Improve Customer Experience: Download The DCX 7-Steps Checklist

How can I create compelling experiences for my customers? How can I guide them through the purchase process, from awareness to consideration to conversion? How can my brand evolve to embrace the mobile mind shift? Ever thought of building a checklist? The DCX 7-Steps Checklist will help you find the right answer, with requirements and insights to shape an amazing digital customer experience. A guide you can download for free.

As 2015 goes on, the key value of customer experience in the digital transformation in now undeniable: one of the latest report by Gartner predicts that "50 percent of consumer product investments will be redirected to customer experience innovations by 2017". As a result, the improvement of customer journey becomes top priority on the desk of entrepreneurs and marketing professionals.

In our world defined by disruptive mobile technology, before even starting their marketing planning companies need to recognize the two forces in action to disrupt how you build marketing strategies:

• The empowered customer is the core of strategy, the main purpose of business (the Age of the Customer).
• The smartphone is the primary tool to search for information and interact with brands (the Mobile-Mind Shift).

A mobile first approach, then, become critical to deliver optimal digital experiences, to connect with clients, improve engagement and meet expectations with personal, simple and compelling content and services.

Good checklists focus on the “killer items” – the ones that are “most dangerous to overlook” and that people are most likely to skip. Boeing in example uses two types of checklists: “DO-CONFIRM” to verify that pilots carry out critical actions and “READ-DO” for specifying the steps pilots take while doing a specific action.

WHY A DCX CHECKLIST?

Working everyday with customers and prospects in key economic sectors - retail, fashion and luxury, automotive, financial services to name a few - at Neosperience we have recognized the importance of a non-static method to gain a strategic advantage. The idea of using checklists in critical areas is simple, yet powerful.

It got us thinking about what a digital customer experience (DCX) checklist might look like. So we crafted the first DCX 7-Steps Checklist with requirements for all projects that touch or impact organizations involved in the digital transformation and the creation of a customer-facing app.

Here is a brief description of the building blocks of a digital customer experience checklist:

1. There is a clear definition of your target customers, with properly designed storytelling, content marketing strategy and buyer personas. The needs of target customers are well understood and you are aiming at helping and making them active participants in the experience, delivering them relevant content, with right-time personalization and engagement.
2. A cross-functional team, with the right people from different functions has been put in place to work together (and never forget about employee engagement).
3. You have a clear understanding of the constant stream of new technology to enhance user experiences at every touch point. What’s key for you is to understand how your specific customers can use technology, in particular Android and iOS smartphone and tablet innovation, to improve their experience with your brand.
4. A customer journey mapping activity has been performed and there is a clear understanding of the various touch points where a digital transformation adds value in the customer’s perspective. Understanding and optimizing digitally the journey map to purchase lets you offer necessary education and a seamless experience to make it simple for people to do business with you.
5. An agile and iterative methodology and process is in place, from the conception stage, with resources and time properly allotted, to allow working on rapid-cycle test and learn.
6. The digital customer experience is shaped for every stage of the customer journey, from initial roll-out to ongoing support.
7. You have defined clear objectives, associated metrics and a measurement system for how the project will impact target customers.

One of the first things you have to recognize is that digital isn’t just this added thing. It's not just one more channel. It's different and it’s about changing the way you’re operating, because it is about using data, faster cycle times, more interactivity with more empowered customers.

Much of this is – and will remain – outside our control, as the volume and complexity of the data we collect with mobiles, combined with the complexity of our customer’s minds, have exceeded our ability to take into account all the details. Digital customer experience knowledge is both saving us and burdening us.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy with the latest trends and advancements of digital customer experience.

Before downloading, a final practical advise: just ticking boxes on our 7 steps digital customer experience checklist is not the ultimate recipe. Choosing the right technology platform and partner, avoiding pitfalls and embracing a culture of teamwork and discipline is.