The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a social and technology trend that has been happening for some time. The way we live our lives and conduct business has become increasingly digital. Organizations are focusing on digital experience to deliver personalized, integrated, and optimized engagement across multiple channels to connect with customers, employees, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders. Digital experience platforms (DXPs) aren’t new but they are evolving. So what should you look for in the top digital experience platforms?
How to define digital experience
A digital experience can be described as any interaction between a person and an organization made possible via digital technologies (Read our What is digital experience? blog). In the past, this was really focused around the customer. You would hear phases such as customer experience (CX), customer experience management (CXM or CEM), digital customer experience and digital brand experience. But, of course, the customer is not the only stakeholder with which organizations connect.
Digital experience today is better defined as the range of technologies and capabilities that enable engagement and interactions with everyone you wish to in a timely and personalized manner, delivered in a truly omnichannel way. Every one of your stakeholder groups will interact with you in different ways. Modern digital experience solutions bring together people, processes, content and data to deliver a single, unified experience on any device designed and customized for that specific person.
For example, the demand for public services is rapidly changing. Citizens want their experiences with government, schools, and healthcare providers to be on par with those they have in the private sector—mobile, innovative, and easy to use. Those government agencies that get digital experience right reap a wide range of benefits.
According to McKinsey, citizens say they are nine times more likely to trust an agency if they’re satisfied with the service. One German agency says call center wait times have reduced by 70% due to their digital experience initiative. A US agency recorded a 50% increase in organizational health thanks to increased employee engagement through their digital experience program.
We talk of digital transformation but, in truth, the bedrock of transformation lies in your ability to create and deliver omnichannel, personalized digital experience. It permeates everything you do in your business, including research and development, production, operations, distribution, and service delivery.
So, now we have a definition of experience that encompasses not just your customers and prospects but also employees, suppliers and partners.
Why you need a Digital Experience Platform
We now live in a connected, always-on world of information and services that can be accessed through any number of channels – and that trend is only accelerating.
The demand for personalized, connected experiences is rising. Users expect information at their fingertips all the time, putting the focus on the need for digital experience platforms. At the same time, the recent pandemic has seen organizations quickly pivot to migrate their operations and workforce to a virtual environment. In an uncertain environment, greater emphasis is placed on understanding the precise demand and delivery needs for digital services.
The best digital experience platforms have now become foundational as organizations look to deliver exceptional experiences across their ecosystem of customers, employees, suppliers and partners.
Benefits of a digital experience platform
Key to providing a modern experience is providing a personalized and omni-channel one – where the organization can interact with each individual enabling them to move from one point of engagement (web, contact center, social, or real-world) to another, based on their need and preference. Orchestrating a cohesive, contextual experience that meets brand standards, achieves business goals across all channels and touchpoints, while it delights the recipient, is a massively difficult task.
To sum up, an enterprise-wide digital experience platform can allow organizations to:
- Focus and accelerate digital transformation initiatives
- Provide a rich, personalized and omnichannel digital experience
- Target and tailor engagement and communication to every individual stakeholder
- Increase operational effectiveness and boost productivity
- Increase customer loyalty and long-term customer value
- Listen and respond to real-time feedback from customers, employees and partners across channels
- Extract greater insight and understanding from experience data
Increasingly, forward thinking businesses are investing in DXPs as part of their digital transformation strategies.
How to select the best Digital Experience Platforms
Within the market there are many schools of thought on what constitutes a digital experience platform. Whether you believe the functionality can be delivered by a single solution, or needs a best-of-breed approach, there are a few core fundamental elements that a DXP must provide to allow businesses to deliver content to touchpoints everywhere – digitally or in print.
What to look for in a DXP
DXPs provide an enterprise architecture for organizations to digitize business operations, deliver connected, omnichannel experiences, and gather actionable insights into how they interact with every stakeholder. For example, they can deliver a 360 degree customer view, let you listen to the voice of the customer and then empower your organization to develop experiences, products, and services that your customers want.
The composition of DXPs varies from provider to provider, but typically includes elements such as a content management system (CMS) for managing websites. Digital asset management (DAM) is a powerful asset for handling the creation and distribution of images and video across multiple channels. Analytics streamline understanding performance metrics, and drive optimization. AI-assisted analytics are a major capability of the top digital experience platforms to collect, define, track, and visualize customer data to drive better insight.
While many providers come at DXP with a CMS focus, at OpenText we believe that digital experience platforms should cast a wider net by also addressing Line of Business and customer services. After customers are acquired, the servicing and support phases build customer value, retention, and loyalty. As a result, OpenText includes Customer Communication Management (CCM) and Contact Center Solutions in our definition of DXP.
Beyond asking what it can do, another key consideration is deciding how you’re going to get your DXP. Top digital experience platforms should support any cloud strategy with flexibility, so they can deliver the value your organization needs when and where you need it.
Where to start – connecting the DX pieces to build a platform
The good news is that most companies already have some digital experience solutions in place. In fact, they often have multiple siloed solutions serving the same purpose. That means you likely not only already have a foundation to build upon, but also low-hanging fruit to cull for early optimization wins and cost-savings.
Building a DXP to implement a customer-centric culture has a lot to do with integration. Done right, the leading digital experience platforms bridge the gap between experience and service, sales, marketing, and commerce tools to support long term customer relationships, brand loyalty, and increasing customer value.One vendor can’t offer the full DXP spectrum, but must instead offer integration capabilities with existing best-in-breed systems: ERP, e-commerce, CRM, etc. Solution replacements or upgrades should be considered through the lens of that cohesive ideal.
Why choose OpenText?
The best-of-breed, plug & play digital experience platform from OpenText enables organizations to create and deliver solutions to address each step on the digital experience journey. It provides solutions natively for the full range of touchpoints for B2C, B2B, B2G and B2B digital experiences. Its comprehensive digital experience management capabilities and headless and decoupled architecture are chief amongst the reasons that OMDIA named OpenText as the leader in its ‘Selecting a Digital Experience Management Solution, 2020-2021’ report.
Learn more about the OpenText Digital Experience Platform.
