The focus on the customer experience (CX), as well as the content, has risen steadily in recent years and has been largely a ‘south to north’ phenomenon. 2018 is the year of CX again as companies get a quantifiable uplift from a customer-centric approach and organizations committed to CX are shown to outperform their peers. Take a quick glance at the most significant trends that will impact companies in the short to medium term:

A Review of 2017 Digital Performance:

• In 2017, optimizing the customer experience was the top single most important opportunity for 22% of the surveyed organizations, ahead of creating compelling content for digital experiences (16%) and data-driven marketing that focuses on the individual (12%).
• 42% of respondents said that their companies have met their top business goal, while 18% indicated that they’ve exceeded their top business goal by a significant margin.

What Is Top of the Digital Agenda for 2018

• Optimizing customer experience comes out on top of the most exciting opportunity for the surveyed organization, with a rate of 19%.
• As the right cultural environment is a critical requirement for success, 74% of respondents agreeing that they have a ‘cross-team approach with the customer at the heart of all initiatives’.
• When it comes to improving CX, the main focus of North American and European respondents is on making the experience as valuable as possible (29% and 23% respectively), whereas those in APAC are most likely to focus on making the experience as personalized and relevant as possible (21%).
• It worth to be mentioned that, APAC survey respondents are more likely than their peers in other regions to prioritize the safety and reliability of the experience, and also the speed of the experience.

The Role of Content in Delivering a Great Customer Experience (CX)

• 45% of companies surveyed rank content and experience management as one of their 3 most important priority areas for the year ahead, with 20% stating that this is their primary focus.
• 82% of respondents agree they are looking to bring content creation in-house.
• Organizations that are bringing content creation in-house are 29% more likely to have exceeded their top 2017 business goal by a significant margin (18% vs. 14%).
• The next most important areas of priority for organizations are analytics and audience and data management, cited as top 3 priorities by 32% and 31% of respondents respectively.

Optimisation of the Customer Experience Is the Single Most Exciting Opportunity for Organisation in 2018

Methodology:

Data were driven from a total of 12,795 digital marketing and e-commerce professionals across EMEA, North America and the Asia Pacific. Respondents included 60% marketing professionals from the client-side and 40% from the supply-side (including agency marketers, consultants and those working for technology vendors or other service providers). This online survey carried out between November 2017 and January 2018.