The new frontier of intelligent digital experiences

It’s often said that exceptional customer experience is the only sustainable platform for competitive differentiation. Businesses either thrive or fail based on their customer experience; and winning hearts and minds has never been more critical or difficult.

In the post-pandemic digital age, customers have very high expectations and their needs can change quickly, all whilst the competition is fierce, and switching to alternative products and services can be near instant.

It is a relentless and constant battleground, to the extent that a recent Gartner study found that over 80% of organisations expect to compete mainly on customer experience (CX) in the coming years. To win, firms must be at the leading edge of customer experience, which is no mean feat.

Especially when, we are entering a new epoch for the industry, as we move impersonal digital experiences into the realm of AI-powered intelligent digital experiences.

The promise of intelligent digital experiences

Since the 1950s, we’ve built software to enhance the efficiency, accessibility, and scalability of delivering services. This often involved automating human touchpoints, sidelining the people who deeply understood, empathised with, and problem-solved for customers.

While software bolstered revenue growth, bottom lines and expanded market reach, it came at the cost of the intimacy, warmth and personalisation brought by a trusted bank manager who knows your family history or the record shop expert who understands your tastes.

However, recent breakthroughs in AI enable us to enhance customer experiences by reintroducing this personal touch without compromising scale and efficiency. This is the promise of intelligent digital experiences.

Intelligent digital experiences sit somewhere between evolution and revolution. They are a natural progression based on an advancing view on human behaviour and motivation, the rapid progression of consumer digital technology and the revolutionary effect that advances in AI technology promises.

They enable an improved understanding and deeper, more personal connection with customers through the injection of deep insights, supporting users on engaging and outcome-based journeys, delivered frictionlessly over digital channels and connected ecosystems.

And perhaps most tantalisingly for executives, they promise the panacea of top and bottom line business outcomes. They are a critical revenue driver in the battle to attract and retain customers, and at the same time they will deliver next generation customer self-service and service automation, driving down cost to serve and improving profitability.

The three components of intelligent digital experiences

There are three components that define intelligent digital experiences, and encapsulate the tightly-interconnected and mutually reinforced capabilities that come together to deliver them.

Intelligent digital experiences are:

Designed based on a deep understanding of user needs and how to engage to drive positive outcomes

Using human-centred design to understand the needs of users, map out jobs to be done, and create seamless experiences and visually compelling products is not new. It’s really table stakes for modern digital platforms, certainly at the leading end of the market. Although, many experiences still fall short of this mark.

The real edge is applying behavioural science to understand human behaviours and motivations. This takes user understanding to the next level by understanding their deeper needs and using techniques such as gamification and nudge theory to guide them toward positive outcomes.

Informed by real-time insights and data to drive personalised and adaptive experiences based on a user’s context, goals and needs

Firms have been focussed on building a more holistic view of the customer for years – breaking down silos, developing 360 customer models, leveraging 3rd party data and experimenting with AI/ML in creating models such as Next Best Action.

The edge now comes in two areas: the ability to leverage the rapid progress in Generative AI and the use of real-time context data and behavioural biometrics from digital devices such as mobiles, wearables and sensor technology to generate instant insights that drive personalised and adaptive journeys.

Delivered seamlessly across channels and digital technology users want to use

The final piece is the digital technology itself, and this can cover everything from web, mobile, wearables, IoT devices and more. Mastery of the technology as both the distribution mechanism of the intelligent digital experience, and the real-time data capture mechanism that is needed for personalised and adaptive journeys, is the critical final piece of the puzzle.

Industries and firms are becoming increasingly connected, and the edge now lies in the ability to master experience delivered across interconnected digital ecosystems.

These 3 components are all interconnected and self-reinforcing. For example, a deep understanding of a user’s needs helps us design the best experience, but this also needs to be data and insight-driven to understand and adapt to real-time circumstances. An expert understanding of the capabilities of digital technology to take full advantage of modern consumer devices. User engagement drives more real-time data capture, deepening our understanding to drive even more informed experiences, and the cycle continues.

Delivering to both customer and business outcomes

Revolutionising clinical trials

• Problem statement: Physical clinical trials are expensive and have a high dropout rate, how can we leverage the latest digital and data technologies to reduce cost and improve engagement with the same level of quality?
• Solution: Waracle worked with a client to digitise clinical trials through the development of mobile-based intelligent digital experiences. Gamified experience design combined with exploitation of mobile sensor technology enabled us to engage users in cognitive, visual, vocal, dexterity and mobility assessments for a range of conditions and capture clinical-level data for trial analysis. The results were significantly improved cost, patient engagement and retention, and overall health outcomes.

Our digital health experience >

Disrupting the SME banking market

• Problem statement: How do we create an SME banking experience that clients will truly love to use and that will drive positive outcomes for their business?
• Solution: Waracle worked with a leading UK bank to design and deliver a native-mobile intelligent digital experience for SME banking customers. We used a deep understanding of SME business needs and workflows to develop an engaging experience powered by data-driven insights and analytics tools that leverage open banking data to provide smart decision support and workflow automation.

Our commercial banking experience >

Empowering people with wealth and later life management

• Problem statement: How do we encourage customers to engage more regularly with their pensions and life savings, educate and empower them, and give them peace of mind?
• Solution: Waracle worked with a leading wealth manager to design an interactive intelligent digital experience for later life planning. The proposition was based on providing customers education, insight and empowerment and creating an engaging experience that encouraged them to regularly interact and take advantage of a range of later life planning services. The web and mobile experience was a differentiating proposition. It gave customers a sense of control and comfort in their later-life planning and created a stronger bond of trust and loyalty.

Our wealth mgmt & pensions experience >

How to get started

Customer experience is the biggest competitive differentiator in industry today, and the firms that establish a winning position will be those who are best able to understand their customers goals, needs and outcomes and who can create intelligent digital experiences that deliver personalised and seamless experience across all digital channels and connected ecosystems.

At Waracle, we have been at the leading edge of customer experience innovation for over 15 years. We partner with clients in highly regulated industries to help them to create competitive advantage through market-leading intelligent digital experiences.

If you need help defining, designing of engineering intelligent customer experiences, get in touch with us today!