It’s been a busy decade on the digital landscape, with many advancements, innovations, migrations, and transformations affecting the status quo for businesses.
We’ve learned that customers want exceptional brand experiences that are consistent, seamless, and friction-free. They want to be remembered, treated as individuals, and valued as customers.
And we’ve learned that businesses want to know everything there is to know about their customers so that they can deliver on customer demands with seamless consistency, accurate recommendations, and a deeply personal experience, because 84% of companies that improve their customer experience increase their revenue.
We’ve seen 94% of companies make a move to or towards the agility and scalability of the cloud and platforms change shape, size, and architecture to keep pace with the sky-high demands of the online marketplace.
We’ve absorbed the flood of new technologies our customers are using and the ways they want to be using them. And we’ve welcomed digital advances that help connect us with customers in ways we couldn’t even have imagined a few years ago.
So it’s no surprise that 65% of companies either have a digital transformation program in place, or are well into its execution.
It doesn’t seem very long ago now that we were all racing to move our companies over to Content Management Systems (CMSs) that would help us create, manage, and publish content in a consistent manner across all our domains.
Then the Web Experience Management (WEM) platforms took us cross-channel and enabled us to share consistent content across digital touchpoints, including mobile and social channels. Suddenly we got much better visibility into what our customer was doing and we could build personas around our observations. We even started to deliver content automatically and to tailor it according to their preferences and interests. And the results were astonishing.
Marketers noted a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns, 75% saw higher click-through rates from personalized emails, and 74% say targeted personalization increases customer engagement.
So, do we really need another experience platform?
Why the DXP Is in A Category All of Its Own
1. Integrates with Anything
A DXP has a multiservice architecture, designed to work with the tools you do. Almost any applications or data stores you feel you just couldn’t do without (even if residing within large CRM/CX ecosystems) will easily integrate with your DXP via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
So, your software (internal and external) is all fully connected. You can pick and choose your vendors for specific modules to ensure you’re getting the functionalities you need at the price you want for duration that suits you.
2. Company Agility
70% of agile companies rank in the top quartile for organizational health.
The DXP architecture supports your move towards Continuous Deployment by enabling much faster time to market, meaning you can launch, test, learn, and repeat quickly and painlessly.
You have the flexibility to try out new technology stacks and replace individual services as required. This helps if roll backs are required and it reduces locked-in dependency concerns.
3. Consistent Consistency
No matter how many devices your customers use or how often they jump between them, your backend must deliver one consistent experience.
69% of U.S. consumers shop more with brands offering a consistent experience in store and online.
Having eliminated your data siloes across CRM, web, mobile, chatbots, social channels, customer services, digital assistants, kiosks, billboards, customer portals… Suddenly a 360° view of your customer isn’t just something you read about in marketing blogs.
You get one unified customer profile that links accounts between applications, e-store, and physical store! Such a consolidated view of customer data means you can be delivering on those experiences that matter so much to them.
Adobe recently found that companies with the strongest omnichannel strategies enjoyed a 14% year-over-year growth, a 10% increase in average order value, and a 25% increase in close rates.
And businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies realize 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates than those that don’t.
So, when your customer reaches out on their mobile, you can recognize them, welcome them, remember what they were looking for last time—even though it was on their laptop—recall their delivery address and card details, and apply the discount they earned through the Twitter competition they won.
And with every interaction, you can track your customers’ journeys and behavior to learn even more about them. You’ll also get much better visibility into bottlenecks or friction along the journey and sticking points in your processes.
4. A Personalization Powerhouse
Having seamlessly connected all your customer data from every touchpoint into one customer profile using APIs, the artificial intelligence (AI) built into your DXP can organize all relevant incoming and stored data to bring unprecedented actionable insight into who your customer is, what they want, and where they are in the customer journey.
Such intelligent use of customer data means you can ensure delivery of the right content to the right person in real time with the right offerings and recommendations. And you can do this with every interaction. As you do, you’ll be observing and learning more patterns to help you automatically improve the experience.
This kind of one-on-one personalization, where every user gets an experience tailored just for them is what drives all your favorite things. 55% of companies report increased visitor engagement and improved customer experience. 51% report increased conversion rates, 39 report improved brand perception, and 46% increased lead generation and customer acquisition. In fact, advanced personalization has an ROI of about $20 for every $1 spent!
Real-time channel-, location-, and behavior-based personalization combined with contextual insights (weather, day of the week, etc.) puts you in a very powerful position to become your customer’s number one brand.
You can intelligently anticipate customer expectations and provide recommendations on a truly personal level.
5. Future-Proof Technology
The number of customer touchpoints we need to manage has increased rapidly over recent years and shows no sign of stopping. To be successful, you have to be everywhere the customer is. Now and in the future.
Thanks to its architecture and design, your DXP is ready and waiting to connect to any application or channel you need now or in the future via the magic of API.
So, when the next big thing comes along, you’re armored and ready to disrupt your market and take home the prize.
Go On Then, DXP Me
A digital experience platform (DXP) is a next-generation content management system that fully integrates multichannel marketing experience tools to enable personalized content delivery to all touchpoints everywhere, whether digital (websites, apps, portals, IoT devices, etc.) or in-store.
A DXP leverages AI and machine learning (ML) to track and analyze the customer journey from A-Z; all interests, preferences, activities, behaviors, and interactions throughout the entire lifecycle and across all devices and channels.
It contextualizes the data with customer location, language, and demographics, and serves anticipatory content so specifically designed for them (and so perfectly timed), their own mothers couldn’t have done better.
So, no, it’s not just another experience management platform. It’s your expressway to delivering those exceptional experiences that boost revenues and creates customers for life.