Companies must evolve to meet increasing customer expectations and demands in the digital marketplace.

1. Digital Experience
Randy Robinson, December 16, 2015
Customer Expectations
When Apple released the first iPhone in 2007 followed closely by
Google’s Android phone in 2008, the digital landscape began
to change. As adoption of the new smartphones increased,
customers became increasingly dependent upon their new
handheld devices. Users now expect to be able to leverage
this technology to conduct business.
The era of single or dual-channel customer engagement has
long since passed. Companies cannot hope to compete in
the digital marketplace with web sites and call centers alone.
Customers expect a rich experience using their preferred
technology. Companies that understand this demand and
focus on delivering rich solutions in this digital marketplace will remain relevant
and competitive.
An omni-channel digital experience strategy is
essential to compete in the digital marketplace.
Companies that recognize how their customers
want to interact with them and can deliver
relevant solutions will have higher customer
retention.
While call centers, mail, e-mail, social media, etc.
play a vital role in servicing our customers, this
paper will focus on two key digital aspects of an
omni-channel strategy: web sites and mobile apps.
Understanding How Our Customers Want to Interact with Us
Consumers have many options today. They can pick up a phone, send a fax,
letter or email, visit a web site, use a mobile phone, tablet or smart watch. Smart
companies will use tools like analytics and surveys to better understand their
customers.

2. • Step 1 is understanding who
the customers are. Different
age groups may choose to
interact with businesses using
different channels. Younger
users, in particular, are very
open to the idea of using
mobile apps for this level of
interaction.
• Step 2 is defining which
channels will satisfy the majority
of customers.
• Step 3 is building those channels using a customer-first perspective.
Web Channels
Most companies start with their web sites since that
is a familiar landscape. The web is a mature
technology, and most companies have access to
experienced web developers. Modernizing a web
site to meet the demands of the digital customer
involves many tasks including:
• Ensure that the sites can be consumed on the devices owned by your
customers (i.e. responsive / adaptive design).
• Focus on the user experience (i.e. usability, performance, compatibility)
and make the necessary design changes to meet customer expectations.
• Focus on security. Companies must establish security protocols and
practices to ensure that their data and their customers’ data remains
secure.
APIs and Web Standards
In order to achieve these goals, companies must focus on delivering services
and information quickly and securely. In many cases, this involves writing or re-
writing web services to restful JSON APIs.
Companies should plan their security protocols carefully. They should consider
whether they are servicing consumers only, or whether they need to provide
business to business (B2B) connectivity. Leveraging industry standard protocols
(e.g. OAUTH 2.0) with appropriate encryption in place is essential.

3. The API layer is where all of the data
interaction occurs. The APIs should
be designed so they can be used
by the web sites, mobile apps and
any B2B interactions.
Mobile Channels
Companies must decide how they wish to deliver a superior customer
experience using mobile technology. In some cases, re-using responsive and/or
adaptive web content in a mobile container may be acceptable. More often
than not, however, customers expect native mobile applications tailored for
their specific device.
Companies must carefully analyze the services
provided by their web sites and determine which
services need to be delivered via mobile apps. This
analysis highlights the importance of analytics
gathering on customer interactions.
The data from the analytics is used to target the
specific mobile platforms used by their customers
and to design apps tailored for those platforms.
Continuous Improvement
Customers expect companies to evolve and grow with
technology advancements and trends. This requires
diligence and investment in order to continually
improve the web and mobile experience to keep them
both relevant and continue to provide the customer
with a rich, personalized and immersive experience.

4. Be loyal to your customers! Give significant consideration before making any
major usability changes to your web sites or mobile apps unless the changes are
driven by complaints. Customers appreciate improvements but may not like the
“new interface” as much as the people behind it may think.
How Important is the Omni-Channel Strategy?
According to market research firm, eMarketer, there will be more than 2 billion
smartphone users worldwide in 2016.
Companies that make the effort to understand who their customers are and
how they wish to conduct business and create an omni-channel strategy to
meet their customers’ expectations will be successful in the digital marketplace.

5. About the Author
Randy Robinson has 26 years of IT experience with fortune 500 companies. His
experience includes mainframe and distributed application development,
project management, web development, enterprise architecture, B2B app
development, operations/infrastructure, IT service management, application
portfolio management and 15 years of executive management.
In 2013, Unum created a new IT organization called Customer Solutions. Randy
accepted a position as Vice President – IT in this new area. His team is
responsible for Unum’s customer facing technology platforms which include:
customer web portal, mobile application development and call center software
platform support.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyrobinson