Insight

Understanding Why CX Is a Crucial Element for Today’s Businesses

March 20, 2019

Customer experience (CX) should be an important strategic lever for all organizations. That’s why Tink has switched gears and made this area of expertise the focal point of the services it offers. The company has shifted from focusing on marketing and digital technology, to a more holistic set of services, with our sights set on profitability. Tink now prepares and guides medium and large-sized companies through their digital transformations by putting the customer at the heart of the process. Here are the reasons behind this business decision.

Consumer Demands and Needs Are In a Constant State of Change

The jury has spoken. When it comes to shopping experience, your customers’ expectations are high and will only get higher. More than ever, when it comes to buying a product or service, consumers are willing to pay a higher price for a better experience.

Online giant Amazon is proof of this very trend. After igniting a revolution a few years ago, the consumer focus quietly shifted to emphasizing the process of purchasing a product, including ease of purchase, delivery speed and product range. These factors have come to play an integral role in the purchasing decisions of customers.

In a 2017 study, Salesforce reported that 75% of consumers now expect a pleasant and consistent experience regardless of the channel used to access the brand. This represents a major challenge in an age of showrooming and multi-channel commerce. At the same time, it seems that response time is also a key factor in customer satisfaction, as 64% of consumers expect an immediate response when they make a request.

With this being the reality, it’s clear that companies should most certainly focus on the quality of the experience they offer to their customers, at every stage of the purchasing process.

Digital Is One of the Principal Vehicles for Improving the Customer Experience (CX)

The growing demands of consumers correlates with the rapid development of digital technologies. Mobility and our connected lives have led us to an age of instant gratification. We now expect to find what we want, whether it’s information, products, services or experiences, whenever we want it, no matter the circumstance.

“Digital drives customer experience more than anything else.”

Digital technology gives us many opportunities to enrich consumer experience when those consumers are interacting with a brand, and this applies to both B2C and B2B. Companies are urged to improve their ability to collect and use customer data, customize offers and predict consumer behaviour. In fact, that power is without a doubt directly related to a company’s profitability. However, organizing and processing the large amount of data collected during the process can, understandably, seem dauting. The challenge then, is to identify the information that is relevant for the company’s purposes. This is where our customer intelligence expertise comes into play, providing our clients with the tools and knowledge needed to help them achieve their goals. Our other areas of expertise, including consulting and strategy, experience design and technology and operations, are guided by digital technologies, whether they are used to power the development and deployment of a marketing strategy, or to create infrastructure.

In essence, the evolution of digital technology relates directly to the need to offer customers a unique and unparalleled experience, as well as the solutions that will help our clients get there.

Those Who Don’t Get on Board with CX Miss the Boat

If you need more convincing when it comes to investing in CX and your digital transformation in the short term, just look around you. What you will see is a multitude of companies that did not anticipate the digital wave and instead had to bow down before the companies that were willing to embrace innovation. Take Sears, for example. Failing to keep pace with its customers’ changing needs and not willing to do what their competitors were doing in terms of customer experience, this well-established, century-old company, with an excellent reputation (and possessing customer databases (CRM) thanks to their catalogues), ended up completely disappearing from the commercial landscape.

They say we have to adapt if we want to survive... This couldn’t be truer when discussing the accelerating pace of innovation and technological development cycles.

Your Customers Are Your Company’s Driving Force

At Tink, we have always placed great importance on the satisfaction of our clients and their customers. We know that the customer plays a vital role in a company. In that way, our new approach isn’t so different from what we’ve focused on for the last 20 years.

“This is all about new structure, new methodologies developed to suit the customer path, using tools that are even more efficient, relevant and interesting than before.”

We believe that CX is the way of the future. We are pleased to offer our valued clients this new strategic approach that will set us apart from our competitors, but above all else, will make you leaders in your industry.

President and Chief Executive Officer jcouture@tink.ca