Thereby, reaching the customers or the audience through digital channels is something which every organization must do to survive and grow in this digital era. 

Enhanced digital customer experience not only becomes a salient strategy for the organizations but helps them evolve beyond conventional web development.

Depending on the audience’s situations, aim, and expectations a poor customer experience can make or break a business emblem.

Obstacles Faced by Organizations in Digital Customer Experience 

Forbes states that only 16% of the organizations were successful in the journey of digital transformation, which of course is a very low percentage. 

84% of companies fail at Digital Transformation

Digital transformation, here, implies the integration of digital technologies into the areas of business, fundamentally changing the way they operate and deliver values to the customers.

But why do companies fail to walk along digital transformation?

Because adapting to changes is tough! 

Echoing the same sentiment, a survey by Mckinsey reads that some 70% of change programs fail to achieve their goals mostly due to employees’ resistance or lack of management support. 

Digital transformation includes a significant change and the type of work the organization does. Making changes is kind of difficult. It becomes important for the organizations to have someone on board who is aware of the people’s mind and how they adapt to business models.

Major barriers faced by organizations in digital customer experience include:

1. Limited Budget 
2. Lack of (overall) digital strategy 
3. Organizational structure
4. Employee pushback/ resistance

How to Offer the Best Digital Customer Experience?

Here are the ways by which an organization can eliminate the obstacles and cuddle a digital native process of working out that allows them to deliver a class intuitive customer experience.

• Know your Customers

There is no point in designing and constructing a digital platform if you are not aware of your audience. If you really want to understand customers needs and wants, then you have to connect and empathize with customers situations.  

You can begin with customer-facing teams and CRM software followed by social media monitoring to gain deeper and diverse understanding. This would provide a foundation to construct data-driven and customer-centric decisions. 

“The best way to connect with the customer is to empathize with their situation and needs.” 

The happier the customer is with you, the longer they stay connected. If the customers are being treated poorly and the feedbacks are being ignored, then there are chances that they would be less sustainable and engaging to the products you sell. This is the reason why organizations that deliver a superior customer service outperforms the ones which do not.

 

• Being Data Driven 

A report by Aberdeen states that there are organizations which have implemented data-driven culture, and they have witnessed a seven percent annual increase in terms of revenues which they make in a year. 

“By implementing a data-driven culture, organizations can witness a 7% annual increase in revenue.”

The increase in the revenue has been conquered through the increase in the efficiency of the operational activities. 
 
83% of the organizations and businesses that have made the shift in data-driven culture have experienced an improvement in the time taken for one operational cycle to complete. 

“83% of businesses which switched to data-driven culture have experienced shorter operational cycles.”

Moreover, the shift in the time taken per cycle was coupled with the fact that organizations have implemented the data-driven model witnessed a reduction of 12% in the organizational costs.
 
Thus, by harnessing the power of data analysis, the organization can create a detailed plan for customer-focused marketing messages. Using data to make customer communication more personalized can lead to a mass-marketing campaign. 

“By implementing data driven culture, organizations have witnessed a 12% decrease in operational cost”

Dynamically tailoring the experience and needs of the customer or the audience can result in an increase in the online relating. Delivering a delightful personalized experience is now what every retailer must aim for. 

• Integrating the data stack 

Doesn’t it sound exciting when I say that disparate data sources can be rolled up into one single tool? Simply put it there are tools that marketers can use to efficiently execute initiatives, across a number of channels at the same time. 

The list includes:

• Social Media scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite
• Analytical tools like Kissmetrics and Google Analytics 
• CRM software like Salesforce and HubSpot

Integrating these tools isn’t just pleasant when it comes to offering leading digital experiences, but it also constructs a consistency across the marketing stack. 

In the age of assistance, where the customers want brands to give them exactly what they desire for, leading marketers use integrated data and technologies to understand their audience. 

According to a recent study by the Association of National Advertisers, companies that spend the most on marketing technologies yield an average of 10 percent new revenue.  Integrating marketing and advertising stack provides the organizations with a better understanding of the customer. 

Intent signals for the shoppers that might be weak on their own become powerful when they are integrated. Things like search intent, videos viewed, and the content that is read across the web help the marketers engage and assist customers just at the moment they need.

• Optimizing your digital assets 

Website is one of the most important assets in digital experience

This is the mantra which should be followed by every organization. Your website is literally a virtual storefront for the brand, and it has only a few seconds to mark a solid impression.

The digital marketing industry is rich with acronyms like SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), SERPs  (search engine result page). Search engine marketing would have numerous changes. Those changes would include search engine algorithms, change in customer behavior, and evolvement of search channels.

With these changes come opportunities which are customer, market, and search driven. Optimization of digital assets would refer to the practice of taking inventory of the company’s marketable and digital assets and implementing a process of keywords for promoting relevant channels. 

The search done by end users tends to be more conversational in nature. Content creators and marketers are challenged to meet those demands through more robust asset optimization efforts without losing the essence of the organization. Each website has digital assets including web pages, images, videos, blog post etc. A digital asset optimization strategy identifies content in all these forms and formats and applies them to qualify what we call as “promotion”. 

Dedicating the time to design and understand the needs of the customer is the most effective way to win the race in digital transformation. 

• Intuitive Graphical User Interface and the Web Property

Once you have identified your customer, it is important to recognize the barriers they face while engaging with your website or product.  
 
Users are becoming more experienced with the use of digital display and expect a splendid experience on the platform they choose. Providing the user with immediate visual feedback about each action, and allowing multiple programs to display simultaneously is the key for a better user experience. 
 
One of the major advantages of using minimalistic and easy graphics and icons is that it makes the system operation more intuitive, and easier to learn. 
 
Allowing the users to tweak elements on the screen using a mouse, stylus or even fingers, GUI lets them process words and web design program as an option for a better customer experience.
 

How does Drupal Help in Constructing Strong Digital Customer Experience?

Since the release of Drupal 8 (in 2015), the CMS has opened a large variation of digital experience possibilities for millions of websites and applications. 

Focussing on the customer experience was the part of the idea. It is a high-quality open source content management system which not only provides strong digital customer experience but understands the website users to move from website to different devices. 

How? 

Let's read.

• CRM Integration

A CRM software records the customer's information (phone number, email address, social media profile) to create a user persona and give an understanding of user choices to the organization. 

Drupal 8 supports the website creators to keep using their favorite marketing tools to stimulate customer interest and actions. With easy third-party integration, merging a CRM with your Drupal website is a seamless process.  

Even if Drupal is a content management system at the core, it is evolving into a web experience management system delivering quality content across a range of device and third-party system. 

• Mobile Responsive 

This is a technological constraint era and our world has gone all innovative. The number of mobile web users is increasing with each passing day. According to the new 2018 Global Digital suite of reports from “We Are Social” more than 3 billion people around the world now use social media each month, with 9 out of 10 users accessing their chosen platform as mobile. 

It is important to make sure that the website is accessible for mobile users, and set campaigns and content targeted for the mobile users. 

Drupal caters to this need as it is mobile responsive and offers out-of-the-box mobile theme, building a strong platform for the organizations to bring a quality audience. 

One of the most inevitable advantages of choosing Drupal is that it works well for almost all devices including iPhone, iPad, Android, and even blackberry. With each improved version of Drupal, the focus is centered around a “Mobile first architecture”. So it meets even the future needs of the mobile experience.

 

• Personalization

Web personalization indicates that on the basis of attributes like profile, behavior and the location of the internet users, the website creator should construct a dynamic and personalized content to provide the users with the relevant website experience.

Website personalization is the key to the effective user experience.

It becomes important for the websites to implement personalization, allowing them to customize and display content. 
Personalization is one of the most conventional features of Drupal 8, letting the website holder determine what a user is interested in, and based on the data collected, Drupal allows the user to create a good user experience and uphold the demands of the audience. Its services initiatives have streamlined the process of sharing meaningful information with external systems.

There is no limit as to which marketing tool the user can apply, as Drupal managed content can be turned standardized data sharing formats. 

• Multilingual 

Customer support is the backbone of the business, and offering multilingual support has become increasingly important for the business and the organizations. 52.4% of online customers prefer to buy products in their native language (according to a report by Common Sense Advisory), and the percentage was higher in certain countries like Japan and France. 

What Next to Expect in Drupal?

DrupalCon Seattle 2019 will also focus on improving and evolving the needs of customers with sessions on Content and Digital Marketing.

The track would cover the sessions on overall customer experience and ways to improve it. Discussions around the role of CMS (and Drupal specifically) in the world where personalization, automation and customer experience would be the prime focus.

Whether you are using a Drupal-specific tool or integrating third-party marketing platforms, there are many critical things that will be discussed.  

To Wind Up

Understanding and measuring customer experience is the biggest challenge faced by organizations. Customer’s expectations are higher than ever and word of the mouth travel fast. As the customer becomes even more powerful with digital innovation, the importance of customer experience becomes more vital. It includes the identification of consumer brand interaction and the perception of the audience.

At  OpenSense Labs, we aim at improving your customer's journey by nurturing and taking care of the methods that entirely focuses on the experience. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your customer strategies for higher retention and increased revenues.