Digital Customer Experience: How to Thrive in 2024

Did you know that customers pay 4.5x more if they receive a positive customer experience (CX)? Furthermore, companies that provide great experiences grow 5x faster and bring in 5.7x more revenue than their competitors. It’s no longer an option to offer your customers mediocre digital customer experience. They expect a personalized and seamless experience across all your channels. And to provide this, you need to understand and prioritize them.

In our article you'll learn:

• What is Digital Customer Experience?
• Why is It Important?
• What Makes a Good One?
• What is the Difference Between UX and CX?
• How Does UX Help Digital CX?
• What Does an Effective Digital CX Strategy Look Like?
• Best Practices for Improvement

What is Digital Customer Experience?

Digital customer experience, or digital CX, refers to all digital or online interactions between your brand and your customers. Communication can start anywhere your company is present:

• Website,
• Mobile app,
• Live Chat,
• Social Media,
• Email, and
• Any other channels where the touchpoint is virtual.

All of your digital touchpoints are parts of your digital customer experience and contribute to the overall impression of your company. From placing an order to the loading time of your website, everything counts.

Why is Digital Customer Experience Important?

When we say “digital”, we don’t mean only desktop websites anymore. And as we move toward the all-digital world, more and more customers adopt a multi-channel approach, and your business needs to keep up the pace.

People fall in love with the experience, not the technology behind it. Customers are more engaged, satisfied, and loyal to brands that combine exceptional products, powerful digital experiences, and human interactions. And if you’re unable to meet their expectations, you can bid them farewell.

And it’s not only that, but businesses lose up to $4.7 trillion a year due to experiences that fall short of expectations. Understanding your digital touchpoints and how they affect consumer perception and brand loyalty is crucial.

Let’s take a look at some statistics:

Digital Customer Experience Influences Almost Every Industry

Positive customer experiences influence purchasing decisions in almost every industry, but according to PWC, they’re more powerful in

• healthcare (78%),
• banking (75%),
• restaurants (74%), and
• hotels (74%).

With Good Experience Comes Loyalty

Experiences that create strong emotions will affect purchasing patterns and brand loyalty more than prices or products.

A customer’s lifetime value increases by 306% when they have an emotional connection with a brand. They’re also more likely to generate word-of-mouth marketing by leaving a review and recommending it to their friends.

Customers Willing to Pay More

75% of American consumers pointed out that knowledgeable staff, friendly service, and efficient and convenient usability matter most to them. And they’re willing to pay more for a greater experience. To be exact:

• 67% would pay more for a great experience,
• 43% would pay more for greater convenience,
• 42% would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience.

One Bad Experience is Enough to Abandon a Brand

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Even if customers love your product or service, 50% of them will stop buying your service/product after a couple of negative experiences, and 32% after even just one bad experience.

And to top it off, they’re 4x more likely to switch to a competitor than if you had raised the price or sold a mediocre product.

The Benefits of Digital Customer Experience

To sum up the above-mentioned things, the benefits of delivering a great CX include:

• Increased customer loyalty
• Increased retention
• Increased repeat purchase
• Increased positive reviews, and recommendations
• Reduced cost of service and marketing
• Reduced customer complaints
• Reduced product returns
• Reduced churn

The message is clear: your brand needs to provide an outstanding digital customer experience, or your audience will switch to your competitors.

What Makes a Good Digital Customer Experience?

Great digital CX isn’t just about the usability of your product, it’s a powerful differentiator. And when we say “good” we mean it’s:

• Fast,
• Convenient,
• Consistent,
• Frictionless,
• Personalized, and
• Friendly.

And what connects them: human touch. Promote positive interactions by making technology feel more human as part of digital transformation. Also, empower your customer service with the technology and knowledge they need to provide better digital customer experiences.

With the right tools, they’ll be able to gather insights into your customers’ unique experiences from the past and present. Thus understand your customers’ needs, provide relevant information, resolve issues faster, and personalize the digital experience across all channels.

The challenge: Making the experience more human and less frustrating with a customer-centric mindset.

The first step toward excellent digital CX is providing good UX. And we at UX studio always design experiences with the users in mind. Book a meeting with us and let’s discuss how we can help you create an outstanding experience for your customers.

What is the Difference Between UX and CX?

In short, UX is a part of CX. Although CX and UX designers do plenty of research, CX focuses on the whole brand while UX designers usually only on the product. But as our daily lives become unimaginable without technology, CX and UX are getting more and more intertwined.

Let's take a closer look at them.

CX focuses on the overall experience with the brand. It includes:

• All interactions the customer has with the company (website or app, marketing, the sales process, customer service, support, etc.)
• Nurtures the user journey with the brand.
• Concentrates on large groups of customers, not only the target audience.
• Increases customer satisfaction and improves the brand’s reputation at the same time.

Digital CX is all of the above, but in a digital environment:

• All digital interactions. Live chat, newsletter, etc.
• Involves some kind of human interaction or a perception of it at some point.

UX focuses on the experience with the product, digitally:

• All digital interactions on the product interface.
• If it’s easy to use, functional, enjoyable, and solves the users’ problems.
• Nurtures the user journey with the product.
• Works with user personas or specific target audiences.

And that’s why it’s difficult to separate UX and digital customer experience. After all, the customer can be the user as well. Every digital touchpoint the user interacts with should be designed from a UX perspective to be engaging, simple, and enjoyable for the user. Because this experience will influence how they think about the brand.

So, why does the difference between CX and UX matter? Well, it’s important to define the roles, responsibilities, and who works on what exactly. The UX team should concentrate on improving product usability. While usability is key in CX, it’s only successful if you provide a positive brand experience. Thus you need separate but interconnected strategies for both.

How Does UX Help Digital CX?

Understanding the relationship between UX and CX can have an impact on your company's overall success in increasing its profitability. They work together to create a smooth customer journey without frustration. Furthermore, both prioritize the consumer’s level of satisfaction when interacting with a company.

Customers use many channels to gather information, make purchases, and solve problems. And they expect seamless experience across all devices and channels. If they encounter any flaws with your website or app, it leaves an unpleasant impression on your company as a whole. That’s when UX comes into play.

An outstanding UX design can noticeably enhance customer satisfaction and differentiate you from competitors. When we say outstanding, we mean it's fast, interactive, easy to use, has smooth navigation, offers well-organized information. And of course, provides good experiences across all devices.

In conclusion, without good UX, you won't be able to create a positive customer experience.

UX is the first digital touchpoint your customers have with your brand. Its credibility, conversions, customer retention, and overall digital customer experience is rooted in it. If it’s impressive enough, you're halfway there.

If you feel something is missing from your design to be absolutely superb, you can always reach out to us. Let’s discuss how we can help you reach your goals.

What Does an Effective Digital Customer Experience Strategy Look Like?

As shopping habits shift, the difference between digital and physical customer experience becomes blurred. Therefore, digital touchpoints, like chatbots and online forms, are becoming more significant in supporting overall customer experience strategies.

A digital customer experience strategy identifies and provides opportunities, improves digital customer interaction, and creates a consistent customer journey.

The perfect digital CX strategy focuses on customers and adopts a long-term mindset. But it’s a neverending project. The perceived experience continuously has to be improved.

Try to think differently about how you engage with your customers and how you can improve their customer journey. Evaluate your current one based on the following areas:

Flexibility and Consistency

Consumers expect to easily switch between digital channels. Fun fact: 52% of all worldwide website traffic is on mobile devices. The experience of moving from web app to mobile app to chat app and back has to be seamless and frictionless. Furthermore, they also need consistent information everywhere.

Simplicity and Ease of Use

Consumers don’t like complicated digital experiences. Make your platforms intuitive, help your consumers with simple and guided journeys, and other digital solutions like wishlists, savable credit card information, etc.

Convenience

Simple solutions can make your customers’ digital experiences more convenient. Just to list a few: Make every piece of information accurate and easily accessible. Provide chatbots or live support that can solve problems quickly. And make it possible that customers can carry out their interactions from start to finish.

Personalization

Just a few little things are already enough to make the experience personal for the user. For example, greeting them by their name. But of course, there are more complex options like recommending products based on their preferences. Fun fact: 60% of consumers report that they’ll become repeat buyers after a personalized purchasing experience.

Reachability

As we already know, people use multiple channels. Therefore you have to offer them several channels like an app, newsletter, social media, etc. where they can engage with your brand. Make sure that you register your brand on relevant channels, your website is working in different areas of the globe, and the emails you send are useful.

If there is room for improvement in any of those areas, you can include it in your digital CX strategy. In 2022 hyper-personalization and individualization will be driving factors in digital customer experience strategy. Thus it’s essential to create engaging online experiences that meet the needs and expectations of your customers.

Best Practices for Improving Digital Customer Experience

If you want to grow your business and stay ahead of your competitors, make sure you meet your customers’ expectations. And to help you with that, we gathered the 10 best practices on how to improve your digital CX.

1. Know Your Audience

Without knowing your audience, you won’t deliver a great customer experience. You must be able to answer: what do they want? What issues are they facing? What channels do they use? You need a strategy that works for everyone. But it’ll show your customers that you listened.

2. Use Analytics

Analyze what your customers do on your website. You can get valuable insight when they don't know you're watching them. Track which features and pages customers use most, identify obstacles, and refine your strategy.

3. Analyze the Customer Journeys

With the power of analytics, you can also find out which digital touchpoints are most important for your customers. What’s their primary goal? Look for obstacles and drop-offs. Understand and make the customer journey easier, effortless, and convenient.

4. Ask and Observe

You can also ask for customer feedback. Send out various surveys to collect qualitative and quantitative data about your customer experience.

But don’t just listen, observe them too. Because they might say they want one thing, but the real need usually emerges during using the product. There are different methods for this, but the most common is usability testing.

5. Improve the UI/UX Design

Your customers’ digital experience with your brand usually starts on your website. Thus it’s vital to impress them. And 88% of users are unlikely to return after a bad experience. Make your company website intuitive, easy to navigate, and engaging.

6. Pay Attention to Mobile Experiences

People use their phones more than their desktops, so the first impression you make will be on their mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile-responsive. If your website doesn’t provide a consistent user experience, 89% of users will either switch devices or just leave.

7. Create an Omnichannel Experience

Customers don’t rely on one device anymore. With an omnichannel CX, you provide more channels for them to engage with you. Make sure that the experience is seamless and consistent on and between the different channels. If you have both physical stores and websites, you can use a POS solution to sell across all channels and increase revenues.

8. Personalize the Experience

If your customers give you their data, use them well. Send them personalized newsletters or show them product recommendations based on their search history. 60% of customers will become loyal to a brand after a personalized purchasing experience.

9. Communicate the Improvements

If you’ve implemented any digital CX improvements based on your customers’ feedback, communicate them. This way they’ll know that you care and it makes a good impression on your brand.

10. Adopt a Long-term Mindset

As time goes by, new trends, solutions, and needs will emerge. Continue analyzing and improving your digital customer experience. Prioritize your customers and give them the experience they expect. This way you’ll ensure their loyalty and happiness which ultimately make your business bloom.

Searching for Someone Who Can Help in UX and CX?

At UX studio, we’re a trusted choice for creating exceptional experiences. We’ve worked with many startups and industry leaders worldwide like Google, Netflix, and Zignaly. Still not sure? Let’s talk. We’re happy to help you figure things out.