3 lessons for creating a more unified customer experience

“We’re all in this together.” Last year, this statement became the universal motto of brands everywhere, as people learned to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances brought on by the global pandemic. 

As the world embraces more in-person interactions, things aren’t going to just go back to the way they were before. The great challenge for brands is how to reimagine their approach to customer experience by connecting every point of interaction, uniting all teams across the business and merging the trust gap between brands and consumers. 

To help marketers understand how to bring these pieces together, Acquia surveyed 8,000 consumers and 800 marketers across Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. Our research explored shifts in both marketer and consumer expectations around customer experience and privacy. Now we’re sharing key lessons we learned from this research in our global report: Deliver a Modern Digital CX: A Guide for Marketing Innovators.  

1. Create more content without sacrificing brand consistency  

With live events, trade shows and physical storefronts unavailable, business leaders needed to stay engaged with their audience by expanding their content efforts to new channels and formats. 

Our CX Trends Report found that 49% of global marketers have created more content for customer engagement in 2021 compared to previous years to fulfill new customer behaviors. But as businesses introduce dozens of new content channels into the mix, maintaining brand consistency and a clear, overarching brand message becomes more challenging. 

Without strong brand governance and oversight into all the content you’re publishing, the customer journey can become confusing and frustrating, sending your audience off to a competitor. 

2. Empower marketer and developer collaboration with low-code tools 

Meeting the rising demand for new, more personalized content requires organizations to eliminate barriers between internal teams and take a holistic approach to creating digital experiences. 

Our survey found that 83% of marketers still struggle to create content that can be rapidly released across all their digital platforms. If businesses want to reach maximum efficiency and get new experiences to market faster, they need to use their teams to their full potential. 

Today, 72% of marketers require help from technologists to create digital customer experiences. Rather than waiting for developers to fulfill requests, modern marketers need tools that will put them in control of shaping the customer experience from end to end. 

3. Bridge the gap between customer privacy and personalization with first-party data  

One of the greatest points of disconnect our CX Trends Report revealed was in marketers’ and consumers’ perceptions of how organizations use individuals’ personal data. 

Marketing teams need customer data to create personalized experiences, but customers want to have meaningful experiences with a brand before providing them with this information. This is the privacy and personalization paradox. 54% of global marketers found that increasing personalization efforts led to more engagement with consumers. 

So how can we bridge the customer trust gap? Our survey points to first-party data as the secret weapon that will keep companies successful in the long term.

While the future of digital transformation is often unpredictable, the customer experiences your brand offers should feel seamless and trustworthy. Learn more about how today’s marketers create more unified customer experiences in our new global report, Deliver a Modern Digital CX: A Guide for Marketing Innovators.