Digital Customer Experience: What it is, Strategy & Trends

Business priorities have evolved, and so have customer expectations. Recently, we came across a survey where product and pricing were outnumbered by customer experience as the top priority for businesses.

This shift in priority is largely proportional to the shifted customers’ mindsets. They are more inclined towards digital-first interactions and support, which gave birth to Digital Customer Experience (DCX).

A subset of Customer Experience, DCX is no longer a luxury that only large corporations can afford; it’s an absolute necessity for all businesses. In this fiercely competitive market, providing a seamless digital CX can prove to be a key differentiator for your brand.

In this article, we dive deeper into the basics of what, why, and how of the digital customer experience. So, let’s get started:

What is Digital Customer Experience?

Digital CX refers to the customer interaction and experience with your company across all digital channels. It includes how customers perceive your brand when using your website or app, reading your emails, engaging on social media, and communicating with a chatbot for support.

Digital CX focuses on interactions that can originate from various digital channels. It’s entirely virtual and shaped by UI/UX design, content relevance, personalization, ease of support, and overall experience. It can include channels like,

• Websites

• Mobile apps

• Chatbots

• Live chat apps

• Social media

• Emails

• Push Notifications

• Others

Why Digital Customer Experience Matters?

According to a survey by Adobe, 70% of customers expect to receive a personalized experience regardless of the channel used. However, only 42% of executives think their organization is executing effective personalization.

While they are stuck at handling the personalized experience, optimizing their digital customer experience is going to be a little complex and fragmented process. However, you can get a step ahead and streamline your digital CX by preparing a comprehensive strategy.

A DCX strategy is a detailed action plan to deliver a seamless customer experience via digital channels. It can empower customers, influence their purchasing decisions, and improve customer satisfaction.

Investing in digital customer experience can also lead to higher customer retention. It’s directly rooted to your brand’s perception, customer advocacy, and long-term sustainability of your business.

The above survey further highlights that 50% of the consumers cited improvements in their interactions with brands in the past three years. This comes after companies adjusted to their customers’ preferences and personalization needs.

Core Elements of a Strong Digital Customer Experience Strategy

As per the digital customer experience definition, it’s an ecosystem that puts customers at the center. It relies on the following core elements to create a seamless digital experience:

Website/User Interface (UI/UX)

Your website is the most valuable asset of your DCX strategy, and often the first touchpoint of your customers. A great emphasis on designing clean, intuitive, and aesthetic websites with pleasing UI/UX goes a long way.

Your website’s user interface design and messaging should effortlessly guide users to the information they seek. Also, give equal importance to visual hierarchy, such as size, colors, and layouts that clearly highlight CTAs to drive action.

Mobile Responsiveness

Not all your users land on your website or use widescreen monitors. According to Google, over 50% of buyers use mobile devices for online search. They often use mobile phones or tablets with varying screen sizes and resolutions.

By prioritizing mobile responsiveness, you can ensure users have a fluid and frustration-free experience. Whether the user wants to explore your website or seek information through a chatbot, your mobile experience should be on par with your desktop.

To achieve mobile responsiveness, implement the following guidelines:

• Use mobile-responsive layouts and design elements

• Implement touch-friendly navigation and buttons

• Optimize your website pages for mobile bandwidth

• Use mobile-specific features such as click-to-call or in-app scheduling

Speed and Performance

Today, speed = more conversions, and research by Portent says the same. As per their research, websites with fast load speeds (1 to 2 secs) get 3x higher conversions than moderately quick (3 to 5 secs) sites. This difference is even more significant when compared to websites that take 10 or more seconds.

As shown in the above graph, your conversion rate reduces as the page load time increases. To deliver an exceptional CX, you should aim to achieve page load speed between 1 to 4 seconds. Here are a few things you can do to achieve that:

• Compress your images and serve them in next-gen formats like WebP

• Minify your code files like CSS, JS, and HTML

• Use browser caching and lazy loading to improve load speed

• Select servers and use CDNs to deliver your large content files

Personalization

Personalization is key to reaching your customers’ hearts. According to research, 88% of customers will continue shopping with a brand that offers a personalized experience. Also, 59% believe businesses should use the collected data to personalize their experience.

Digital CX personalization uses the customer behavior, role, industry, or their intent with your brand. Some personalization tactics you can implement are:

• Designing dynamic CTAs

• Executing account-based marketing

• Target high-value customers with tailored landing pages

• Use AI to send personalized recommendations

Omnichannel Consistency

Your customers can switch between digital devices and channels at any given point in time. However, they expect to receive the same experience from your brand during their journey.

You can prioritize this consistency in customer experience to ensure customers receive uniform branded messages and visual identity across all touchpoints. This omnichannel consistency helps build trust and increase customer loyalty to your brand.

Self-Service Options

Companies focused on improving digital CX also empower their customers with self-service options. And the knowledge bases are a great place to start.

These searchable databases allow customers to find the desired information about your service or product. Knowledge bases include common queries or FAQs your customers have, making the information-seeking process faster.

Additionally, you can implement chatbots to automate your self-service operations, saving time and resources. You can also use the chatbot data to optimize your self-service options or create more helpful resources.

Customer Support Accessibility

Even with the great self-service options, customers would often want to talk to actual humans. And when that moment comes, you should be ready to respond to their queries as quickly as possible.

Customer service is an essential part of digital CX, and make it a habit to offer friendly, helpful, and informative support. Since customers can directly interact with your brand, it’s important to establish a positive impression. Also, offer different ways to seek support, including email, social media, live chats, and others.

Data Privacy and Trust

Another important element that consumers prioritize is their data security while interacting with online brands. When customers share their sensitive data, they expect you to protect and use it for the right reasons. Not adhering to the data privacy laws can severely damage their trust and drive them away.

As per Cisco’s Consumer Privacy Survey, 75% of consumers won’t purchase from brands they don’t trust. This highlights the importance of building trust by implementing stringent data privacy laws.

To protect your customer data,

• Know the data privacy laws of the country where your business operates

• Regularly audit the data privacy practices and update privacy policies

• Implement processes to handle the customer data

• Adhere to global data privacy regulations such as GDPR

How to Improve Digital Customer Experience

As customer expectations evolve, your digital customer experience strategy needs refinement. It’s not a one-and-done process, and you need to continuously analyze, iterate, and optimize your strategy.

Here are some proven ways to elevate your digital CX:

1. Conduct Customer Journey Mapping

Improving your digital CX starts with knowing your customers and mapping their journey with your brand. The process involves identifying different touchpoints and creating a map that interconnects them for a bird-eye view. 

Customer journey maps help you get answers to the targeted questions, such as,

• How aware your customers are about your brand?

• Did they understand what it does and how you help them?

• How easy is it for them to use your website?

• Was it intuitive and on par with industry standards?

• Were payment options convenient for them?

• How was their overall experience with your brand?

This systematic approach ensures that each interaction with your brand efficiently meets and exceeds customer expectations.

2. Gather and Act on Feedback

Improvement starts with knowing what’s working in your favor and what isn’t. Finding gaps in your digital customer experience involves asking customers for their feedback. Prepare a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey and include a rating box for customers to provide their feedback.

The survey can include questions like,

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to your peers? (10 means most likely and 1 means least likely)

• How was your experience using our product or service?

• What things would you like to improve?

Further, they can leave a detailed review about their experience with your brand and improvements they’d like to see. Such actionable data is crucial to meet your target audience’s expectations.

3. Use AI for Personalization and Automation

Artificial intelligence helps provide tailored content and services to individuals. As per the CX trends report by Zendesk, 69% of the organizations believe AI can humanize the digital interactions with customers.

The report also highlights that 70% of the CX leaders believe AI chatbots are becoming skilled architects of highly personalized customer journeys. So, when used properly, AI can personalize and automate customer experience workflows.

Here’s how you can leverage AI for personalization and automation:

• Offer 24/7 assistance with AI chatbots

• Use AI tools to recommend relevant content, product, or next-best action

• Send automated follow-ups that nudge users based on their behavior

• Use dynamic content to personalize the landing page, email, and product listing content

4. Improve Content Relevance and Clarity

Content relevancy and clarity play a pivotal role in improving your digital CX. You can simplify your content by using clear, concise language and avoiding jargon. Also, incorporate visuals such as images, videos, and infographics to complement your content.

Additionally, ensure your content is easily accessible across all devices and channels. This can include your website, mobile, email, social media, chatbots, and other digital customer experience platforms you use.

Further, you can integrate smart search to help users find what they need quickly and efficiently. By focusing on content relevancy and clarity, you can ensure that your digital CX is engaging and satisfying for users.

5. A/B Testing Digital Touchpoints

A/B testing is all about comparing different versions and discovering which one works best for you. It removes any hypotheses from the process by allowing users to decide by presenting different versions of your digital channels.

Successful A/B testing is the result of meticulous planning to ensure your objective is achieved. Here’s how you can plan your A/B testing:

• Define your goals and KPIs to achieve

• Select the right digital channels for A/B testing

• Develop a roadmap for testing

• Document the data from the test and optimize further for the best results.

6. Reduce Friction Across the Buying/Support Journey

When users encounter friction during their journey, they tend to abandon your website or drop off at a certain funnel stage. Friction is a silent killer of conversions and impacts negatively on your digital customer experience.

Every extra step in the buying process, slow support responses, or poorly timed pop-ups create unnecessary resistance. However, these can easily be removed by minimizing and optimizing your buying and support process.

Additional tactics include:

• Using autofill for the repeat buyers

• Implementing smart routing to connect customers with the right support agent

• Streamlining the navigation to help them find what they need in 2 to 3 clicks

Examples of Brands Nailing Digital Customer Experience

Let’s see some of the brands that have set a bar so high by delivering seamless digital CX consistently:

1. Amazon

Most of us are familiar with Amazon, and it’s the first brand that comes to our mind for a seamless, hyper-personalized experience. Amazon’s user experience and recommendations feel more personal.

It has become an integral part of our lives as it can just predict the products we want to buy. They have removed the shopping barriers with 1-click checkout, faster deliveries, order transparency, voice commerce, and customer support.

What we like most about them is that they have eliminated the friction wherever possible to simplify the decision-making process. This further improves customer experience across their digital channels and gives Amazon a competitive advantage.

2. Airbnb

Another great example with the best digital customer experience is Airbnb. It makes travel booking feel less like a transaction and more like a personalized journey. Their UI/UX is simple yet rich, which reflects their deep understanding of how people browse, plan, and book online.

Airbnb localizes its listings to users’ geography and preferences to offer tailored experiences. They also include transparent filters, clear pricing, and mobile-optimized booking experiences. The booking platform is designed for ease, but also inculcates human emotions to enhance the user experience a bit more.

What we like most about them is their post-booking communications, such as smart reminders, tips, and messages. Such thoughtful communications make users feel supported every step of the way.

3. Spotify

From behavior-driven personalization to a smooth cross-platform experience, Spotify is also featured on our list. It uses data efficiently to enhance the user experience without being too intrusive.

Spotify’s personalization goes beyond just recommendations and creates tailored playlists based on users’ listening habits. Also, users get the same experience across all their devices. Whether you’re using mobile, desktop, or smart speaker, Spotify picks up efficiently from where you left off.

What we like best about them is Spotify Wrapped, a brilliant example of turning data into a viral campaign. Ultimately, the more tailored your digital experiences are, the more likely users will stay engaged and loyal.

Best Tools to Enhance Digital Customer Experience

Need the right set of digital customer experience tools? Here are some categories and top tools for you to try:

Website Assistance Tools

Digital buyers expect real-time, instant answers, and waiting for email replies does not make sense anymore. Website assistance tools are important for improving your customer success rate and helping them with the assistance they need.

Why You Need Them?

• Offer quick, real-time answers to user questions

• Cut long wait hours of support into seconds

• Available 24/7 to save your time and resources

Best Tools:

1. WotNot: A no-code chatbot and AI agent platform that seamlessly integrates with your website

2. Tidio: Great for live chat with automation and CRM integration

3. Voiceflow: Create AI voice assistance and scale support across Alexa, Google Assistant, etc.

Customer Feedback Tools

Customer reviews are a goldmine of data. Using the specialized tools, you can collect and analyze customer feedback and find opportunities for improvement. These review collection and customer success tools increase your chances of optimizing digital CX.

Why You Need Them?

• Understand what users love and what’s breaking their experience

• Collect data on product or service enhancements

• Iterate and optimize to improve digital CX

Best Tools:

1. Hotjar: Gives you visual feedback, heatmaps, and session recordings to see how users interact

2. Qualaroo: Helps you conduct contextual surveys by targeting users at specific touchpoints

3. Typeform: Create engaging, conversational surveys and forms to collect qualitative insights

Personalization & Automation Tools

Users expect personalization at each intersection and interaction with your brand. These tools allow you to tailor digital customer experiences based on behavior, preferences, or segmentation.

Why You Need Them?

• Drive engagement through personalization.

• Send the right messages to the right customers at the right time

• Automate routine workflows and recommendation tasks

Best Tools:

1. Segment: A platform to collect customer data and unify profiles for deeper insights and personalization

2. Dynamic Yield: A tool to algorithmically match the content, products, and offers to each customer.

3. Insider: AI-powered personalization and automation with cross-channel orchestration for web, email, app, and push.

Web Analytics Tools

Data is the backbone of your digital customer experience strategy. Whether you want to track user analytics or chatbot usage analytics, these tools help you understand and enhance your business performance.

Why You Need Them?

• Monitor user engagement metrics for multiple digital channels

• Understand how users interact with your digital channels

• Measure and improve key performance indicators for your brand

Best Tools:

1. Google Analytics: A free tool from Google to get comprehensive information on organic reach, traffic, user behavior, and goals.

2. Mixpanel: Offers you real-time insights on product usage and user flows to make better product decisions.

3. FullStory: Gives you a full view into the user sentiments through clicks, scrolls, session replays, and heatmaps.

Experience Optimization Tools

These tools run experiments on customer interaction with your digital channels. They help you understand customer behavior, personalize their experience, and make data-driven decisions.

Why You Need Them?

• Tailor individual customers’ experience based on demographics, behavior, etc.

• A/B test different versions of your digital platforms to find the best-performing one.

Best Tools:

1. Optimizely: A platform to experiment with content changes, UX changes, and feature rollouts.

2. Crazy Egg: It offers heatmaps, scrollmaps, and A/B testing to know what your web visitors are doing.

3. VWO (Visual Website Optimizer): It’s a comprehensive experimentation platform for end-to-end optimization of users’ digital journey.

Conclusion: Experiences That Keep Customers Craving for More

Digital customer experience is not just part of your CX, it’s how you define your brand across your digital frontiers. In this article, we dived deep into the digital CX strategy, why it’s a key differentiator for your brand, and examples to take inspiration from.

Improving your customers’ digital experience requires a proactive approach. Regularly audit your current digital touchpoints to discover whether you are meeting customer expectations or not.

What elements are causing friction in the digital customer journey? And are you using the right digital customer experience platforms to serve the target audience?

Answering these questions will help you identify the gaps and opportunities to improve your digital CX strategy. Also, encourage your team to have the right mindset along with the tools to continuously optimize users’ digital experience.

Want to build or refine your digital customer experience strategy using the right platform and mindset? Try WotNot for free or book our 1:1 demo to see our chatbots and AI agent platform in action.