How digital transformation is driving customer experience

Understand why digital transformation is driving customer experience and what this means for business customer service processes.

More UK individuals are becoming digitally savvy and are expecting businesses to offer a digital, multichannel experience. With 76% of UK individuals using online banking¹ and with a forecasted 65% of individuals using smartphones by 2025², it is clear that digital transformation and digital technologies are no longer simply nice to haves. Digital technologies are vital for businesses if they want to stay in touch with their customers, partners and citizens.

As more people are using digital solutions, businesses have an urgent need to understand and act upon how the modern, digital savvy customer expects to interact and engage with their business.

Understand why customers are expecting digital interactions, and how those businesses that are proactively creating digital, customer centric solutions will be the ones that are championed by their customers in the end.

What is digital transformation?

Firstly, let’s take a look at what digital transformation is within business.

Digital transformation can be seen as the adoption of digital technologies to transform and improve businesses by replacing traditional, non-digital methods. Digital transformation can be seen anywhere within business, from internal business improvements such as transferring IT systems from servers to the cloud. To external business enhancements such as digitalising customer communications and payments to providing customers with multichannel communication options.

Why does customer experience and digital transformation matter?

As more customers become digitally conscious, there is a need for businesses to digitally transform to prioritise their customers’ experience.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the average UK adult had more free time³. More time was spent addressing finances, organising admin, and therefore contacting Customer Service teams much more than usual. Some businesses showed their flaws by not having a digital customer service offering in place. The only way for their customers to interact with their business was by phone. This led to an increase in customer service phone calls and longer call waiting times, causing many negative customer experiences.

A recent call centre study carried out by Which?, found that the average customer call waiting time was just under 41 minutes⁴. HMRC also reported that customer service demands increased 31%⁵, and that the increase in support tickets isn’t going away anytime soon.

As customer queries are not decreasing, businesses have a real opportunity to address how digital technologies can serve their customers better. Businesses can address how to put their customers first, by giving customers the choice on how they want to interact with their business.

Average call waiting time of 41 minutes

Improve business processes with multichannel and hybrid mail solutions

Customer service demands increasing by 31%

How to meet the expectation of the digital customer

By using digital transformation your business has the opportunity to put your customers’ needs first, while also helping to drive business improvements and efficiency.

Digital user experience – Today, online channels are a critical aspect of the customer journey. Businesses have the opportunity to digitalise all of their customer communications, so that everything is in one digital space for the customer.
Multichannel – Businesses have the opportunity to create a multichannel journey for their customers by understanding how they will use the channel that is the most convenient for them. Whether this be via an app, your website, SMS or email, allowing customers to select their own channel shows that you are putting each one of their needs first.
Self-serve – By providing your customers the option to self-serve accelerates the time it takes for customers to complete their actions. Think about how your customers currently interact with your service. Could this be digitalised, therefore creating a self-serve option for a customer and allowing for one less customer service phone call?
Automate – AI (artificial intelligence) is playing an increasingly important role within customer experience. From chatbots to reporting, you can use AI to help customers serve themselves, and also to improve business efficiency. Use automated reports to understand how customers are interacting with your business and how these insights can aid future digital transformation solutions.

Talk to Unifiedpost Group about your digital transformation journey

Digital transformation is not about being reactive, but about being proactive so that you can create a customer centric solution that’s there to help your end users. By proactively putting customer experience at the heart of your business’ digital transformation strategy, you are showing your customers that they come first.

At Unifiedpost Group, we know what it takes to create simple and smart customer communication solutions. Our Multichannel Communications Portal has the customer in mind. From digitalising customer communications, to chatbots, to a personalised brand experience, your customer will be able to self-serve, self-pay and interact with your business more easily than ever before.

Contact our experts today, to discuss a simple and smart solution for your business.

Get in touch to discuss digital transformation for your business