Introduction
Consumer experience
Remember the adage, ‘people buy people’? To wander along the High Street today is to witness the slow but steady demise of the human touch as digital takes over the entire consumer experience.
Changing times
It's not just happening in physical spaces, of course.
Chatbots are replacing call centres, and self-service systems are increasing across the piece, from government channels to charity advice portals.
Society today
As a society, we're getting used to this full-on digital way of life. In fact, we asked for it. How often have you read brands' desire for ‘frictionless’ services to satisfy time-poor and digital-savvy sections of society?
Digital transformation
There's no doubt that digital transformation adds efficiency for both brands and customers alike. Speedy, convenient service on a mass scale is becoming universal across verticals. Done well, it boosts margins and can save consumers time, money, and hassle.
Ensuring good customer experience
But in the digitisation of everything, we must beware of pulling the rug from those elements of customer experience that make the heart beat a little faster, make the day happier, and strengthen the bond between brands and their buyers.
Maintain our focus
In other words, let's not forget the customer experience as we press on for the promise of an efficient, digitised future.
Are we ready for conversation-less coffee?
Let's take a simple example. Sam and Jessie use the same branch of the same coffee shop chain.
Customers used to queue, place their orders, and give their names to the server. When drinks were ready, names would be called – sometimes incorrectly.
This has now changed, and a new way of taking orders has been introduced: customers use an app to place and pay for their order, then wait to collect it.
What's next
This new system is the culmination of the company's relentless pursuit of optimisation and efficiency.
It can process more orders with all staff members focused on producing drinks. The app removes human error from the order process and minimises wastage.
This new system is the culmination of the company's relentless pursuit of optimisation and efficiency.
Perspective
Scenario 1
Sam loves it. They have their preferred drink saved in the favourites section of the app, have ordered, and paid as they walk in the door.
After a few moments of waiting for their coffee to be prepared, Sam is back out the door.
Perspective
Scenario 2
Jessie is less keen. They miss the interaction with baristas.
While it does mean more time chatting with friends, it's another unwelcome intrusion of technology into what a social event should be. Also, those deliberately shunning smartphones have no way of ordering or paying.
Maintaining loyalty
Loyalty is lost. When a new independent opens in the same area, Jessie goes there instead for catch-ups.
That scenario is fictional but not significantly removed from reality. Visit McDonald's, and you'll have the option to order at a digital screen. Starbucks, meanwhile, has tested a ticketing system rather than ‘names on a cup’.
Digitisation over customer experience
All these examples highlight how fraught the introduction of digital technologies can be.
The coffee chain wants to optimise its processes so it can serve more customers faster, with greater degrees of accuracy.
It will argue that this demonstrates a hyper-focus on its customers and what they come for – fast refreshment – while controlling rising costs and resources.
The sacrifice of quality
On paper, the chain has done everything right: it has created a user-centric process while making everything more efficient. Yet, in doing so, it overlooks other, less tangible drivers for customers choosing its product over someone else's. And it has sacrificed the quality of the overall experience for a key audience segment.
Strike the right balance of efficiency and experience
It is this struggle between experience and efficiency that many are currently wrestling with as they seek to digitally transform their organisations.
They know they must change. As McKinsey puts it, "better overall technology capabilities, talent, leadership and resources... are linked to better economic outcomes."Despite this clear imperative, many organisations prioritise either efficiency or experience.
It's a trap any businesses can fall into, whether a major food chain, healthcare or financial services provider, or retailer. Relatively few have been able to deliver both at the correct levels. But it is possible.
Assess the situation
First, agree on what you're trying to achieve.
This is where experience and efficiency come in. Are you trying to deliver a seamless user journey, a ruthlessly simple buying process, or a lean service organisation?
Finding the correct balance
The message to organisations is clear. As you transform, you ignore the needs of your customers and your people at your peril. To paraphrase, Kipling: if you can treat your efficiency and their experience the same, yours is the digital future and everything in it.
About Equator
In 1999 John McLeish, Jamie Jefferson and Garry Hamilton saw that digital would revolutionise the world; levelling the playing field for smaller brands and creating new business models.
Realising that few businesses were equipped to respond to this transformation, they left the security of successful careers to build a new type of agency for the digital age.
Garry is responsible for Equator’s strategic direction, leading the agency’s growth, as well as its sector-specific offerings and proposition development.