Global business management consulting company Accenture recently completed a study, “Digital Transformation in the Age of the Customer,” to determine Australian businesses’ attitudes regarding how the wish to solidify their operations for the future. It found that businesses primarily want to focus on improving the customer experience more than they will focus on revenue.
The study compiled the results of more than 400 respondents who work in companies across the globe. Australian businesses stood out with their apparent keen insight about what really drives operations: the customers. The top business priority of “improving the customer experience,” which received 31 percent of responses, led “growing revenues,” at 20 percent, and “improving differentiation, at 11 percent.
This insight highlights what readers intuitively know, i.e., that it is satisfied customers that drive revenue. Therefore, it logically would seem silly to place a quest for revenue above customer satisfaction. When the customer clearly can make or break a business, the satisfaction of individuals should take priority over all else. And, in the real-time competitive world where customer options are always a click away and dissatisfaction can go viral in moments, the need to be intensely focused on customers has never been more important.
Michael Buckley, the managing director of Accenture Interactive Australia / New Zealand, commented that “Australian organizations must establish new digital governance and transformation management processes.” This means that companies should use software to help figure out customer behavior and expectations in order to provide them with the correct products.
First, businesses can use analytics engines to gather information about customers’ past behaviors. Following that, they can infer what their future actions might be by looking to their past actions as guideposts. With the right data collection, businesses can get to intimately know their customers and then continue to satisfy them with personalized products and services.
Accenture notes in its study that transforming to digital cannot be a one-step journey. Businesses must get through the challenges of:
Despite the challenges, however, it appears that many companies are willing to move forward with digital. They are working with third-party service providers for everything from content creation to front office applications. As they continue to immerse themselves in new software and modes of thinking, one can hope that the customer experience will continue to improve. The cautionary note is that revolutions tend to happen in evolutionary time. It looks as if many businesses have the right mindset, but it could be years before their visions of a complete digital transformation get realized and the benefits are recognized with more satisfied customers and compelling and accelerating positive financial results.