Consumers are relying on digital channels more than ever to browse and buy, particularly since local economies have been closed or impacted by shelter in place edicts.
As a result, it’s essential for brands to have a deeper understanding of their entire digital ecosystem in order to provide the seamless customer experience shoppers crave.
First things first: What is a digital ecosystem?
Inspired by natural ecosystems, a digital ecosystem is an interconnected network made up of information technology resources that can work as a whole. Comprised of customers, partners, applications, suppliers, third-party service providers, and even competitors, digital ecosystems foster efficient and effective communication and integration among users for mutually beneficial purposes, like education and innovation.
Digital ecosystems are adaptive, scalable, and sustainable, encouraging collaboration among members of the system.
Benefits of a digital ecosystem include:
- Improved business processes
- Decreased costs and expenses
- Identification of new revenue sources
- Faster implementation and adoption of technology
- A better experience for customers
Digital ecosystem assessments: Driving digital transformation
Some questions to ask about your public-facing digital properties:
- From your website and mobile apps to social media feeds and YouTube, how do they connect with each other?
- How are users searching for information and accessing content?
- And, how do those channels not only compete with other companies in the same category, but other comparative experiences in a consumer’s daily life?
Keep in mind, consumers are less and less likely to distinguish one shopping experience from all of the other experiences they have every day.
For example, we’ve all become accustomed to sizing up our experiences booking airline tickets or making dinner reservations, and then comparing these experiences to how easy or hard it is to schedule a doctor appointment online. In the consumer’s mind, these experiences are categorized the same way.
Therefore, it’s critical to understand what a brand’s digital footprint looks like, how consistently it’s being represented, and whether it can deliver the same kinds of customer experiences across these various channels – in the ways that today’s customers demand.
The entire digital customer journey needs to be examined, from awareness and consideration to sales, and even farther down the line to ongoing service and additional purchases.
That’s where a digital ecosystem assessment comes in.
A digital ecosystem assessment is a powerful way to examine a brand’s readiness to deliver relevancy in each moment (and even micro-moment), spanning every stage of the digital customer journey. Through this in-depth inquiry, brands can hone in on existing priorities and pain points to identify relevant personas and define appropriate use cases.
Once this is completed, auditors can conduct stress tests of digital tools, channels, and resources from the customer’s perspective. They can then rigorously analyze competitors to see how the experience compares. In addition, the assessment should look for best-in-class experiences across categories and industries for benchmarking purposes.
With the results of a digital ecosystem assessment, organizations can take action with specific recommendations that improve decision-making and help develop the right goals towards true digital transformation.
Overcoming roadblocks: Your customers are counting on you – that should be motivation enough to get the job done
The biggest challenge of the assessment? Many organizations can fall into the “I already know it all” trap, or weigh considerations of one area of the company more heavily than others, whether IT, marketing, or business.
The digital ecosystem assessment puts all of that aside and examines the evidence as a scientist would. Customers don’t care about a brand’s business challenges – they just want a frictionless, consistent, and engaging experience. A digital ecosystem assessment can highlight what needs to be done in an objective, unbiased way.
Those inside the company, of course, can find it hard to step out of their comfort zone and acknowledge that others may do things differently. A digital ecosystem assessment completed by a third party, on the other hand, can consider issues through the eyes of the customer.
For example, a consumer products brand may not realize that many of their target shoppers now start looking on YouTube because they want to see people unboxing and using the product. Or perhaps they go straight to Amazon rather than searching on Google, and look at recent reviews. A digital ecosystem assessment can uncover those important insights so the brand is able to make better decisions about its CX and UX efforts going forward.
Know thy customer – and competition
Brands also need to examine competitors and companies which may not be direct competitors, but offer comparable experiences. For an insurance company, it could be important to examine what mobile phone carriers are doing in the digital space. Most people find buying shopping for cell phone plans and insurance coverage to have a lot of unknowns, and both industries need to articulate the benefits of different choices and provide people with options.
There’s no question that the events of 2020 have changed the world dramatically. The customer journey is now often completely digital and businesses have had to pivot to enable the processes that support digital CX as quickly as possible.
There are fairly large restaurant chains, for example, that stood up online ordering in a matter of days when they previously only had dine-in options. In these uncertain times, that ability to transform digitally is probably what’s keeping many companies in business right now.
Look at the automotive sector, for instance. What does it mean when you can’t test drive a car anymore? What are the consequences when dealerships are closed as they have been in Canada and some US states, but customers still need to buy a car, or have their car serviced, or return a car after a lease is up? The brand’s digital ecosystem can make a significant difference in whether a business succeeds or fails in these times.
The bottom line is that digital transformation is table stakes now for any brand that wants to compete in today’s experience economy.
A digital ecosystem assessment not only helps businesses compete, but also enables organizations to mature digitally much more quickly and more successfully. The results can improve the end-to-end customer experience across digital channels, which is a must in today’s climate and will continue to be tomorrow.