Today’s customers aren’t interested in just buying products or services. They buy experiences. The best companies build communities to create relationships with customers that extend long after their initial purchase.

1. June 8, 2017 – by Anthony DeLima – www.cartenia.com
Unified Customer Journey -
much more than a digital
experience
Today’s customers aren’t interested in just buying
products or services. They buy experiences. The best
companies build communities to create relationships
with customers that extend long after their initial
purchase. They've managed to restructure the
relationship from a transaction to one based on long-
term engagement that fosters sustainable brand loyalty
and affinity. A Gartner research found that 89% of
business leaders believed that customer experience

2. would be their primary basis for competition for the
foreseeable future. But achieving exceptional customer
experience based on the many interactions a customer
has with the brand is a much more complex
undertaking. While perfecting the digital buying
experience will continue to be a one-upmanship,
achieving the right economical balance between
meeting and exceeding customer expectations and
ensuring the company turns an acceptable profit
continues to be a challenge. Without a doubt delighting
customers is a key success driver - however the cost
thereof should be carefully analyzed as this can often
result in higher-than-expected operating costs.
"Customers don’t think in terms of one-
time interactions. They view their
relationship with a brand as a product of
their experiences across various points of
interaction."
To meet these challenges, companies quickly initiate
customer journey mapping activities in an attempt to
gain insight into customer sentiments and expectations.
It's an important first step as the overall customer
journey has a more significant impact on customer
experience and satisfaction than individual interactions.

3. The result is typically a portfolio of digital solutions
including the delivery of responsive websites intended
to deliver a personalized experience, mobile Apps,
other technology solutions (i.e., CRM, Analytics,
Content management), or the restructuring of core
customer facing processes and organizations. Forward
looking companies go further by creating a technology
integration eco-system that allows the swift delivery of
plug-and-play Cloud-based capabilities to further
provide insight into customer sentiments and/or sales
and operations planning (S&OP) metrics.
But while there is significant romanticism and
excitement on the front-end customer experience, it's in
fact only one link in a complex customer journey life-
cycle. Without a doubt, the digital customer experience
should adopt the latest and greatest in terms of user
experience and design - it's a crucial aspect of
encouraging customers to engage with you in the first
place.
"The front-end digital capability is one
aspect of a complex unified customer
experience that requires many dimensions
of an organization to operate in tandem"

4. The
importance of
a streamlined
Supply Chain
One the most
important aspect of delivering an exceptional unified
customer experience is the company’s supply chain
strategy. It is one of areas having the greatest impact
on customer experience and brand loyalty. It directly
impacts the two most vital aspects of customer
satisfaction: price and delivery which is ultimately
what customers look for. They’re paying to get a
product on time, in one piece and want the assurance
that the product performs as advertised. In fact, most
decision makers agree that failure to deliver on promise
is one of the leading causes why customers become
disenchanted with the brand or lose consumer
confidence. Having an efficient supply chain means
beating the competition on pricing while improving the
overall experience and ultimately the company's
profitability. It also means meeting or exceeding your
customers’ expectations on product delivery and more
importantly overall experience.
Supply chain management and optimization has to be

5. an integral part of any
customer journey mapping
activity. While digital
front-ends attract
customers to engage with
the brand, no other part of
the business comes closer
to having a direct impact on customer sentiment and
loyalty to the brand than an efficient and intelligent
supply chain. In fact the company's supply chain
strategy is one of the key aspects of the customer
journey that ultimately enables the product journey
from inception to delivery. Ultimately this results in
the implementation of systems to reduce supply chain
errors and increase inventory efficiency and
availability. The more optimized the supply chain, the
better the customer experience, and the more likely
customers are to become loyal to the brand and make
repeat purchases.
The value of Real-time Data
Measuring customer value and interaction in real-time
has quickly become another critical aspect of managing
product availability, pricing and overall experience
with the brand.

6. Using CRM, mobile and web analytics, companies
sense customer actions, desires and buying patterns.
This in turn enables the dynamic restructuring of the
interaction with the customer which ultimately results
in the delivery of context sensitive, personalized
content to the customer. Too, the company can
dynamically alter product positioning and pricing while
adjusting its supply chain strategy in real-time to meet
macro-level market conditions by aggregating data
across regions and market segments. To achieve this
requires a radical rethinking of data and streaming
analytics that dynamically changes the customer
interaction. Measuring customer interaction and
experience in real-time at the front-end and throughout
the entire supply chain not only becomes important, it
becomes crucial in meeting real-time customer needs
and ensuring profitability - delivering the right
products, at the right time, at the right locations, at the
right price.
Digital Relationships
Digital relationships continuously evolve and require a
constant rethinking of the capabilities that must be
delivered to ensure the right level of customer
experience and intimacy. Mobile responsive websites,
fused with sophisticated mobile Apps that enable a

7. company to streamline the online buying experience
with a single tap and promote products through push
notification mechanisms have become the norm. But a
sophisticated mobile App that doesn't take into account
the whole customer journey will without a doubt
disappoint. While much design and development goes
into creating a sophisticated front-end that delights
buyers, ensuring that the front-end is part of an
integrated customer journey and is tied to the
company's supply chain strategy is arguably more
critical.
Equally companies should further improve the capture
and analysis of critical online engagement metrics such
as cart abandonment rates. Typical drivers include
shipment costs, payment methods (or lack thereof),
inefficient checkout processes, unclear return policies
and processes, and the inability to engage in a live chat
during the online customer journey are typical
engagement metrics that will help shape an effective
customer journey and experience.
Ultimately, digital engagement works best when a
company develops a relationship with its visitors. By
highlighting the importance of the relationship and the
customer, a company instills confidence, ultimately

8. making customers more loyal to the brand. Above all
successful companies keep in touch and deliver
valuable content that positively impacts their lifestyle.
Ultimately building digital relationships involve
building communities that embrace common
aspirations.
Technology Capabilities

9. The entire customer experience demands a different
technology eco-system. A fundamental shift in the
company's tech architecture vision is the
implementation of a services model that allows the
rapid integration of key systems and capabilities
between a company's internal systems and third parties
(i.e., financial institutions, payment gateways, 3PLs).
Integration platform as-a-service (iPaaS) tools such as
Mulesoft, Dell Boomi and Informatica enable
companies to seamlessly interconnect key systems in
the Cloud or on premise through an API-based process
orchestration layer. Rather than developing one-to-one
API interfaces, companies leverage the iPaaS layer to
enable interconnection and process orchestration in the
Cloud through RESTful APIs. The ultimate goal is to
allow the rapid integration of both custom and vendor
provided solutions with the rest of the company's eco-
system as well as those of third parties.
Conclusion
Whilst every business will claim to be unique, when
you boil it down there are four levers that drive
business success: increased revenue, increased
customer retention (reduced churn), and decreased
operating costs. These factors are ultimately impacted

10. by how effectively a company manages its customer
journey and executes on its customer commitments
which is easier said than done, considering the
challenges brought about by new Omni-channel
models. To succeed companies should extend their
visions of the customer journey beyond the front-end
experience and take a deep dive through all major
processes that touch the customer such as order-to-
cash, availability-to-promise, plan-to-manufacture,
overall supply-chain management as well as the
underlying technology architecture. At the same time
companies should recognize that the customer journey
is continuously evolving and so are the experiences
that customers demand.