Prepare for Tomorrow by Investing in a DXP Today

Choosing the right digital experience platform (DXP) is one of the most critical decisions businesses can make as they adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and customer preferences.

A full-fledged DXP supports content management, personalization, omnichannel delivery, customer relationship management integration, analytics, and extensibility through application program interfaces. The objective is to tie together everything an organization has learned about its customers and deliver unique content that informs and guides them.

Delivering a seamless customer journey is one of the most fundamental success factors in creating an exceptional customer experience. In fact, according to Gartner analysts, 59% of service organizations say creating seamless journeys is one of their top three priorities today. The less effort a customer puts in to make a purchase, ask questions, or solve problems, the happier and more engaged they’ll be.

Organizations must make customer-centricity the core of their digital strategies to succeed in a world that is digitally transforming at such high speed. Digital tools and technologies can provide insights into behaviors at a fine-grained level, enabling personalized offerings and exceptional experiences.

Going Beyond Omnichannel

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of omnichannel strategies that deliver products and services to customers whenever and wherever they want them. Preparing for a future of ubiquitous digital experiences means going beyond omnichannel to embrace omnipresence, says Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research.

“You need to be in all the channels your customers want to be in and be ready when new channels come onto the scene,” she says. A website and mobile app are table stakes for e-commerce today. Looking to the future, digital experiences will likely include wearables, multimedia, and interactive experiences. Artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality will be the drivers of these experiences. “It’s not about doing digital but about being digital,” Miller says.

That means data must underpin decisions. A modern digital experience platform is pivotal in enabling organizations to collect, analyze, and derive actionable insights from vast amounts of information about customers, the marketplace, the business climate, and other influencing factors. It facilitates data integration and supports advanced analytics capabilities like visualization and machine learning. The ability to derive insights in real time empowers organizations to make decisions based on facts rather than hunches.

Automating Workflows

A modern DXP goes beyond mere convenience; it ushers in a realm of extensive automation, freeing professionals from the monotony of routine tasks and allowing them to channel their efforts into more strategic initiatives. Harnessing automation's potential starts with a comprehensive analysis of organizational workflows, the identification of bottlenecks, and the strategic removal of people from processes where machines can consistently and efficiently take over. Additionally, it involves a transition from analog to digital processes, aiming to achieve a faster, parallel workflow wherever feasible.

“The autonomous enterprise looks at what might be slowing it down but also how automation can make decisions faster than human counterparts,” Miller says.

When investing in a DXP, ensuring that the platform is future-proof is critical. No single provider can anticipate all the needs of its DXP customers. Robust platforms provide application program interfaces for integration with third-party services that extend and enhance the core platform. This future-oriented approach ensures that your DXP evolves and adapts alongside your organization's dynamic requirements.

Maintain Global Consistency

According to Forrester analyst Kathleen Pierce, “Great customer experience requires localization.” She explains that global brands that treat localization as a tactical afterthought in their marketing and communications will struggle with creating an exceptional global customer experience. “Those of us who still have decentralized localization without a modern, integrated tech stack and skilled leadership need to get with the program. That traditional model is insanely expensive and slow.”

Localization was the exact problem faced by global manufacturer 3M, which fields 97 million visits a year from customers across the world on its various global websites. Previously, it had to rely on a whole range of third-party agencies to design and create localized versions of website content. This added considerable cost to the scaling of content worldwide and slowed down updates significantly.

Leveraging HCL's solution stack, 3M empowered its marketing department to independently create and manage its websites. This strategic initiative has significantly enhanced the company's capacity to efficiently and cost-effectively adapt content to cater to diverse local audiences across their web properties.

“This results; in less spend and more potential revenue,” says Rick Fryar, IT architect for 3M.

“We have also been able to roll out website features and requirements more quickly across all of our properties in a consistent and expedited fashion,” notes IT architect Rick Fryar of 3M. It’s a solution that has amplified 3M’s delivery of strong customer experience to millions of people each year.

Building Trust With Personalized Content

At a time when misinformation has become a pressing social problem, trust is more important than ever. PwC has called trust “the new currency for business.” Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer found that trust is the second most important factor in consumer buying decisions, with only value-for-price being more important to consumers.

Fostering trust is built on the foundation of delivering personalized, localized, highly relevant content precisely when your customers need it most. In the evolving landscape of customer engagement, a pivotal strategy lies in granting customers the freedom to consume content seamlessly, regardless of the device, time of day, or volume they choose to consume. Breaking down these content barriers is not just a luxury; it's a necessity in the modern business landscape.

A robust DXP captures each customer interaction and weaves it into a tapestry that reflects that person’s interests, preferences, and history with the company. That knowledge is reflected in every interaction, whether on a website, on the phone, or in person. Personalization builds trust and makes customers feel that your organization truly values them.

Employees are empowered through the use of a DXP featuring integrated digital asset management, low-code/no-code form builders, and advanced audience segmentation capabilities. Deploying these capabilities creates profound, meaningful connections with your customers and elevates customer engagement to new heights. At a time when consumers have nearly limitless choices about which businesses they choose to patronize, that creates an intangible bond that keeps people coming back.

Contact us to learn more about HCL Digital Experience Platform.