We have seen an acceleration of digital transformation in the last year and a half. Companies today face an urgent need to regenerate all business interactions and brand experiences into something more adaptive and remote.
While some businesses might find this transition tricky, it is proving to be a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs and startups in the age of the “new normal.” Compared to established businesses, startups can incorporate digital transformation practices swiftly.
There is no need to upgrade, change, or optimise legacy operations. The natural adaptability of entrepreneurs makes the adoption of digital transformation easier to process.
That is why all startups should take advantage of this opportunity to address prevailing issues of the day.
How customer-centric is your business?
As the customer engagement journey is now in disarray, customer-centricity has come into question. How ready are businesses to adopt new ways of ensuring they ‘follow’ a customer thoroughly — from awareness to conversion and beyond?
How are startups ensuring they can fully maximise customer lifetime value?
Also Read: How HackerNoon uses customer-centric approach to build meaningful new features on their platform
The business opportunity that customer-centricity presents is immense. According to our data and the work being done with the Infobip Startup Tribe, organisations that have shifted their focus from only improving products to meeting customer needs first have experienced an 80 per cent increase in revenue.
Startups are in a solid position to embrace modern digital practices ahead of more traditional companies, to address customer-centricity. Let us take a deeper look at how digital transformation can help with that.
Data-driven decision making keeping the customer in mind
The last 18 months have helped data and analytics become more visible in business, and many entrepreneurs are turning to advanced AI capabilities to modernise their existing applications while quickly and more efficiently harnessing user data.
By incorporating more AI-based technology into business models, it’s possible to gain access to vast volumes of big data that can drive critical decisions — such as 360° customer profiles.
When deploying the right technology, you can connect insights from all online and offline sources — from websites, apps, contact centres, customer relationships, enterprise resource management, loyalty cards, even payment systems, and more. In doing so, they unlock a full view of customers.
With access to these valuable insights, startups can provide fast and personalised customer support. This is critical to providing an everyday customer experience and will help to prevent and avoid a fragmented and impersonal user journey.
Omnichannel experiences are no longer a luxury
New ways of working and doing business have conditioned customers to get what they want when they want and however they want it.
Today, more than 50 per cent of consumers expect to receive a customer service response within 60 minutes. They want equally speedy response times on weekends as they’ve come to expect on weekdays.
Also Read: Why a customer-centric digital marketing strategy is the way to go?
The perpetual engagement imperative means that businesses not switched on 24/7 all year round are putting themselves at a disadvantage to rivals with more efficient operations in place.
Today’s consumers don’t dwell on a single channel. A Microsoft study shows that 66 per cent of consumers used at least three different communication channels to contact customer services. They visit points of sale and websites, leave feedback through mobile apps, and ask questions for support teams on social media.
Combining these interactions makes it possible to create complete digital profiles for customers whenever they interact with your business, helping entrepreneurs provide significantly more immersive experiences.
Pervasive rewards for customer-centricity
Although digital transformation could begin with addressing just one facet of a startup’s operations, its benefits can be far-reaching for employees, consumers, and stakeholders.
It can limit the mundane tasks required of workers, offer greater levels of personalisation for clients, and free up new skills to be developed in other areas of a business.
This, in turn, helps to build a more positive and virtuous work culture of engaged and invested teams that know the value of fresh ideas and new perspectives.
Seize opportunities in the startup ecosystem
As funding and accelerator programmes are starting to re-emerge, startup decision-makers have an excellent opportunity to adopt new approaches, technologies, and tools to ensure that business navigates the age of the new normal with the greatest efficiency.
Also Read: Is customer-centric approach applicable in B2B structure?
If you are a decision-maker in a startup, the ball is in your court to leverage these opportunities and future-proof your business with customer-centricity.
–
Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.
Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page
Image Credit: viewstock
The post How startups should pivot towards being customer-centric appeared first on e27.