What is a Digital Experience Strategy and why do you need one?

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Digital Experience Strategy

A Digital Experience Strategy includes all the efforts a company makes to ensure that its customers enjoy the best digital experiences across all touchpoints. And those digital experiences are becoming more and more important. Regardless of the size, sector or maturity of the organization. Companies and organizations are faced with the ever-increasing expectations of all its stakeholders every day.

What you'll learn in this blog: 

  1. What are digital experiences?
  2. The effect of good and bad digital experiences
  3. Why are well-thought-out digital experiences so important?
  4. Digital touchpoints as your engine
  5. What is a Digital Experience Strategy?
  6. The phases of a Digital Experience Strategy project
  7. The desired result of your Digital Experience Strategy
  8. Extra: free Strategic Scoping Canvas

3 big reasons for optimal digital experiences:

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Customer expectations are increasing

Driven by other experiences, customer expectations are changing at a very fast pace.

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Organizational changes

Organizations face changing processes, new structures...

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Optimal use of data

We gather more and more data. Correctly interpreting and deploying that data to create value remains difficult: the data is in silos, not connected or usable across different systems. Also, regulations (e.g. GDPR), make it more difficult to correctly capture and deploy data.

What are digital experiences?

A customer interacts with a business through a series of touchpoints. Some digital, like a website or chat bot, others physical, like a store or a salesperson. In reality, those physical touchpoints do not stand alone. They are influenced by digital touchpoints that are not visible to the customer. For example a customer service representative checks the ordering system to see the details of an order and acts on that information.

The combination of customer-oriented touchpoints that influence each other is defined as the ecosystemof the digital experience. This ecosystem is what ultimately shapes the customer experience.

The effect of good and bad digital experiences

Good digital experiences improve customers' quality of life without them even thinking about it. Poor digital experiences cause visitors to become frustrated and lose interest. Examples of good digital experiences:

  • You make a reservation at a hotel or restaurant and Google automatically adds your appointment to your calendar with the correct location.

  • Being able to contact your city or town at any time of the day or night and start an application or check the status of your application.

  • Getting recommendations for relevant content when reading news headlines.

Why are well-thought-out digital experiences so important?

Digital services are becoming more important. In many cases they are even a competitive advantage or disadvantage. The digital landscape is evolving fast. Making the right choices for your digital platforms is crucial. But therefore certainly not easy. You choose a solution today that will last for years to come. What should you pay attention to? Where do you want to be in x-number of years? What is crucial for your business and what is nice to have?

You really don't have to - and can't - go along with every trend. By making the real problems and challenges of your various stakeholders the starting point, you make much more thoughtful and sustainable choices.

Digital touchpoints are the engine of your experiences

Digital touchpoints within the ecosystem are actually the engine of your digital experience. They push your experience in the right direction. If not used correctly, they spin in circles without any additional benefit.

A lack of digital touchpoints widens the gap and creates additional load on the individual touchpoints. This overload leads to distraction and confusion.

In digital ecosystems, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This means that a highly connected ecosystem has an exponential impact on your customer's ultimate experience.

At the same time, a digital ecosystem is only as strong as the weakest link in your chain. One bad interaction with one of your touchpoints is enough make the entire experience negative for you customer. Remember the last time you had one bad experience with an organization and immediately forgot all the positive interactions you had before that? Exactly that.

What is a Digital Experience Strategy?

A Digital Experience Strategy includes all the plans a company makes to ensure its customers enjoy the best digital experiences. With that strategy, we help ambitious companies create a clear, future oriented path.

We always think about 5 points:

  1. The best possible digital experience for your customer

  2. Across your different digital channels and touch points

  3. In line with your business needs

  4. With an eye on realistic IT implementation cycles

  5. Driven by added value in the digital experience for your end user and for your organization

Digital Experience Strategy

Don't forget your internal stakeholders!

When we think of a digital experience, we quickly think of the experience of your visitors and customers. Your internal teams also play a key role in this. Their interests and ways of working are affected by digital experiences. Don't underestimate the impact of this, definitely think carefully about this too!

The phases of a Digital Experience Strategy project

Such a digital experience strategy does not come easily. At Dropsolid, we start from 4 major phases:

  1. We provide business, customer and IT insights.

  2. We determine the long-term vision and the right goals.

  3. We inspire and create impactful and future-oriented digital projects together.

  4. We create a validated road map.

The desired result

The result of a Digital Experience Strategy is an informed road map of digital projects that are fully aligned with your company's vision and focus on delivering value for your organization and your stakeholders.

The value of such a strategic exercise is 3-fold:

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Setting clear goals

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Internal alignment and support in the company

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A clear context which in future digital projects fit, supported by a clear vision

Strategic scoping canvas

Download the Strategic Scoping Canvas

Using this canvas, you and your team work together to determine the correct scope of your strategy. Via 8 clear boxes, you clearly define what is - and is not - in the scope of your strategy. 

DS - people at work - Michiel

Create your Digital Experience Strategy with us

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