The true value of an all inclusive digital experience

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DS - Whiteboard brainstorm meeting - Anneleen

In the middle of the busiest period of the year: the end-of-year forecast, the making of our Dropsolid 2023 plan, inflation index, price increase, Xmas wishes,… I was also excited to prepare for the move to our new house with my lovely family. We’d all been waiting for so long. And we were looking forward so much! I took on board this extra ‘little' project with loads of love and passion. In these weeks, I’ve planned, communicated, prepared, asked for help, organized… All to ensure everything would run as smoothly as possible and all according to plan. Until… 8 weeks before the final move, when our existing telecom and internet services needed to be transferred.

I’m not even exaggerating: all hell broke loose. After no less than 7 phone calls taking up to 8h43m in total, I’m left exhausted from this ‘little’ extra project. My husband is about to explode and my two young kids are crying over this big scene happening in their new home… Today, 3 weeks after our big move, we finally have working digital television and internet again. Supplied by the competitor.

And suddenly, I realize: this is what it is really all about. Being heard. Being understood. Being helped. Being reassured. Being unburdened. Disappointment is taking place for another and way better feeling: pride. I feel so proud. Because this is really what “bringing the best customer experience” is all about. And Dropsolid is doing exactly that. We’ve been doing it for the past 10 years. We are still doing it. And we will keep doing it in the upcoming 10 years.

DS - Dropsolid team

Yes, we build a great culture. Yes, we have an expert team. Yes, we show good results. And yes, all of that can be pretty challenging occasionally. But above all: we are building the best digital experiences for our clients and their end-users. And the best digital experiences listen, understand, reassure, help, unburden, inspire…

For many of our customers, we calculate their ROI in euros. However, what it's really about can not be expressed in money but in tons of emotional value leading to lifelong customer loyalty. Or rejection. Because in return for your investment in a digital project, what you get back is priceless. Especially for your end-users. But also for all your other stakeholders. They all benefit in their own way from an optimal digital experience. And that’s exactly what I’d like to talk about. From our point of view, from our own experiences of the past 10 years, and with our preview of the future in mind.

The evolution of “thé digital experience”

Times are different than a decade ago. The market keeps evolving, but some things never change. From the start of Dropsolid 10 years ago, we’ve focused on the best digital experience. And we still are. In these years, we’ve noticed it's not just the digital experience on your website that’s gaining importance. All digital touchpoints together result in the experience your end-user enjoys. The world is turning more digital every day, and your end-user expects a top-notch digital experience on every channel.

So, we expanded our vision. It’s the digital experience in general that affects the entire company 360°. All stakeholders are impacted and benefit from a focus on this experience. Great digital experiences touch the entire company. And when done correctly, it delivers ROI across all departments.

DX on entire company

The value of digital experience for your end-users

I don’t think this paragraph needs a lot of explaining: the value of digital experiences for your end-user speaks for itself. You probably know this already. And its value? Priceless. But let’s dive a little bit deeper anyways! A great digital experience results in convenience, ease of use, usability… Call it what you want, your end-user benefits in one way or another. Either it’s gaining valuable time or peace of mind because everything is taken care of. It could be the convenience of checking the status of your purchase, ticket, file, appointment… everywhere at any time. There are multiple different positive outcomes for multiple different user journeys. With optimal digital experiences, you can have a positive impact on the life of your end-users. And that? That’s priceless.

It's exactly what Dropsolid wants to achieve for all the end-users of her clients: 

 

Acerta

 

Helping entrepreneurs to autonomously start up their own business 

 

UZA

Being heard, helped, and healed while fighting any disease

Soudal

Supplying the most innovative materials to fix the most diverse chores for the handy (wo)man, even in China, 

ITZU

Finding the job of your dreams after a drastic career switch 

ERA

Helping couples, singles, and families find their forever home 

Liberale Mutualiteit

Unburden the less healthy when they already have lots on their minds 

Visit Flanders

Inspiring tourists to have fun, find hidden treasures, and have a peaceful stay in Flanders 

Ivago

Ensure every citizen can go for a lovely walk in their clean, neat, and uncluttered neighborhood

Conac

Calculating well-deserved pension funds for those who've done their fair share of hard work 

The value of digital experiences for your stakeholders

It doesn’t only affect all your end-users. You also need everyone in your company aligned to create the best digital experiences. It’s not a one-(wo)man job. And you need all departments: tech and non-tech, HR and management, sales and marketing, developers, and your support team… Starting from the inside of your company and with a strong strategic approach, you derive a technical vision and digital ecosystem around this broad vision. At Dropsolid, our strategic experts take care of this vision, so we have a solid base to start from. Our multidisciplinary and self-steering teams of analysts, designers, and developers build around this vision. Ultimately, everyone works together towards one goal, and all of your stakeholders will benefit.

Let’s dive deeper into the benefits for all your different stakeholders:

Marketing and communication teams

Optimal digital experiences ensure your entire marketing or communication team can work more efficiently. This leads to saving time, better insights, and ultimately the possibility to optimize the lead funnel and serve your customers even better. Next to that, with the valuable insights they gain, the team can adjust content and campaigns to get even better results. 

An optimal digital experience also means consistent branding and better digital accessibility. The result? A higher brand awareness, higher traffic, more returning visitors, more conversions, and a longer customer lifetime. With the use of a tool like Layout Builder, your marketing or communication team has the freedom to quickly build beautiful and user-friendly pages but also gives them a framework to keep your branding consistent and clean. A double win. 

colleagues working on project
meeting

IT teams

Your IT team has a huge impact on the digital experience of your end-user: performance, speed, security, maintenance, data… They make sure your website is always online and accessible. It’s their responsibility that your website is not hacked. And they ensure the technical quality of your digital experiences. 

Your IT team also has a huge impact on your costs. Think about the price you pay if your website is hacked. And how about your maintenance cost? By using a central platform to manage your digital experiences, your data is safe and your costs are very predictable. When working with an overall digital experience platform, instead of using seperated Saas tools in the hands of marketing, your IT team has control over all costs and data. 

Sales teams

When your brand offers a great digital experience to all its end-users, your sales will definitely benefit:

  1. more leads in the pipe
  2. better lead quality, as they are already nurtured by marketing, for example, with marketing automation
  3. more data to learn from so you can connect more personally with your prospects and get more insight into the market
  4. higher efficiency by automating a part of the sales process and spending your team’s effort on adding value and closing deals
Salesteam dropsolid
DS - meeting people at work - Steven Inez

Support teams

Great digital experiences are an opportunity to automatically capture or even avoid first-line support. When, for example, your UX and search experience are great, your visitors will find easier and faster what they’re looking for. A FAQ and a chatbot can also help with this. This saved time can be spent on more difficult issues that need human interaction. 

Service and ops teams

To serve your customers as well as possible, your service and ops teams work closely together to look for the best tooling and systems. The result? A satisfied customer. 

Product teams

Product-led companies try to solve as many expectations via the product itself. The right digital platforms and integrations can help with this by doing this seamlessly for your end-user. 

DS - people at work performance strike
HR team dropsolid

HR teams

A strong brand and an optimal digital experience support your employer branding and give HR the tools to contribute to it, possibly in collaboration with marketing. The result? Higher employee satisfaction, smoother onboarding, and easier recruitment. Digital experiences are an opportunity for HR to optimize digital recruitment processes and use marketing technology in their favor. For example, a separate career site, personalized newsletters for candidates, integrations with ATS systems, insights in the candidate funnel… 

Management

Optimal digital experiences also have a positive impact on your management and your company’s CEO:

  1. Satisfied customers and a high customer lifetime value (CLV) result in strong, long-term client relationships. 
  2. A fully digitalized customer journey results in more efficient internal cooperation between your teams because they're unburdened from recurring tasks and have a better insight into your clients and their data. 
  3. Your entire management, including your CEO, gets better insights into the customer journey, which can help with crucial decisions for the future. 
DS - Meeting management people

Calculate the ROI of your digital experience

Many digital experience projects start from the specific need of a marketing or IT team. Think about improving the TCO of a fragmented architecture, meeting data security standards, wanting more leads… One of the first things companies do is calculate the ROI of this project. Easy? Not at all! So many different aspects have an influence on the result. To make it a bit easier for you, we’ve built an ROI calculator to find out if your digital investment is really worth it.

Remember that this is a great tool to get facts and numbers, but it doesn’t take emotional value into account. The best digital experiences translate into much more opportunities for your organization. Be aware of this. As stated in the introduction: in return for your investment in a digital project, what you get back is priceless. Especially for your end users. But also for all your other stakeholders. They all benefit in their own way.