The delivery of seamless customer experiences (CX) has become a top priority for businesses considering digital transformation initiatives, as 85% of buyers would pay more for a great CX. The customer will go elsewhere if they do not have a positive experience–not only are they willing to pay more for a positive experience. The numbers aren’t as shocking as they seem: 33% of customers abandon brands after just one bad experience, and 92% abandon a company after only two or three negative experiences. To gain new prospects from competitors while retaining existing customers, companies want to provide a positive customer experience.
Customer experience software should follow established DevOps practices and strategies to ensure quality customer service. CX DevOps provides the ability to deliver software that has a high level of quality, while also ensuring a great customer experience. DevOps for customer experience is not without its pitfalls, however. Customer-facing companies must avoid these six major pitfalls before implementing the technology.
DevOps for Customer Experience: What is it?
Understanding DevOps for CX requires a preliminary understanding of the challenges
To boost efficiency and quality, DevOps for CX focuses DevOps methodology on the unique aspects of CX software. Organizations that are undergoing digital transformation are placing a priority on the continuous development of new software features and capabilities that enhance customer experience. Nevertheless, high quality cannot be sacrificed for the speedy development of software products for customer experience and customer service. In the meantime, companies must still deliver software within tight deadlines and handle rapid innovations.
More than ever, customers expect more. Customer experience isn’t something consumers can get a second chance at these days. CX failures are broadcast on social media for the whole world to see. A brand’s reputation depends on executing flawlessly from the customer’s first impression, given the visibility of CX mishaps and negative customer interactions.
In testing and developing software, the customer’s perspective must always be taken into account. Thus, user experience (UX) design solutions and CX testing and monitoring processes specific to DevOps are in high demand. Real-time monitoring and testing must be done in the design, development, and testing phases of software development. Identify and correct any potential issues before customers experience them by knowing the different ways a customer may use the software.
Six Potential Pitfalls of DevOps for Customer Experience
- Executive sponsorship and cultural evolution are underinvested
A culture of transformation must be led by an executive leader who will champion organizational change and strategic investments. Because customer experience initiatives are typically cross-functional, an executive leader is needed: Operations, business development, marketing, sales, customer service, and so on.
Depending on the company’s organizational structure, the leader who takes on this responsibility may be an existing executive or a brand new role. In some companies, this responsibility is assigned to the chief operating officer, chief information officer, or chief marketing officer, while in other companies, it is assigned to a distinct chief customer officer role, allowing the leader to focus fully on the CX transformation program. To make their role effectively, a DevOps for CX champion must have the authority over budget, people, and processes.
- Incentives competing and misaligned
DevOps is a collaborative effort. DevOps for customer experience projects will be executed smoothly if the teams’ objectives and incentives are aligned. As a general principle, team objectives should suit their functions without opposing other teams’ objectives. For example, a development team should set goals that prioritize speed and low defects, while an operations team should aim for high reliability. Customer satisfaction goals should be associated with functional team objectives.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are unclear
As a result of implementing DevOps, organizations must adopt a more collaborative mindset. All teams must understand, agree on, and monitor DevOps for CX KPIs since these initiatives are multi-team collaborations. It is also vital to define KPIs on an operational scale so Customer Experience can be measured.
- DevSecOps are not prioritized
DevSecOps has become ubiquitous in DevOps but is often overlooked by organizations. Data privacy laws differ from region to region, so it’s important for larger organizations that operate globally to ensure they’re following local regulations. The risk of fines and other punitive actions for organizations that don’t follow regulations is high.
To protect your customers and your organization, you can test security features in production. DevOps security is often the last aspect to be discussed.
- Configuration differences between CX delivery environments
As these environments are often configured differently, switching between development, quality assurance, staging, and production can be extremely frustrating for DevOps teams. The use of deployment automation will help prevent time wasted fixing bugs that suddenly appear as a result of code moving throughout the lifecycle and between different environments.
- Outdated or manual processes can introduce errors
As a result of manual processes, mistakes and delays can occur, resulting in unplanned work. Manual software testing is a sluggish process that both compromises quality and delays delivery, and reduces the amount of developer time available to execute any unplanned changes or rework that needs to be done post-testing. CX systems are tested more thoroughly and reliably through automation, resulting in faster speeds and greater quality and reliability. Developers are then able to spend more time post-testing the product to ensure it meets quality requirements.
By providing high-quality software and maintaining exceptional customer experiences, DevOps for CX allows companies to innovate customer experience rapidly. Over the coming years, CX leaders will continue to refine DevOps for CX practices as they innovate new products and services through software. Until then, the best practices outlined here will ensure that the customer experience is maintained at an elevated level by avoiding the six major pitfalls.
Customer service can be improved by DevOps
Multiple ways can be improved by embracing DevOps:
Rapid response to customer complaints, inquiries, or feedback: Customers today expect a fast (if not instant) response and resolution to their inquiries and issues. They can easily jump ship to a competitor if they find your product lacking in that area while leaving you horrible reviews on the web. With a DevOps approach, you can fix errors as they are discovered and deploy updates as soon as they are released.
Improved product development speed: Using a streamlined DevOps approach helps create products built on customer feedback in half the time it would take using a traditional method. As a result of DevOps, the time it takes to create a cutting-edge product has been reduced from months and years to weeks or even days.
Cost efficiency:As a DevOps approach requires less time, it helps better manage overall product development costs. Then you may price your products in the marketplace more competitively while meeting budgetary demands.
When you leverage DevOps, you can ensure that customer service, operations, and development teams work closely together to accelerate development and costs. Overall, you can see both a stronger bottom line and improved customer service.
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