Have you mapped your business against a digital maturity framework? If you haven’t, allow me to briefly explain why this is such an important step for an organization serious about digital transformation.
A digital maturity framework is a method for digital teams to assess where you are in digital transformation, where you want to be and how to get there. The starting point is to benchmark where your organization sits on a measurement scale and workshop what you need to do to reach the ‘ideal state’ of maturity. The ultimate goal is to positively impact your digital customer experience (CX), effectively reduce cost and increase revenue.
There are many frameworks, methods and scales to help you through this process. A key success criteria is to ensure the assessment is taken by several people within an organization in order to gather different views on the state of maturity.
The importance of communication as a key competency
In my opinion, any framework that doesn’t view communications as a core competency, would be incomplete. Mastering communications alone can drastically move the needle within any organization. Your organization can have a beautiful website, a sexy app and a slick product offering, however, if these channels and products don’t make use of integrated, intelligent digital communications to leverage their functionality you are flogging a dead horse.
Inconsistent digital communication takes many forms. Oftentimes there is a lack of consistency across different channels which can range from tone and font all the way through to logos and call-to-action. With these kinds of disparate communications sent to customers, campaigns are often a game of hit and miss. The key to creating consistency is integrated planning for communication. Many organizations have already implemented shared service areas like Marketing and Customer Engagement. This is a great start, however on its own, will not push the needle in terms of CX, cost or revenue.
Strategic planning on top of the above mentioned integrated approach takes it to the next level. Not all shared service areas are able to provide strategies for improvement based on past mistakes and a deep understanding of customer communication preferences and requirements.
Engage with specialists
A specialist in digital communication can help your business reach higher levels on the maturity framework through a deep understanding of communications across multiple industries, organizations and product sets, that kicks off the journey to true digital communication maturity. In addition to strategy, a digital communication service provider can assist to consolidate, store, clean and enrich the foundation of digital capability – data, by providing the resources and expertise required to setup and execute digital communications across a range of channels.
Digital communication is complex with many moving parts. It becomes even more so when required at scale, with documents, hyper personalization, in depth reporting and storage.
A well thought out and executed digital communication process will:
- Address customer journeys;
- Offer omnichannel experiences;
- Reduce cost (through digital education, paper suppression, efficiency and outsourcing)
- Increase revenue (through better communication performance, customer loyalty and improved response to call-to-action).
These are exactly the levers every organisation on a path of digital maturity is targeting to improve CX through understanding and meeting the customer where they are.
Interested in talking through how a digital maturity framework will assist your transformation process?
Nicola Els
Commercial Strategist - Striata Africa
Nicola is Commercial Strategist for Striata South Africa, focused on assisting leading brands in SA and Africa with their digital communication strategies.
Nicola began her career working for a property related IT company. In 2008, she became Head of eBilling for Striata SA and was promoted into the role of Commercial Director. Nicola has since gained significant experience in the banking sector, as Head of Commercialize for Absa Digital Channels and Barclays Africa, followed by a position with Standard Bank, where her focus was on building socially integrated customer banking channels. Nicola also has a number of years’ experience in consulting within the digital space, helping startups and small business grow their digital assets.
Nicola’s professional certifications and licenses include a Bachelor of Arts (English and Law) and an LLB from the University of Johannesburg.
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