The 4 Personalities of Digital Transformation—and How to Cater to Them
Typically, the tech-reluctant don’t fret over a social profile, and if they do, there is just one such network, usually Facebook. These folks are sensitive about their privacy and don’t want to be exposed to strangers. Hence, they are always late to the digital game.
With proper guidance and lots of interaction, tech-reluctant people can be persuaded to use specific digital channels, at least for simple tasks like checking their bank account balances, topping up their data plan, and paying the electric bill. But once you have them transformed, they stay as loyal to their new digital format as they were to the old one. In fact, they won’t budge from it.
Catering to the Four Personalities
If yours is an organization that caters to one or two of these groups, the types of digital formats that will attract and keep customers is easy to define. For example, the Social Security Administration can probably focus on tech-reluctant people as it formulates its digital strategy. The local supermarket’s demographic profile will be considerably younger and have familiarity with a host of apps, as these tech-actives will be carrying a smartphone. If your company offers tickets to concerts, be prepared to make ultra-frequent and significant changes to your digital channels (and forget the PC—they don’t use computers).
Many companies cater to a wide variety of people and wish to provide a combination of digital channels that will attract and keep customers of all types. What should these companies do?
Here are five suggestions:
Invest in digital channels. If you don’t, your competitors will and you will lose your most valued assets—your customers. While you’re at it, add new channels that will appeal to new groups and always upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.
Improve the customer journey. Pay careful attention to the simplicity of interactions and continue to tweak over time. The user interface is the most critical component—make it attractive and efficient. Continue to add self-service capabilities that appeal to the tech-active and tech-aware populations, allowing them to become independent of service agents, but keep the ability to get a real person on the phone easily for the tech-reluctant.
Balance the digital channels. Enable customers to select from multiple channels, also known as omnichannel, and ensure the same high level of service across all channels. Nobody should feel punished for the channel used so users should also have the ability to stop the process in one channel and pick it up in another. For example, they could start filling in a form on a mobile phone and complete it on a PC.
Adopt tools and strategies that transform non-digital interactions into digital. Offer users simple ways to resolve low-value requests without tying up human resources. Quite often digital menus are designed by service organizations according to their own “filing system” rather than their users’ desired journeys. Stay in close contact with your customers to find out what they like and don’t like about your digital offering and adopt a digital approach that presents service options according to personal preference.
Let your service agents become digital-transformation champions. Invest in agent-side tools and train your contact-center staff to participate in the transformation process. Empower agents with advanced tools that improve the user experience across all channels of the interaction. Tools that enable collaboration, co-browsing, and video chat are very effective in turning tech-aware and even tech-reluctant people into serious digital-channel aficionados.
For companies that effectively tailor their self-service technologies to these four digital transformation profiles, there is a significant win-win outcome waiting to happen. Customers will appreciate the attention to detail and the improved level of service, while companies will realize substantial business gains.
Ori Faran is cofounder and CEO of CallVU, a provider of innovative omnichannel solutions that enable organizations to engage customers in their channels of choice. As CEO, he focuses on managing the company’s people, product vision, and partners. Prior to starting CallVU in 2012, Faran, a pioneer in contact center innovation, served in a variety of management roles with leading contact center technology companies.