Your user experience can’t be the only thing that’s customer-centric

Not so fast, responsive-design wizard! The job’s not done. Your contribution is essential, but in terms of responsiveness, the work has just begun.

The responsiveness that technology has brought to websites and apps has created an upturn in real-world expectations. Customers want businesses, their products, and their attitudes to provide highly-customized real life experiences, too.

The technology is perfect, but the people aren’t

It’s not enough to give your customers a positive online user experience because your content is responsive to their device. All of those perfect pixels come crashing down if your customer service department doesn’t provide the same kind of satisfaction.

Technology has become a crutch. Install a sophisticated phone system. Provide real-time order tracking. Make it possible for Siri to give customers a reminder when it’s time to order again. Automation complements good products and customer service. Yet, some businesses today behave as if technology is the sole solution, rather than an essential component of overall strategy and execution.

Aligning all the levels of responsiveness

It doesn’t take long for a business to get lopsided if they make the user experience their holy grail. In their desire to excel, they lose sight of the fact that in the end, it’s still going to be a human interaction.

People run your business. People buy what your business produces. Technology can’t replace that area of responsiveness. Here are a few ways to capture the essence of responsiveness and instill it in your people so that the products you make and their attitude towards customers rises to the same level as the technology.

Take aim

Does your business know the reason for its existence? Don’t go running for the company mission statement. Stop and ask yourself what you do that inspires or captures imagination.

That’s your purpose. When you distill this into a short phrase that can roll of the tongue, you’ve got the code that instills a sense of pride that’ll propagate through all levels of your organization. Everybody owns it.

What are you worth?

When your purpose is a mantra, your value proposition lines up behind it. When you know your why, the behavior to guide you becomes obvious. People discover they seldom need to be told what to do.

This used to be required only of company leadership. Today, every employee, especially those dedicated to serving the needs of customers, needs to understand what the business stands for and how to communicate value through actions that demonstrate purpose.

Out with the old

Behold, the business model. It outlines how your company intends to make money. Is it rigid?

Nothing today can survive in a static mode. Ask Garmin. The company pioneered the automotive GPS market. Then Apple introduced the iPhone. In less than 3 years, revenue at Garmin dropped by nearly $1 billion. The company lost close to 90% of its market value.

Garmin didn’t change their technology, but they did change their thinking. Today, the company specializes in high-end wearables. It earned them nearly $565 million last year, which is 8 times the revenue of just two years before.

Push innovation to the bottom

Flat design works well in places other than your website. Try doing the same thing to the hierarchy of your business. Innovation requires open collaboration. Some of the most successful companies have made it a mandate to banish bureaucracy, as they know this outmoded command and control system stifles initiative.

The idea that rank and status confers salary is outmoded. People today aren’t ruled by money. They’re also looking for ways to feel that their contributions are meaningful. Fulfillment for them creates value for your business.

What organizational obstacles can you eliminate? Each one pushes you closer to new ways of responsiveness. It happens because more information is shared.

The art – and science – of letting go

Responsive apps and websites have the look and feel of deep flexibility and customization. It’s as if they rebuild themselves for each customer. Can your products and business practices follow suit? And is your overarching strategy and execution – whether it involves the user experience on your eCommerce site or the interactions a customer has with your employees – designed to make your business thrive?

If you’re looking to integrate your business strategy with responsive web applications that fulfill your goals, turn to Creative Technology Partners. We create solutions that integrate with every step of your business and the strategic goals that drive it. For more information about our services, reach out to us today through our online contact form.

There’s more to it than simply throwing more money at technology.

Your business is under attack. A competitor is breathing down your neck. They do something better than your company. Maybe they’re just a bit more nimble in one specific area, but it’s enough to tilt the scale in their favor.

“Business as usual” is out of the question if you want to stay successful in business. You need to transform. And because technology is the engine of innovation, we’re told that the transformation we need to make is a digital transformation. What is this? What does it entail?

More than tech

There’s no hardware or a software program to precipitate this transformation. Digital transformation is a shift in thinking.

Your tools are digital. You’ll use social media, mobile devices, and other emerging technologies. And it must start with your leadership, which has to adopt the transformation and push it down.

Digital transformation is the process that closes the gap between what your customers expect and what you deliver. And you won’t be able to offer this if you act like an analog organization.

What does this gap look like?

It’s going to look different for each organization. To define it, you’ll have to ask and provide answers to these questions:

• Does your organization have a digital strategy? It must go beyond a philosophy. It has to be a practice. Everyone in your organization must be able to state the strategy, meaning it must be clear and simple.

• Can you measure the effectiveness of the strategy? Have you laid out a business case for your use of social media? What is the measurable return on your investment, in dollars?

Digital literacy

Digital transformation should make your business better. It starts with increasing the level of digital literacy at the leadership level. One executive might think this means moving everybody over to Office 365 and going paperless. Another might believe there’s nothing they need to do at all, and it’s just about online marketing.

Reimagining your business to create a digital transformation requires rethinking your business model. How do you create value? How do you make money by using technology to reposition your product or service so it’s consumed the way that customers prefer, rather than in the way you initially created it?

In search of the transformation

Many organizations believe they’ll transform by increasing their IT and technology budget. Others decide it’s just a redesign of their website.

These efforts wind up becoming a decorative layer on top of legacy thinking and operations. True digital transformation must accommodate customer behavior. In some respects, modern customers are assuming an operational role within your organization. Their behavior is vastly different than the traditional customers you had before.

The differentiator

Digital transformation puts people and processes above technology. This may seem counterintuitive, because isn’t technology the change agent?

Technology is actually just the tool and people are its consumers. Digital transformation uses digital technologies to connect, enhance, and focus attention where it should be: on the customer.

It’s the intersection where your business and customer value meet. It’s also about responding to the changes that digital technology has caused in our daily lives. We’ve already seen unexpected consequences. Disruption isn’t always such a good thing.

In his book Zero To One: Notes On Startups, Or How To Build The Future, Peter Thiel writes that disruption “attracts attention: disruptors are people who look for trouble and find it. Disruptive kids get sent to the principal’s office. Disruptive companies often pick fights they can’t win.”

Thiel also writes, “The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete. But the most valuable companies in the future won’t ask what problems can be solved with computers alone. Instead, they’ll ask: how can computers help humans solve hard problems?”

Where transformation should occur in your organization

It doesn’t really matter.

Answer the gap questions above. You may discover that your focus should be on improving customer interactions. Or, you may determine that you need internal reorganization.

Adopting technology as tool for change makes no sense if you have something that isn’t broken. Transformation, digital or otherwise, requires only that you change what’s needed to improve the bottom line. And remember, the bottom line always connects to your customer. The more difficult the change, the more transformative it will be.

If you’re looking to implement a strategy for digital transformation, starting with an assessment of areas of your digital presence that need to evolve, contact the professionals at Creative Technology Partners. We have the expertise to meet all of your content needs, providing expert software engineering, strategic user experience, and design services.