Serving up memorable digital experiences that convert customers is an ongoing challenge for companies. It requires a customer-centric approach, utilizing the latest technology available and being open to innovation and experimentation.
The traditional business model of segmenting customers into groups, characterizing them by their consumer behavior and then preplanning how to market to them has lost its relevance. It’s been replaced by a dynamic market structure where customers are interfacing on multiple devices and channels, researching options and learning about products and services long before they make the decision to buy.
Why digital optimization over testing?
The majority of customer interactions are happening digitally. In the ThinkCX6 webinar guest participant Milton Pappas mentioned that even when customers are shopping in brick-and-mortar stores (as opposed to buying online), 70% of the customer journey is still spent researching online. (A later study reflects that this percentage grew to 87% by 2018) This is incredibly important because it underlines that the digital experience matters, That’s where companies can connect with and learn from their customers. Every response from a consumer can provide valuable information to further help optimize the customer experience (CX).
Technology has transformed how companies connect with customers. It has also transformed the expectations and buying behavior of consumers. Most companies gather an overwhelming amount of data on customers every day. But it’s being able to transform that data into meaningful insights that increases conversions and revenue growth that matters. This is where companies can leverage the power of AI-driven optimization.
AI augments experimentation and optimization efforts
AI has the ability to sift through huge volumes of data in a non-linear way. It empowers companies to serve up thousands of ideas in multiple combinations and then analyze which ideas or combinations customers respond to. More importantly, it is able to do this in real time with real customers. It adds significance to experimentation efforts because it operates in a real-world marketplace in real time.
An AI-driven optimization solution is able to dive deeper into digital user experiences and connect the dots. We know that customers want experiences that are relevant. But how is something relevant, why is it relevant, and when is it relevant to a particular customer? Finding the answers to these questions is critical.The fact that this is taking place in a dynamic marketplace makes finding the answers even more challenging for humans because the relevance is always changing.
Companies that have a customer-centric culture will typically experiment with many different ideas to enhance the user experience. And while experimentation is an excellent starting point, you can never be sure that you’re getting it right until you get a real reaction from a customer. That’s when you know whether the ideas are relevant or not. Having that information in real time enables companies to be agile and proactive and realize revenue growth that much faster. It empowers them to be able to use their customer experience data more effectively to drive optimizations that increase growth.
AI-driven optimization can solve revenue leakages and find a path to sustainable growth
A critical element of optimization is identifying where and how revenue leakages are happening within the digital user experience. It’s estimated that at least half of these leakages can be recovered if companies are more successful at digital optimization. An AI-driven solution can experiment with multiple variants and how they impact the digital experience.
A call to action (CTA) button, for example, or the product description are just two changes that can be multiplied into many variables and served up to customers as different ideas through AI-driven optimization. How customers respond to those ideas provides insight of what’s most meaningful to them, what reduces friction, and ultimately what gets them to buy. In generating this data from real customer responses, it reduces the time to generating revenue from optimization efforts and delivers sustainable results.
With the Evolv Digital Growth Optimization solution, digital leaders can better understand their performance against growth or client retention key performance indicators (KPIs), they can clearly demonstrate what was achieved, how it was achieved, what the best performers were and why. The cherry on the top is being able to show the return on investment as actual revenue generated through the optimization—thereby satisfying the financial executives that AI-driven optimization is an investment rather than an expense.
In the marketplace the pace of change has been significantly accelerated in 2020, in no small part by the pandemic and its impact on business operations. The importance of the digital customer experience (CX) and being able to optimize it has increased tremendously. If companies are competing on customer experience, optimizing digital channels is the most important part of that. AI provides the solution to be able to do this in a way that is timely, relevant and largely automated. It takes the pressure off digital leaders to drive conversions and gives them the information they need to make informed strategic business decisions.
