It is often said that life is a journey, but that saying applies to businesses as well. To succeed, brands need to continually grow and evolve by refining their customer engagement strategies to ensure that customer experiences are beyond compare. Today’s modern consumers expect no less. So the consistent pursuit of improvement is essential, and in our high tech and digital-mobile culture, it even has a new name. It’s called optimization.
Optimization refers to the strategic refinement of customer engagement by leveraging insights derived from data. Technology is making it increasingly possible to analyze and learn from data to optimize the customer experience at every turn, and marketers are beginning to realize just how important this is for growth.
This idea was highlighted by a recent study commissioned by Qubit called, “Optimizing the Digital Customer Experience.” Qubit, a cloud-based A/B testing and customer segmenting digital analytics firm, demonstrated the need for brands to continually optimize customer engagement efforts in order to deliver more meaningful and relevant “21st Century” customer experiences.
Directed by Forrester, the study looked at the results provided by 150 leading global marketing and ecommerce entrepreneurs across the U.S., Europe, France, and Germany to reveal the important factors of continuous optimization including technological architecture and consumer profiles. The study showed that perpetual optimization allows brands to effectively differentiate themselves from the competition.
“We live in a data-driven economy, but that data is useless if it rests in data dead-ends or is not properly analyzed to ensure optimal customer engagement,” said Graham Cooke, founder and CEO of Qubit. “In order to deliver a 21st Century customer experience, ecommerce businesses must understand the evolution of their customers’ needs throughout each customer’s lifecycle. Continuous optimization is a strategic investment toward creating a lifelong relationship with each customer.”
The vast majority of those surveyed (76%), however, did not feel that their current digital customer engagement efforts were sufficiently optimized. Many felt their efforts were lacking, falling behind, outdated, or all of the above.
The leading reason so many industry professionals are encountering difficulties is because they can’t find the right digital technology provider. Over half stated that wading through the thousands of business technologies offered by hundreds of service providers posed a significant challenge. Many are finding it daunting to find the right services that fit their exact needs.
Other challenges also emerged. For example, 43% felt that poorly integrated legacy systems were a major roadblock. While 40% believed conflicting KPI measurements and indicators between internal departments were suffocating the advancement of customer engagement optimization.
Despite these challenges, 89% of those surveyed understand the vital importance of leveraging continued optimization to provide richer and deeper customer experiences, and they plan to significantly increase their efforts across this area within the next year.