Customer Experience Now The Top Technology Priority, But Organizations Aren't Quite Ready

These days, everyone dreams of superior customer experience (CX), especially customers. Next in line are business leaders, who have finally started to see the light. Of course, that means the renewed pressure to pump up CX to, yeah, you guessed it -- IT managers and professionals. However, getting everyone on the same page to deliver the goods is the hardest part of all.

The challenge was surfaced in a survey of 1,420 IT decision-makers released by RackSpace Technology, which found that focusing on CX implementations helps companies see greater rewards. Organizations that adopt a CX-led focus enjoy 1.6x higher brand awareness, 1.5x more employee satisfaction and nearly double their rates of customer retention, repeat purchases, average order values and customer lifetime value. "The research underscores the impact that modernizing applications to provide better customer experience can have on competitiveness and growth," the survey's authors add.

The rub, of course, is that building better CX systems is the easy part. Half of the IT executives in the survey, 50%, report that it can take weeks to gain consensus before implementing technology changes, such as deploying new applications or launching a transformation project. Another 42% say it takes months. "This lag in consensus building negatively impacts time to market. If teams can't move agile and fail fast, they'll be beaten to the punch by competitors who can move through concept, development and release faster," the researchers report.

Even when people and strategy are aligned, CX technology teams still face technology-related barriers, the survey shows. As is common with adopting new technology, legacy IT (26%), budget (24%), skills gaps (22%) and expertise (18%) rank as top barriers. Cultural issues also weigh heavily in the list as represented by resistance to change (16%), lack of buy-in (16%) and lack of leadership support (13%). 

Emotions dictate technology initiatives, and this survey confirms it. The top barrier reported was the fear of negatively impacting existing customer experience (28%), the survey also finds. "Organizations recognize that technology is needed to improve the customer experience but are still nervous about changing the existing customer experience by implementing new technology," the survey's authors state. "Despite the push to innovate and transform, respondents are aware that the learning curves of customer experience improvements can cause friction."

The good news is that no one is objecting to the employment of tech to improve CX -- 52% report little to no resistance to technology changes. Only 23% report resistance. "IT leaders can gather from this that stakeholders are interested in change where there's a specific business case, such as customer experience, and that interest could translate into less resistance when it's time to implement programs."

For IT leaders, the results also confirm that CX is a main strategic priority (48%), ahead of IT security, compliance (45%) and IT strategy (41%), and that technology is the key to driving customer experience. Over half (55%) of survey respondents credit applications with enhancing customer experience. Moreover, almost all organizations surveyed understand the importance of CX, with 94% reporting that some form of user experience initiative is underway within their organization. Only a small percentage (6%) report having no CX strategies or initiatives in place.   

Technology-Related Barriers to CX Development

• Fear of negatively impacting existing CX     28%
• Legacy IT systems     26%
• Limited budget     24%
• Complexity     23%
• Lack of staff with the appropriate skill sets     22%
• Lack of expertise to lead transformation activities     18%
• Unclear digital transformation strategy     18%
• Lack of a trusted partner/advisor to work on digital transformation activities     18%

Modern technology initiatives are prevalent, which ultimately is seen in smoother CX delivery. Six out of ten (63%) respondents are using technology to drive automation efficiencies and over half (51%) are using it to drive IoT and cloud native initiatives. Even more directly, technology initiatives focused on real-time data analysis (44%) and customer engagement (30%) are prevalent.  

How Does Technology Drive your Corporate Strategy?

• Driving corporate strategy     63%
• Use intelligent automation to drive efficiencies     51%
• Leverage innovative technologies such as IoT and cloud native applications     46%
• Greater employee collaboration     44%
• Real-time data analysis/customer 'pulse'     40%
• Simplify decision making     30%