5 key takeaways from CX circle Singapore

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Here’s what you missed at the inaugural CX Circle Singapore.

Now that the champagne’s been drunk and the red carpet is packed and on its way to CX Circle Sydney, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on 5 key takeaways from CX Circle Singapore.

graph chart showing 7% of companies ahead of the digital experience maturity curve

The time to invest in your digital experience is now

John O’Melia, Chief Customer Officer at Contentsquare believes that despite the current economic climate and decreased tech budgets, now is the time to invest in digital experience analytics if you want to stay ahead of the curve. We live in the age of experience, and we know that understanding your customer on a level that traditional analytics cannot offer is what will drive conversions and increase revenue. 84% of customers say that brand experience is as important as its product or services, and with the cost of customer acquisition rising every year, brands urgently need to prioritize digital experience to differentiate themselves from their competitors and join that top tier 7% of brands that are considered to be digitally mature.

A seamless user experience will keep your customers coming back time and time again

The customer might not be always right, but it’s the customer that determines your bottom line, and it goes without saying that understanding how they behave on your platforms ⸺web and mobile⸺ goes a long way in impacting conversion. In a session by Decathlon, France’s largest sporting retailer, the team shared how different Contentsquare features are helping them get a better understanding of their customer behavior. Here’s what they found in their analysis: :

The customer journey analysis tool revealed a bounce rate of 36% on their mobile landing page
Click recurrence showed that a large percentage of users were repeatedly hitting the ‘home’ button, despite already being on the home page
Zoning Analysis revealed that a low percentage of users were using the search bar, which is a main entry point to the product catalog and a tool Decathlon’s invested heavily in.

All three points indicated user confusion and frustration. Off the back of these insights, the team made tweaks to the home page that resulted in a major uptick in conversion rate.

Be inclusive and don’t forget about digital accessibility

“A show of hands if you’ve heard about digital accessibility” opened the digital accessibility workshop by SG Enable and Contentsquare. Few hands were raised, highlighting the lack of awareness around the topic. One would imagine that more would know about it, considering that 15% global population has a disability and are unable to navigate the web, which translates to roughly £2 billion in lost revenue. It is obvious that brands need to implement accessibility into their platforms not just for revenue, but also to promote a more inclusive digital world. As more aspects of our lives are lived online, brands must not fail to recognize the business value of accessibility:

Reach a wider audience. By making your platforms more accessible, you’ll naturally attract and reach a more diverse pool of customers
Increase business impact. The larger audience you serve through accessible websites and communications, the higher the impact on revenue
Achieve compliance. You can easily leverage built-in assistive technologies and support services to meet requirements

A great quote was shared that sums up the mindset all brands should have when approaching digital accessibility:

“At the start of every project, whether this is for a whole product, customer experience, a component or feature, get the whole team to answer the question ‘who are we willing to exclude?’” – Gareth Ford Williams, (Former) Accessibility Expert, BBC

Invest in your people

In a discussion with Pizza Hut Singapore, L’Oreal and foodpanda, panelists were asked what the foundations of a great digital experience looked like across the board. The consensus was clear that any great company is made up of its people, and not just any people but people who know how to use the tools you’ve provided them. Investing in their growth is investing in your brand. We live in a time where brands are scrambling to bridge the gap between brick-and-mortar and digital, and recreating the in-store experience online requires innovative thinking and creative solutions. For example, L’Oreal is tapping into AI to determine your skin type, which will then recommend a skincare regime for you ⸺ replicating the in-store experience of getting assistance from a sales rep. Such innovation can only come from a team that “has been empowered with the autonomy to be creative and experiment, and has the freedom to execute solutions,” says Bharath Krishnamachari, Head of Product Analytics & Experimentation, foodpanda.

Align on your “North Star” metric

Vasu Venkataraman, Head of Platform Growth at Fairprice, Singapore’s largest grocery retail chain and a Contentsquare customer, took attendees through the group’s journey of transforming a purely physical business into one that is not just omni-channel, but also omni-vertical. In a business as multi-faceted as theirs, metrics are important. However, it is important to keep in mind that as different teams chase after their metrics, they ultimately need to align to a common goal. This is what Vasu calls a ‘North Star’ metric. All businesses need to identify their North Star metric to guide roadmaps and prioritize what to optimize. This also ensures that vanity metrics ⸺ metrics that do not contribute to the overall business impact ⸺ are eliminated and teams are able to focus on the right areas.

Hypothetical North Star metric for a grocery app He shared how Fairprice used to have a team that focused solely on optimizing the home page, going as far as below the third and fourth fold. They’d change up what viewers would see depending on the weather or occasion (ice cream for stay-in rainy days or chocolates for Mother’s Day), but after doing some analysis, realized that a majority of their customers would navigate away from the home page almost immediately after landing. They quickly turned their attention to where customers were navigating instead. Understanding what to prioritize positively impacts your business, and delivers the experience your customers expect.