A Competitive Advantage
Create a unified customer experience and you’ve created a competitive advantage
One of digital marketing’s strengths is its ability to reach customers with more touch points, platforms and channels than ever before. The downside to digital is that you can no longer predict how your customers are making their journeys towards sales conversion. That’s because digital gives customers ultimate control over where and when they choose to interact with your brand.
According to a recent article published by Adobe Marketing Cloud, “The new imperative for marketers is a unified customer experience–a consistent, relevant brand experience that spans all channels and touch points, whether customers are online or offline.” Brands that unify their customer experience have a greater ability to attract, convert and retain customers. In doing so, they create relationships that inspire brand loyalty for life.
Unfortunately, most brands are still struggling to offer a unified experience to their customers. Why? According to the study, “As the digital ecosystem grew around traditional marketing, channels were naturally divided into siloed departments, leading to fragmented messages, campaigns and experiences.” Apparently, the time, energy and budgets required to deliver consistent experiences across channels are preventing most brands from unifying their messages.
Over time, leading brands began to recognize that aligning their executive leadership, departmental structures and delivery channels was critical to delivering a unified customer experience. Once unified, it doesn’t matter whether customers are online, on mobile or in person, the brand’s message remains consistent.
A unified customer experience begins at the top. It requires Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Digital Officers working together to implement strategies that will inspire teams across disciplines to ensure the delivery of a consistent, cross-channel brand experience to their customers.
From sales and production to finance and marketing, a multi-team approach disrupts corporate “silos” to strengthen the brand message across channels. As the digital universe continues to expand, it’s becoming more important to unite marketing with other departments, since effective messaging draws on expertise from multiple disciplines.
After the Great Recession, Royal Bank of Scotland worked hard to regain customer confidence and trust. To remain vital, the company created what they called “a perfect customer experience” – one that would leverage digital capabilities to communicate their message with responsive, personalized, multi-channel engagement.
This approach required RBS to assemble nimble teams pulled from different departments and skill sets within the company. According to Giles Richardson, Head of Analytics at RBS, the new approach was a success. “Whether a customer opens a direct-mail piece, receives a follow-up email, visits a branch or applies for a loan on a mobile device, the entire customer experience should mirror customer needs perfectly. We must be everywhere customers are and personally cater to their needs at every turn.”
Key takeaways for unifying the customer experience? Start by creating a clear and concise customer experience strategy. Next, promote an easy-to-follow and repeatable design process. Consider facilitating cross-silo connections between departments. Finally, deliver a consistent brand experience at every customer touch point.
For Dean Helmke, Executive Creative Director/Partner at Equity Creative, unifying the customer experience is the ultimate creative opportunity. “We strive to create human interesting experiences that help brands consistently engage their customers across multiple platforms – that’s a huge win for any brand.”
