Digital experiences surround us both at work and home. Everyone seems to be connected to their mobile phones or computers. With customers preferring online interactions due to global changes in the last few years, digital product experience has become one of the most vital facets of a business.

The world is changing at a rapid pace. All businesses are feeling the pressure of changing customer demands. But one thing is sure, delivering impeccable digital customer experience is imperative for B2B and B2C businesses.

Customers, the biggest asset to a business, have always required brands to design better experiences.

With technology advancements, digital product development aimed at enhancing user experiences is no longer a difficult task. The ultimate challenge is to explore ways to better engage customers throughout the experience with the behavior shift to digital. So, digital product experience is the key that unlocks this challenge and helps businesses create loyal customers for life.

What is Digital Product Experience (DPX)?

 

Digital product experience is an all-inclusive term for components required to deliver a seamless customer experience across every digital touchpoint. As per Statistica, the ecommerce revenue saw an increase of $4,938 billion in 2021. The number of online customers and online mediums is rising. So, brands need to optimize customer interactions with the brand.

Websites, Progressive Web Applications (PWA), mobile apps, social media posts, 360-degree product experiences, and virtual tours are via digital touchpoints.

Take ASTM International as an example. This 100+ year old standards organization was seeking a robust transformation to empower themselves as fast and scalable. After reevaluating the present scenario, Icreon helped ASTM to build their digital experiences through a platform via automated operations. The plan included every DPX component required, ranging from the database structure and internal workflows to customer-facing web experiences. As a result, a robust data-driven platform was built. This platform catered to ASTM's 30,000+ member as a community which helped them to become an industry leader in the shifting landscape.

Evolution of Product-First Management to Customer-Centric Digital Product Experience

 

Customers were not always the driving focus behind many company decisions. Before the digital era, many businesses were driven by volume. The approach was more product oriented. The main goal for these businesses was to sell faster.

Businesses influenced markets as customers had lesser accessibility and fewer choices. So, the focus was to make the enterprise's shared master data assets reliable and accessible. Referred to as Master data management (MDM), it is used to keep business data, including pricing and inventory, accurate and safe.

With ecommerce coming into the picture, businesses felt the need for additional data input and better control. The requirement for further details like description and feature specifications transformed MDM into Product Information Management (PIM).

PIM was not only reliable but focused on making product data more useful. It, however, did not support image-based content. This led to the development of Product Content Management (PCM). PCM helped businesses reliably manage content across all content types. The drawback was that it worked only for internally facing content.

The power shift from businesses to customers began with the transition to a customer-driven digital world. Businesses were focused on making customers happy. The focus shifted from managing internal processes to building customer-facing product experiences. This gave rise to the concept of Product Experience Management (PXM).

PXM helped businesses create marketing assets with product data to make buying more interactive. The experience was limited to products and services in PXM, so it lacked depth and interactivity. With customers demanding online importance, DPX was needed.

In the digital-first era, customers expect businesses to prioritize them. So, companies need to be more user-centric and strive to deliver flawless and consistent experiences for each customer. DPX can be built with technologies such as Sitecore. Brands can personalize digital experiences with DPX as it offers robust product content analytics, personalization, contextualization, and automation using ML/AI.

How Can Businesses Differentiate Customer Experience Across Channels with Digital Product Experience?

 

DPX is a connected, user-centric platform that enables free movement between communication and marketing channels. DPX and its backend are flexible enough for specific businesses as every business model has its approach to customer engagement. Businesses can easily explore and add more channels and features to meet growing user expectations and business needs. This flexibility allows businesses to implement experience based on their specific strategy. Recently, customer experience has overtaken price and product as key brand differentiators. It has made the ability to engage customers the best competitive advantage. So, the backend and scaling of a DPX-equipped organization depend on the business' approach. Businesses that put customer retention as the top priority are the ideal match for DPX.

Top 3 Crucial DPX Features to Note

 

The three critical features of DPX that help businesses differentiate CX across digital channels have been explained here.

Identification and Simplification of Existing Silos

 

With rapid technology advancements, agile organizations have a competitive advantage. Siloed organizational structures are rigid. They create self-contained departments with no transparency related to processes or budgets. This makes the swift implementation of new technology or features difficult for the organization. Businesses adopting an omnichannel approach need to break traditional silos in both culture and processes. This requires significant effort but can be made easier with technology like DPX.

Amdocs, the multi-billion software solution provider, was looking to develop a new business channel for communicating with customers. They wanted to launch a personalized suite of tools to help large clientele upskill their entire employee base. Now known as the Amdocs Academy, they needed a partner that could deliver an end-to-end solution.

Our team stepped up at all stages, from planning and architecture to system integration and implementation to training and deployment. We initially collaborated on outlining a product strategy to drive business transformation and understand technical requirements. The result was a flexible solution that automates employee training or eLearning across different specializations in real-time.

Centralization of Data and Customer Analysis

 

All marketing and communication channels must be built, developed, and optimized around a seamless user experience. A sound collection and analysis of customer data can be carried out only concerning a broader ecosystem. It requires creating the same experience that a specific channel-hopping user expects.

Customer expectations are dynamic. So, businesses need to be prepared for different situations in that customers may find themselves in the customer journey. It could be based on usability, functionality, ease of use or accessibility, or a virtual feature. With a centralized feedback mechanism, viewing a holistic picture of CX across all channels and touchpoints becomes easier.

XPO Logistics, the end-to-end logistics and transportation giant, spans 34 countries. The growth was good, but a significant hurdle that XPO Logistics was facing was a dependency on third-party platforms. These processes included vital supply chain components such as warehousing, same-day delivery, and national assembly. So, Icreon and XPO went through a rigorous analysis to conceptualize and create a product that would help streamline all processes.

The output was a platform that worked as a flexible business playbook to handle repetitive tasks. It was an end-to-end integrated platform that allowed XPO to act as a logistics-as-a-service company. So, a 'universal connector' software that can be loosely coupled into any business process for any client was born. With the flexibility and automation of complex tasks, XPO's platform can seamlessly fit into business processes.

User-Centric Approach through an Omnichannel CX Design

 

Customer experience can often be made seamless by centralizing customer data. Features such as gated accessibility and standard data storage capacities can be fixed for users or employees. Touchpoints across channels can be better personalized and handled with automation. The learning capabilities of DPX enable top leaders and product managers to create strategies based on user behavior insights across digital channels.

The National Geographic Channel's online portals expand across 133 countries in 21 languages. It is viewed across more than 100 million households. So, they needed a centralized mechanism to manage their global assets. They also wanted to engage a multicultural audience through various languages across multiple devices in these constantly evolving times.

A global repository was created to centralize the storage facility as a result. It allowed multiple departments across continents to exchange critical source assets in real-time. Assets like videos, text, games and advertising material could now be secured into a single, highly searchable repository.

Even better, it was deployed for multi-platform and multi-host architecture environments. So, its flexibility allowed it to work across multiple web application environments from Drupal to .NET, to PHP.

DPX Advantages

 

Businesses have been competing for relevance and customer experience for quite some time now in both B2C and B2B environments. The need for a strong product is still valid, but more emphasis is on customer experience than the actual product. It is a competitive advantage now.

The next generation of CMS and Web Experience Management systems (WEM) have transformed digital assets from pamphlets to interactive CX tools. Simple websites have been replaced with PWAs, and product descriptions have become experiential customer touchpoints.

Businesses need DPX and beyond to collect and automate user data, define personas and build personalized experiences. Each persona is targeted with unique content without any manual interference with AI and ML elements. It also forms a bridge among digital channels to create CX across all touchpoints.

DPX is an open platform that easily integrates with different technology and departments. This enables companies to deliver individualized experiences to specific customers. A competitive advantage that businesses need to stay relevant. The three major advantages that a business gets with DPX are listed here.

Control of Every Touchpoint

 

The focus of DPX is customer experience. It revolves around the user journey and the different touchpoints a user travels through before making a purchase decision. The number of interaction points has rapidly grown in recent years and will continue to do so. DPX connects these touchpoints to ensure consistency in content, feel, and logic at every touchpoint.

Connects Businesses

 

DPX acts as a bridge among different systems and departments to ensure stability and consistency. In this advanced dynamic era, businesses cannot run without specialized platforms for ecommerce, marketing, or support. DPX is the force that joins these capabilities to achieve consistency using APIs. It helps orchestrate information and identify the best way to approach customers once they drop in.

Flexible Architecture

 

Controlling digital touchpoints and connecting business processes is impossible for a rigid system. As the data involved needs to be analyzed in real-time, it calls for an agile approach like DPX. Flexibility is helpful for other technology, integration, ease of use, and scalability. For instance, a good DPX can be used by developers and marketers alike.

Good Customer Retention Rate

 

An excellent digital product experience leads to a reasonable customer retention rate. The fact is obvious, but have you ever wondered how product experience plays a role in developing a good customer experience?

When a customer interacts with the tools and icons regarding a digital product before purchasing it, they check how helpful the product is and how easy it is to use for them. Thus, customer retention demands ease of use, straightforwardness, and simplicity. Not just the ease of use but appealing functions and fun tools also play a massive role in making customers stick to testing the product, ultimately leading them to purchase it.

Hence, the better the digital product experience customer gains, the better they stick to using your products, and thus, the more significant a boost in customer retention rate.

Time to Revamp Your Digital Product Experience

 

Digital product experience is one of the essential assets of an organization, both internally and externally. Every company should have the freedom to innovate in the fast-growing MarTech space. Businesses, however, can make progress only when technology is agile. So, they can gradually add or replace solutions and connect the data they offer with minimal disruption to customer experience.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Tell me, I'll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me; I'll understand."

The goal is clear, and businesses need a robust and versatile experience management system. DPX will deliver insights and support actions over time. This enables brands to keep pace with customer expectations and industry standards.

Digital product experience measures a brand's ability to create value through digital. Develop an integrated digital product roadmap with Icreon to create digital centers of excellence . Explore Icreon’s Digital Product Development Services.