Digital behaviours will stay long past the pandemic

Precisely, the global leader in data integrity, in collaboration with Corinium Global Intelligence, has published the results of a new survey that reveals the explosion of online customer interactions during the pandemic are expected to continue growing at a rapid pace, post-pandemic. “How Data is Driving Next-Generation Customer Experiences” surveys 100 global, customer experience (CX) leaders who share their strategic objectives that will take the highest priority in 2022 to optimise online consumer expectations.

During the height of the pandemic (2019-2021), eCommerce sales grew by 50.5 per cent. Many organisations responded by closing in-person locations, including 28 per cent of survey participants. Another 42 per cent expect to do the same in the coming 12 months. As a result, companies were required to conduct more business online and invest in digital touchpoints that created a positive CX. In fact, 65 per cent of leaders surveyed say they have already created digital touchpoints to serve as an alternative to in-person touchpoints, and 34 per cent expect to follow their lead over the next year.

As more consumers conform to the ease and comfort of conducting business online, companies must optimise online consumer expectations. But it’s not all or nothing. There is a fine line between what services should be offered in-person or online, and of those online services, some should be automated while others require live interactions. For example, individuals may want to self-serve for day-to-day activities but will want a person to talk to when something goes wrong, or they need help. As such, businesses are looking to offer myriad digital touchpoints to serve myriad customer needs, including mobile apps, remote call centres, customer self-service tools, chatbot capabilities, and interactive voice response phone systems.

With the creation of new digital touchpoints, consumers will generate volumes of data that can be used for strategic insight. In just the last two years, enterprise data volume has doubled as a result of booming online interactions. Unfortunately, many organisations don’t have the data infrastructure in place to glean valuable insights from that data. Only 37 per cent of survey participants believe they have a well-developed enterprise data architecture that enables high-quality, data-driven, and personalised CX. For many, data becomes siloed across the various touchpoints, making it difficult to access the data (48 per cent). Of the data that is accessible, 45 per cent of survey participants believe it isn’t relevant or current, and they believe an insufficient investment in CX is the problem (41 per cent).

“Legacy systems are the most common theme holding organisations back from achieving their CX goals – and 54 per cent of survey participants agree,” says Greg Van den Heuvel, EVP and general manager, EngageOne at Precisely. “If your company is aiming to achieve a consistent and holistic approach to customer engagement, taking advantage of a single, unified platform is significantly more effective than using a disjointed toolset to try and accomplish that objective.”

Luckily, 96 per cent of CX leaders say they have, or they plan to invest in, data integration, data integrity, or data enrichment technologies. While many organisations are equipped with the right in-house resources to optimise data, over half (51 per cent) are partnering with Hosted Managed Services (HMS) providers to achieve three core competencies that can reduce costs (63 per cent); provide better customer communications (55 per cent); and improve operational efficiency (33 per cent). These HMS providers can introduce modern integrated customer communications management platforms that leverage cloud-enabled technologies, anchored in data.