Human interactions deliver the analog foundations in a digital world

As digital and mobile technologies revolutionise the way organisations operate, they also alter the ways in which they deliver their services. Not only do they deliver progressively better experiences for consumers, they also transform the way in which employees interact with each other, thus leading to increased employee satisfaction and productivity. The key to meeting and surpassing digital outcomes such as reduced costs, enhanced revenues, better competitive positioning and increased operational agility, is to remember the critical element that binds all of them together – experiences.

Digitally enabled Emotionally Empathetic Experiences (Digital E3)

Digitally enabled Emotionally Empathetic Experiences (Digital E3) are essential for businesses that aim to help the customer manage their journey across various stages of interaction across multiple devices. The best companies are those that not only understand their customers and their expectations, but consistently surpass them as well. These experiences are not just limited to customers, but also extends to employees and business partners. When people engage with resonant experiences, they consistently champion, applaud and advocate the brand in question.

As a result, while formulating digital and mobile strategies, businesses should remember they are delivering experiences to humans. Automated machines are programmed for specific, often rigid, functions that can fail to consider specialised needs. Take for instance the airline industry and the 80-20 rule. While 80% of scans are automated, the remaining 20% lie in the hands of experts who have to make specialised judgement calls. By ensuring customers have a pleasant and memorable experience, operators can leave a lasting memory that can only be achieved by a balance of automated systems and human interactions.

Creating a digitally enabled service application

In an attempt to deliver Digital E3 to customers, the question for many businesses should be – “What should I do and how impactful will this be?” Before the experiences can be delivered, business enterprises should firmly establish the nature and extent of the services that will be delivered and allow them to better connect with their targeted customers. Applying the 80-20 rule is a good place to start, enabling businesses to have a better informed and actionable view of exact bottlenecks that could be addressed with digital automation to deliver more personalised interactions.

Here are three ways to create a digitally enabled service application to help deliver optimal user experiences for the digitally savvy consumer, who has access to a large variety of competitive options at their fingertips.

• Converge legacy systems to enable SMAC
• Utilise Predictive Analytics to increase depth of understanding
• Engage all employees in the transformation

As Digital Transformation becomes the buzzword for industries around the world, the need for differentiation of their products becomes higher than ever before. Utilising modern SMAC (social media, mobility, analytics and cloud) processes and then integrating them with legacy systems so that they can communicate or “talk” with each other has thus become imperative. An integrated model such as this can enable previous data to be analysed, thus enabling enterprises to make the most of insights that they were never able to make the most of before.

Predictive analytics tools can be used by businesses to gain an enhanced and accurate understanding from large data hordes that the enterprise owns and obtains from sources such as email, online feedback, chat, call records, and social media posts. By successfully predicting the effects of data sets on business operations, enterprises can improve their productivity and optimise business spend.

While C-level executives are required to actively support the development and deployment of new digital models, in order to successfully meet organisation-wide marketing and customer experience goals, they need all the employees to work towards the same ultimate goal. Once this has been achieved, an army of satisfied and loyal customers can be created. Furthermore, they will act as evangelists for the organisation and also spread positive feedback about the business.

While the evolution of digital automation will always improve processes and operations, it is important to note that this relationship is co-dependent on technology and humans. The interplay between technology and humans, based on their needs and the avenues technology provides to meet these demands, is the core of the digital world today. Business organisations that devise their operational strategies and technology deployments with this key objective in focus will ultimately enjoy the benefits of a stronger brand reputation, improved user interactions, and the building and sustaining of a loyal consumer base. Therefore, digital experiences must build themselves from the base provided by human interactions so as to truly be part of an infrastructure that can deliver optimal value and the empathetic experiences that every consumer wants.

Deepak Khosla is president, Asia/ANZ, at NIIT Technologies