From Channels to Touchpoints: The Evolution of Customer Experience in the Mobile Era
Posted by Forrester's Brian Walker recently issued a very compelling report entitled: "Welcome to the Era of Agile Commerce: eBusiness Execs Must Evolve Channel Strategies To Embrace Market Changes." In the report, Walker asserts that multi-channel commerce is being reborn, and traditional ways of describing multi-channel commerce no longer work because customers don't interact with companies from a "channel" perspective anymore. Customers now use any array of different devices to engage with a business across multiple "touchpoints."
The report reaffirmed our belief that brands need to rethink their approach to reaching consumers via distinct "channels." The proliferation of devices has forever and fundamentally changed the way customers engage with companies and - ultimately - make purchasing decisions. Channel engagement is no longer meaningful; rather, it's all about "touchpoints." In response, business professionals must transform how they market, transact, serve and organize around this changing customer experience.
We truly are in the midst of a sea change for not only customers, but businesses, too. Here are a few key takeaways from the report that really resonated with us:
1. Reaching customers has become increasingly complex.
We are officially in the "Post PC Era." With so many different platforms, devices and "touchpoints" available, businesses have a dizzying array of applications to design and develop in order to reach their customers (not to mention the complexity of integrating all these touchpoints into back-end systems). Forrester calls this the "Splinternet." Many companies don't know where to start or which projects to prioritize.
With one of our current clients we were able to create a strategy that maximized reuse. We made the backend system reusable across multiple devices including iOS devices, Android devices, and the BlackBerry PlayBook without any modifications. Without understanding the technical climate, many organizations needlessly develop their mobile applications in a silo from other solutions and this can be inefficient at best.
2. Brands must deliver a consistent, holistic experience across multiple touchpoints.
A true "brand experience" is created when all these touchpoints are considered holistically, not in isolation. Forrester talks a lot about orchestrating the customer relationship across touchpoints to drive relevant, personalized, and linked offers. At Universal Mind, we believe brands are built when customers have a familiar experience with every engagement and these engagements feel authentic on a device and platform which is comfortable to the end user. Knowledge of the business’s customers and the platform technologies are essential for success.
With another recent client we were able to develop a mobile strategy that put this experience in the forefront. By focusing first on how to deliver this experience in a consistent manner across the most popular touchpoints, the client was able to get a vision for what would be possible. We created an initial "vision prototype" to facilitate user testing which then revealed many things about their customers that they didn’t know. Because they were able to observe their clients actually working with a prototype application on real devices, this greatly influenced how they approached the overall solution.
3. Brands that get it right will win.
Forrester outlines the ROI for businesses that complete this multiple touchpoint journey, noting that those who get it right will see higher engagement and sales, as customers who interact with a business across multiple touchpoints are often worth five or six times that of a single-channel customer. Forrester also anticipates that brands who offer a best-in-class customer experience across multiple touchpoints will increase customer retention, as 76% of consumers who have a poor online shopping experience with a company will be unlikely to return.
In 2010, it was all about porting existing web based applications to mobile devices and developing one-off mobile applications. Today, smart companies are thinking about their customer engagement more holistically. There are no more web applications and mobile applications but rather an experience preserved across multiple touchpoints that meets the customers where they are.
Forrester's Ron Rogowski recently posted an article in Mashable, "Why Brands Need a Digital Customer Experience Strategy To Stay Competitive." Ron echos these thoughts from the perspective of providing a consistent customer experience that includes digital channels. Without a well-defined strategy, he says, companies are simply "vulnerable to chasing shiny new objects."
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