Now that everything is instant and on-the-go, the digital-conscious consumers of today developed heightened expectations for the brands they support. These expectations shape their demands. And it’s vital that brands meet them half-way, if not all the way.
Brands today are faced with this question: How do our products and services make my consumers’ lives better, and how can we maximize digital technology to do such?
To help you answer that, you got to know these 4 benefits of digital transformation to consumers.
1. Availability of New Products and Services
Businesses today are better equipped than ever before to reinvent and innovate their products and services. Consumers have been changing—they either want digital products now or they rely on digital channels to acquire your products.
Offering something new doesn’t mean that you need to transform yours into digital. We can agree to say that there’s no way to transform some products into digital goods. (Food? Construction Labor? You get it.) But then again, 'new' has never been synonymous with digital. Sometimes, it just means connecting the past and the present.
There’s always a place in the digital landscape for brands that aim to make their services closer to their market. It can be a social media page, a website, or an app. It can actually be anything! Digital has no limits. Having channels as such makes your brands accessible to consumers, wherever they are.
2. Personalized Customer Journey
Customers expect brands to know them better than before. They want to be treated as unique individuals, and they want to be given relevant content every step of the way. They easily recognize robotic responses and lose interest in brands that treat them as if they’re like everyone else.
After all, brands can have access to their personal details, purchase history, and even search history. It is expected of them to utilize this information and put it into good use. But not all brands get to maximize these loads of data, do they?
Personalization is one of the best benefits of digital transformation to consumers. Yet, for brands, it also is the most challenging demands of consumers today.
But you got to look at it this way: you already got what you need. All that’s left for you to do is take the opportunity to your advantage and use it to improve your customer’s experience. There are lots of tools today that can help you make it happen. (Read: Top 5 Powerful Marketing Automation Tools)
3. Immediate and Adaptive Customer Service
At this point in digital time, you need to fine-tune your customer service team. And you need to do it fast. Here’s why:
- Customers demand zero repeats. If they have experienced a problem, they only want to tell their story one time. If you have multiple customer service agents, everyone should know what the customer is complaining about if they decide to follow up on a concern.
- Speed is a currency. 53% of customers expect a response within an hour or less. Gone are the days when they can wait for days for feedback. With digital channels, the expectation for an immediate answer is already given.
- Customers assume you’re always present. There’s a need to be present 24/7. 57% of customers think a brand’s response time should be the same on weekdays and weekends. They need you to be there at their beck and call.
Real-time interactions make good customer service. And digital transformation can further improve the customer experience.
4. Seamless Multi-Channel Experience
The rapid growth of technology has empowered consumers to get what they want, whenever and how they want it.
Consumers are no longer tied to a channel or a device. You’d see modern buyers browsing in-store when they consider a product, then they will be placing their orders online through their laptops. Next thing you know, they're giving a detailed review pf their experience using their mobile phones. They will continue to interact with your brand through their social media networks when they need support.
Brands should be able to tie these interactions together and give consumers a seamless experience as they switch channels and devices. This way, they can keep their customers coming back.
Final Thoughts
As a business owner, it’s important for you to know how the emergence of digital technology has transformed consumer habits and demands. The recent years allowed consumers to see digital brands rise from the ground up and witness how traditional brands move to digital. This made the business landscape grow highly competitive.
And guess what? This change is being driven by consumers. (READ: What Digital Transformation Means For Business—And Why You Should Embrace It)
How about you? Have you been thinking about the benefits of digital transformation to your consumers? Let's discuss! Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
