{"id":75622,"date":"2023-04-27T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/?p=75622"},"modified":"2023-04-27T10:38:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T08:38:12","slug":"digital-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/en\/2023\/04\/27\/digital-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Digital Experiences Hampering Customer Experiences?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are digital experiences getting in the way of customers\u2019 experiences? We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Joseph Pine, author of the article titled \u2018Are Your Digital Tools Wasting Your Customers\u2019 Time?”<\/a> Having previously interviewed him, we knew he had an interesting perspective on the matter. He takes a close look at the way in which the economy is working with technology in order to change the way people interact with businesses. In his mind, digital experiences go way beyond the interaction of humans and screens. He also debunks myths regarding customer experience and how it is not always better to go digital. In fact, companies often try to eradicate human interaction thinking it will be beneficial when it actually does the opposite.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Is digital wasting your customer\u2019s time?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Joe Pine is the author of \u2018Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want\u2019 as well as multiple other books and he talked to us here at Visionary Marketing about digital experiences.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No one wants digital tools that waste their time. What everyone wants are digital experiences that offer time well spent<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the key things to understanding the nature of life\u00a0<\/span>is that the most precious resource on the planet is the time of individual human beings. <\/span><\/p>\n

As a consequence, the worst thing companies can do is waste their customers\u2019 time. <\/span>Yet, that\u2019s what companies do all the time by asking for things that they already know. Businesses make customers go through procedures that they<\/em> have defined as important, but that aren\u2019t really to the end user. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018W<\/span>e increasingly want our time to be saved around any type of service, digital or not, so that we can spend that time on experiences that we value,\u2019 Joe said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Digital experiences don\u2019t always equate to good experiences: people are frustrated when their digital experience is not up to their standards. Image generated by Midjourney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Digital Experiences Don\u2019t Always Mean Good Experiences<\/h3>\n

People usually assume that going digital is going to improve customer experience. However, that is not always the case. A<\/span><\/span> lot of great experiences come from interactions with other people. Indeed, many companies try to eliminate such exchanges by going fully digital without realising that people want to interact and connect with companies and vice versa. Some of these reasons are valid, but more often than not, it\u2019s wasted time because when we try to artificially create these moments they get in the way of daily communication.<\/p>\n

Why are companies doing this? What are they doing wrong?<\/h3>\n

A key impetus for it is that it\u2019s going to save companies a lot of money so that we don\u2019t need customer-facing people. Instead of recognising again, that\u2019s where much of the value comes in. When consumers go digital, it doesn\u2019t mean they want less human interaction. In fact, it is the other way around, they want faster and better human interactions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, such businesses are very product-centric instead of customer-centric. Instead of understanding the customer and what it is that they\u2019re trying to accomplish right now, they want the customer to follow the journey that they\u2019ve laid out in advance. Then again, that\u2019s not the journey that the customer wants to follow. \u2018Perhaps this is happening because businesses have too few people who care about gaining customer insight,\u2019 Joe assumed.<\/p>\n

Myth: Building frictionless digital experiences will increase engagement<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People engage when smart tools understand them, but what is a smart tool?<\/h3>\n

A smart tool is one that is using data. The data that it learns from you individually to be able to address your needs. <\/span><\/span>So it\u2019s a matter of sensing and responding. Then such a smart tool can understand what it is that customers want at this moment and it can act accordingly. For instance, think of smart thermostats that learn when you get up, or what kind of temperature the home owner likes in the winter.<\/p>\n

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Myth: Creating more \u2018moments\u2019 for customers will lead to more value. In fact, \u2018moments\u2019 are fairly product-centric. They\u2019re what we want our customers to do and how we want them to engage with us. Whereas \u2018modes\u2019, are what the individual customer wants to accomplish.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is digital context?<\/span>
\nDigital context is just a great term that my co-author of the HBR article, Dave Naughton, came up with. T<\/span><\/span>he digital context is really about understanding, \u2018What it is that I\u2019m trying to accomplish right now, and it requires access to all of the digital data that is out there that will explain what mode a business can use to enhance its experience in banking or e-shopping, for instance\u2019. The problem with most businesses is that they have no data. And they can\u2019t provide any experience without digital context.<\/p>\n

A good example is my client Carnival Corporation. They make good use of digital contexts. The cruise company created a digital tool called the Ocean Medallion. A device that allows them to understand the digital context that you are in while on the cruise ship. They can recognise every individual. Every employee has a tablet with them that when you get close, your device pops your picture and information up so they can greet you by name. It also has past interactions, your itinerary, what you\u2019re trying to do, where you\u2019re going and so forth.<\/p>\n