The misunderstood rise of digital strategy and CX
As organisations come to terms with the reality that they cannot cost manage their way out of the new normal, their attention is moving towards ‘working the customer end of their business. This coincides with an asymptotic interest in using digital channels to reach the market.
Both of these trends in themselves make for a flawed strategy.
Firstly the customer experience does not solely comprise pre-sales, sales and service delivery. In fact the customer experience addresses many areas that the customer will never directly ‘touch’. In the post industrial economy the customer experience starts in the quarry, field or wherever constitutes the source of the supply chain. In fact as clients become increasingly fickle the supply chain is more likely to become a highly dynamic demand chain.
This leads me to digital strategy. It is mistakenly believed by many that this is something constrained to market touch points. Almost as if sales and marketing were solely front office departments. At best in these circumstances this might better be referred to as digital marketing strategy.
But again, like the customer experience bandwagon, there is an assumption that this new approach will sit neatly on the old business model. It won’t.
Digital strategy and the customer experience are not departmentally compartmentalised, they are the infrastructure on which your clients’ businesses are built.
Technology firms that choose to align their offerings with these two themes are likely to leave profit on the table if they don’t fully grasp the extent of the help needed.
