- Voice of the Customer
- Customer Journeys
- Virtual Customer Assistants
- Digital Commerce
- Customer Analytics
Customer & User Experience
Explore the conference topics and stay ahead
Hot Topics covered at Gartner IT Symposium will include
Customer experience management is at the top of the CEO’s agenda. CEOs, CIOs and chief marketing officers have become interested in this topic because low-cost and ubiquitous access to information for customers, the rise of globalization, and the “death of distance” mean that customers are more empowered than ever. While this isn’t true of every industry and geography, it’s the case in more sectors every day.
Customers can compare experiences across industries and force regulators and governments to be more accountable. At the same time, competitive differentiation — achieved through a strategic decision to invent better products that are hard to imitate, or by being the most efficient producer of a service — has diminished over time. What remains the same is how challenging it is to create a superior customer experience that will serve as a sustainable differentiator.
The top challenges for enterprisewide CRM projects are in gaining executive buy-in, organizational change management, process definition, technology adoption, defining a clear strategy and measuring the business benefits. The top challenges for CX initiatives are how to get started with CX, defining a clear CX vision, measuring the voice of the customer, setting up an effective governance structure, project prioritization and measuring business benefits.
Analyst Q&A with Jim Davies, VP Analyst
1. How has this topic evolved since last year? Have you noticed any major changes in the market, strategy or technology?
A: In a recent Gartner CX leader’s survey, three-quarters of surveyed respondents say that their organization has increased technology investment for CX in 2018. Customer analytics continues to be one of the biggest technology investments for CX, with a focus on areas such as AI, customer journey analysis, customer needs analysis, VoC and digital marketing.
2. What’s one of the biggest mistakes organizations make when it comes to this topic?
A: The top mistakes organizations make with their CX initiatives include the absence of a clearly defined CX vision, an inability to measure the voice of the customer, an ineffective governance structure, poor project prioritization and an inability to measure the business benefits.
3. How are IT leaders leveraging this topic to transform their organizations?
A: IT Leaders are working actively with CX leaders to help provide a CX project portfolio, build a metrics dashboard with an equal balance of leading indicators of CX success and lagging indicators of financial success. They are helping to introduce innovative tools that will support newly designed customer journeys that will ultimately transform the customer experience.
4. Finish this sentence: “If organizations don’t get their digital business transformation right, they will….”
A: ….can face a CX crisis that can result in the removal of funding for a CX initiative or its cancellation. This may in turn lead to a decline in the quality of customer experience provided, weakened financial performance of the organization, and an erosion of competitive position.
5. How attending Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2020 will help IT leaders with their priorities and key initiatives?
A: The foundations of successful CX initiatives require coordination, direction and accountability. To be the best, however, requires a more radical, transformative strategy supported by new technologies, emerging design practices, and advances in organization structure and culture. All of these topics are discussed at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2019.
Why should customer experience be important to CIOs?
- 75% of organizations are just getting started or in the early stages of their customer experience journey.
- Customer experience is a cross-enterprise initiative - every business unit has a role to play, but in most organizations, there is very little coordination.
- CIOs need to step up – as the hub for customer information, customer focused initiatives and business impact, they have a vital role to play.
- However, CIOs are struggling to define their role, how to prioritize and measure impact, define their customers’ journey and truly partner with their C-suite peers.
