The BTN recently partnered with PGS Software, a leading software development services provider, for an exclusive executive roundtable around the topic of ‘Deploying Technology to Enhance Customer Satisfaction, Experience & Loyalty’.
Those businesses that don’t embrace technology innovation will be left behind in modern business when it comes to providing the best experience for their customers. The past 12 months have put unprecedented pressure on the importance of technology to deliver a product/service but organizations should always be looking at ways to embrace technology as a means of creating efficiencies.
The conversation was led by William O’Connell (COO at PGS Software, North America) and was highly interactive, with the group taking advantage of the unique opportunity to engage with other individuals/organizations facing similar issues to theirs and a thought leader, in PGS, to be there to give the experience of what they’ve seen in the market.
This brought about the following key takeaways:
Technology is no longer a luxury
The new virtual arena is the basis for embracing IT as a growth engine. Technology is an ever-increasing part of operations but we need to truly embed it as it is inevitable that the bigger an organization gets, the more technology becomes incorporated. This aligns with the administrative side of organizations too, embedded technology and more importantly, elements of automation, into operations can help mitigate the risk of employees touching data that could have detrimental impacts.
There is the regular conception from the board level that “if it’s working right now, why do we need to change?” As business leaders, we should be looking at technology as a means to save money as well as improve processes. We should be able to look at a process, see how much is spent on it and see how the tech can automate it.
Getting executive sponsorship internally is a regular talking point when it comes to takes organizations on transformational journeys but we also need to understand who the players in the ecosystem would benefit most from the transformation, we then need to look at those below them to motivate them and look below again and continue. It is very natural for people to resist change, so this journey needs everyone on board to understand the motivations to succeed.
This is no longer a cost center, it’s a better understanding of our customers, client, market and our organizations.
There is no technology or business-driven, just customer-driven
Modern technology can be the facilitator to make Customer Experience better. The modern challenge is not finding the best technology for our customers but being in the channels where our customers want to engage with us. Organizations are being challenged to think outside the norm and look at customer journeys and see how they can be solved through the facilitation of technology.
Innovation comes from a closer relationship within the business and from technologists who have ideas so our internal research needs as much focus as the external research as we look to understand how to improve our customer offering. An example that one of the group gave was that nobody wanted electric cars 10 years ago, even where they came out, but once clever marketing has been aligned and a use case built out, the consumer wants it. As an organization, you have to experiment in order to understand which idea can be successful. However, building a fail-fast culture is challenging, needs patience and built from the ground up.
Customer-driven equals customer retention, so the more we understand and build a profile of our customer, the more likely we are to appeal to their needs.
We need the right data and knowledge of our customers to evolve to maintain momentum.
It’s not whether you have a digital strategy, it’s about, do you have a strategy for the digital era we are currently in?
The first question we should always be asking is ‘what is the problem we are driving?’
Mobile-first is how generations now engage with content and business so we need to ensure our strategy aligns with how our customer operates. Our strategy should always have the end-user at the heart of this and create a user-centric design so we are always understanding what the user needs so we can adapt our product/solution in alignment with improving their user experience. Our strategy should always be underpinned with the UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) design.
As leaders, our focus is sometimes tunneled to either employee or external customers but the strategies we deploy should have all stakeholders in mind throughout the process. Creating strategies whereby technology is seamlessly within the process is where you can really start to reap the rewards such as HR technology sitting onto the business operations within everything we do. Employees can ‘learn in the flow’, which is enabled through HR Technology is a prime example of creating a strategy for the hybrid way of working that we are now experiencing.
External client experience is dependent heavily on performance, we need data to analyze performance, thereby the circle of making Customer Experience better can be built on the ability to use modern technology effectively. Everyone is used to better experience through technology now, this should not matter what organization or industry you are dealing with.
Technology is now seen as changing the wheels on the car as it goes around the track. Organizations know they have to respond to changes in the marketplace continually and there is no time to ‘down tools’ and re-build. The role of technology is a paradigm shift for legacy organizations and everyone needs to be brought on the journey. Your Excel spreadsheet doesn’t scale, so find a solution for it now.
About PGS Software
PGS Software delivers custom-made IT solutions to clients around the globe. We offer expertise and services in Cloud computing, design and data science – including business analysis, visual and UX/UI design and quality assurance. With nearly 700 employees and more than 2,650 successfully completed projects, we will help you achieve your goals. Among our existing clients are Ringier Axel Springer Media, Schmitz Cargobull, Yell and many more.
