Digital transformation is a new reality, which is becoming an integral part of businesses. Companies are adopting the ongoing transformation and gradually getting the result. However, here, instead of companies, the customer is driving this change.
These days, customers expect to see relevant content on a particular platform all the time, irrespective of the platform they choose, the region they are located, or the time they browse. As a result, it has to be the journey of customers that dictate the strategy-making of the firms. In order to offer an unmatched experience for potential customers, firms are forced to take the help of the latest and best in class technologies.
So, here in this article, you will know why businesses need digital transformation and how the ongoing digital transformation is helping the customers to get a significantly better experience on a particular platform.
Here is Why the Digital Transformation is Essential for Businesses to Grow Faster
If you look closely, you will notice that the majority of the successful firms put the customer first policy while developing their business strategies. As a result, most of the reputed firms realized the importance of digital means and started taking the digital transformation seriously.
A recent mass-scale global survey from a reputed agency revealed that a major chunk of Global 2,000 firms started focusing more on digital strategies against the traditional strategies in order to improve the customers’ experience. Among the top 2,000 global firms, more than 34% of the firms believe that they will completely transform digitally by the end of this year.
The growing interest in digital transformation also leads to more expenditure. The survey calculates the net global spending on the digital transformation was around one trillion USD for the year 2018. It predicts the number to rise two times by 2022. In fact, the COVID 19 pandemic has forced the firms to spend more budget on digital transformation.
Though you might get a feeling that the world is on the verge of a complete digital adaptation, the reality speaks something different. Another report from a credible source revealed that 47% of the firms are yet to start their digital transformation, and among them, around 60% are worried about being late in the ongoing transformation.
The study also confirms that businesses that are yet to be involved in digital transformation will start losing their existing market share in the upcoming 12 months.
Twelve months is not a lot of time, and if you are one among that 47% of firms who are yet to invest in digital transformation, there are plenty of reasons to be worried. However, there is good news for you as you can transform your business digitally within the span of a year.
So, let’s introduce you to the world of digital transformation and how you can transform your business by taking the help of technology and offer a significantly better customer experience.
What is digital transformation?
“What is digital transformation” is a very common question in the business sphere today. Digital transformation is nothing but the integration of digital tech into all domains of a particular business, which eventually force changes in business operations.
In the long term, the digital transformation helps a business to add value to its customer by offering quality personalized services.
In simple words, as the name suggests, digital transformation changes the traditional way of interaction for a business with its customers. It also enables the firms to provide a consistent experience for their potential users, wherever or whenever they need it.
In the last few years, it has been seen that most of the firms take customer experience and customer satisfaction as the leading factor while implementing their digital transformation strategies.
Digital transformation boosts the sales number of a business considerably, and studies also confirm the same.
A recently concluded study revealed that digital transformation has a positive impact on customer engagement. By going with digital transformation, you can improve the chances of buying a new product or service six times by your loyal customer.
Besides, more often than not, they will refer your brand to their friend, family, and close circle.
As mentioned earlier, digital transformation creates a highly engaged customer base for you. As a result, they spend significantly more time on your platform, and therefore, you can expect a better revenue return in the long term.
For example; Microsoft took more than five years in order to digitally transform itself, and in return, it has experienced a growth rate of whooping 257% in stock price. Similar is the case for other firms like Target, Nike, Honeywell, who have opted for complete digital transformation. Besides, digital transformation also plays an important role in your firm’s brand building.
Are you ready to adopt digital transformation as an integral part of your business strategy to empower your operations?
Here is How Digital Transformation can Make a Difference for Your Firm
It is a well-known fact that technology is getting better and better with the passage of time. The evolution of smartphones, applications, automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence allows the firms to offer a solution for their customers in order to provide the exact data that they want to see or they need.
The rapid implementation of these sophisticated digital technologies has expanded your customers’ expectations, resulting in the creation of a completely new kind of buyer.
As a result, customers are now able to judge the experience offered by your platform from the very beginning itself. If you are not offering the same, more often, they will shift to your rivals who are already implementing the same on their platforms.
Therefore, you need to revisit your existing strategies and figure out the best way to communicate with your existing and potential customers. Here are some of the basic ideas that you can implement for efficient management and, ultimately, better return.
B2B Sales
You can replace the traditional cold calling with social selling for your B2B sales. As most of your customers are active in social media, it is a no-brainer to switch to these platforms for your advantage. As a result, you are not required to wait until they contact you, as you can reach out to them in the first instance. On these platforms, you can share relevant information and personalized solutions for their problems.
Marketing
For your marketing, you can easily reduce the budget that you are currently spending on various traditional marketing activities, like billboard ads, TV or Newspaper ads, and so on. You can opt for highly target-oriented digital channels through digital transformation, such as email marketing, account-based marketing, search engine-based marketing, and the list will go on.
Customer Service
These days, the traditional reactive form of customer service is not expected from a top-rated professional firm. Waiting for your customers to ring the call and expect a response from you should not be the ideal way of customer service.
You need to be extremely proactive in your approach for standing a step ahead of the crowd. For that matter, you can take the support of a wide range of channels, such as communities, forums, social media, and so on, in order to offer an efficient solution.
Do you want to simplify your marketing, sales and support processes by adopting digital transformation?
Frequent Mistakes That You Should Avoid While Going with Digital Transformation
Digital transformation enables organizations to decode the requirements of modern-day buyers and offers the required solution that can match their expectations. Though the concept of digital transformation is becoming popular day by day, it is important to know the ideal approach. But, sadly, due to a lack of correct information, many firms are wasting their hard-earned money.
As mentioned earlier, in 2018, more than one trillion USD, 1.3 trillion to be precise, was invested in digital transformation. However, the survey also suggested that most of the invested amounts failed to deliver the expected result.
So, a question might arise as to why some efforts are successful and why some are failed. So, let’s try to address some of the most frequent mistakes that organizations make while implementing a complete digital transformation.
Here are three major aspects that you should focus on in order to maximize the result from digital transformation.
A Fast and Flexible IT Environment
Having the right technology helps a firm to strategize the digital transformation in an efficient manner. But, sadly, 45% of the firms tend to believe that their firms neither require technology nor have the expertise in this field.
In such a scenario, it is quite difficult to implement a highly advanced digital solution for the firm. However, in order to implement an efficient digital solution, you can take the help of an experienced firm having some kind of experience in this particular field.
On the other hand, you can also start making an effort to create a fast and flexible IT environment. Besides, you also need to recognize the right technology required by your firm.
Personalized Solution
The time has changed, using a single solution, you can address the specific expectations of all the customers. Every individual is unique, and they deserve their own personalized solution based on their preferences and history.
A recent study confirmed that 75% of the customers like to buy products or services from a company that can recognize people based on their name and recommends items based on their purchase history.
The best part about the study is definitely the usage of personal data. These days, when personal data management is a controversial issue, the study confirms that the majority of the people are happy to provide their personal data and get a personalized solution in return. As a result, you should take advantage of this ongoing trend by offering a personalized solution to your customers.
However, in order to offer a personalized solution, you need to invest a considerable amount of sum in relevant technology like CRM. Without opting for CRM, it is virtually impossible to distinguish your customers on an individual level.
By opting for a CRM system, you will be able to analyze the customer data based on their past interactions with your brand. Once you are able to get a reasonably good idea about the customers’ shopping patterns, you can easily offer a personalized solution for each of your customers.
Multi-Channel Experience
You need to understand that customers as a group have emerged as the most important entity in the business circle. These days, thanks to technology, and the number of available options, customers are empowered enough to demand what they want at any given time. Therefore, you need to treat them well for the best possible result.
The study found that the majority of the customers expect the firm to respond within a span of one hour, even during the weekend as well. As a result, you need to be accessible 24/7 in order to retain the maximum number of customers. In order to do that in an effective manner, you are required to collect all interactions and merge into a single digital profile.
Do you want to streamline and simplify their journey towards digital transformation?
Wrapping it off
Now, you must have understood that Digital transformation driving customer experience, which was never seen earlier. In this first moving world, firms are forced to implement a successful digital transformation strategy if they are not already into this business. Digital transformation offers a modern solution to engage the buyers more and improves the experience of the customers by offering a personalized solution.
You must go with a cloud-based solution and CRM for providing a seamless experience to your buyers. However, implementation plays a big part in the final outcome.
As a result, if you feel that your firm does not have the expertise or experience to handle such a complex project, you can go with a reliable third-party solution.
Though there are a number of firms offering complete digital transformation solutions, very few are reliable enough to trust. Therefore, it is highly recommended to carry out extensive research before making your final call.
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