Harnessing the power of digital data and technology to improve the customer experience are driving SDL’s vision for the future
“Eighty percent of companies feel that they deliver a good customer experience. The reality is that this figure is eleven percent so we need to improve” said SDL’s Chief Technology Officer Dennis Van der Veeke, citing research from a report into customer experience by Forrester.
In research from global marketing intelligence agency IDC conducted in 2013, it was found that there was 4.4 zettabytes (one zettabyte equals 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data in the digital world. The projection that by 2020, this figure will be 44 zettabytes of data reinforced the emphasis that SDL sees on integrating digital technology into improving the customer experience.
“If you can analyse your customer journey and then use those analytics to actually figure out what to do, you can grow twenty percent faster than your peers which is a significant change in growth rate. Seventy eight percent are more likely to buy if communicated in their own language and data driven personalisation improves ROI by 15-20%” said Mark Lancaster, founder of SDL. “If you can provide a really good personalised experience to a user then they’re far more likely to be satisfied and if it’s to do with a purchase then they’re far more likely to make that purchase.”
The recent SDL innovate conference held in Sydney saw over 150 Consumer and Retail professionals in attendance to gain insight into technological trends that can accelerate business growth. The event also offered the opportunity for directors, managers and consultants within the industry to network amidst the informative sessions.
Mr Lancaster spoke of the importance for customer journey analytics as an area of investment. “We’re investing to provide real time customer behaviour, topic modelling so we can actually analyse what users are doing thinking and then apply that to the customer journey, so that you can tune your organisation to actually deliver a really good customer experience.”
Looking ahead to the next technological innovations that will drive customer experience, Mr Lancaster spoke of SDL bringing sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence into focus. “The internet is not an important channel, it’s the channel. We believe it’s all about having integrated technology that can help our customers solve business problems and specifically focus on delivering a great customer experience.”