How To Transform Digital Customer Experiences For The Connected Customer

HOW TO
TRANSFORM
DIGITAL CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCES
FOR THE CONNECTED CUSTOMER
By Brian Solis
Thought leadership study by Altimeter Group on behalf of Genesys

THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS:
A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IMPERATIVE
Executive Summary
We live in an era of business overflowing with incredible opportunity. The future is not yet written;
there are no instructions or cheat sheets to give you all the answers. What happens next is actually
yours to define.
That makes this time both challenging and exciting. But it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for
those who are happy with good enough or who are already burnt out at work. Shaping the future of
business will require energy and drive. You’re reading this, so I can assume you’re ready to take on
the challenge.
Steve Jobs once said, “You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
When it comes to the future of business and our role in it, trust is everything.
But what can we trust? What will give us the confidence we need to move forward in new directions
without the comfort of familiarity or experience?
Place your trust in the very people who define or will define your business: your customers. They and
the experience you give them will make or break your business.
How you invest in your customer experience (CX) is the difference between a compelling competitive
advantage and mediocrity and irrelevance.
It’s a bold leap forward to trust something as fickle as a customer relationship. But what if it wasn’t
so fickle? What if the customer relationship were inherently trustworthy because of the effort you
invested in its promise?
That’s the importance of CX. Customer relationships are a byproduct of the experience you design,
support and reinforce.
Everything starts with a vision for what the customer experience could be compared to what it is
today. Naturally, you’ll find a gap. Closing this gap immediately is your CX imperative. Investing in the
CX to bring your vision to life is your competitive advantage.
CX matters.
Every touch matters.
And a team working with a common vision takes this to an entirely different level.
2

Customer experience is the sum of all engagements a customer has with you during the customer
lifecycle. This relationship is an ongoing evolution and series of changes, comprising several
moments of truth, beginning with awareness and discovery; shaped by information and interaction;
defined by purchase and use; and reinforced by cultivation, loyalty, and advocacy.
Collectively these engagements contribute to the experience someone has and shares and ultimately
to the state of brand in aggregate.
It’s a pretty big deal to say the least. There are so many ways we can get this wrong or right.
At a basic level, customer engagement is organized into five stages:
1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Transaction
4. Use/Consumption
5. Inactivity
Your colleagues’ and your work is dedicated to ensuring customer interest and satisfaction in each
stage. Individually they are important; together, they are decisive to your business’s success. This is
why your CX is an imperative.
Engagement happens with or without us at every stage of the customer lifecycle. And each moment
does one of three things:
• Adds to the customer experience
• Does nothing for it
• Takes away from it
Over time, the adding and subtracting from these moments equate to a score that much more
powerful and meaningful than a Net Promoter Score (NPS).
If CX is the aggregate of engagement in every moment of truth, then each moment is only worth
one part of an overall experience. For example, if you excel at marketing and sales but fail in product
experience, customer support, or customer loyalty programs, you would have, at best, only thrived
in two-fifths of each key moment. Your customers don’t see departments; they see one company,
one brand. If one fails to deliver, then the entirety of the experience is dramatically affected. Each
moment’s value is measured and added to an overall score. You can’t win in just one, two, or even
three moments. You have to sweep every moment.
Let’s look at customer service. While some may think it plays only a small part in shaping customer
relationships, in reality it affects every engagement throughout the lifecycle. They all add up.
3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
The State of Customer Experience ............................................................
Separating Good Customer Service from the Bad ...................................
Shared Experiences Communicate the State of the Customer Experience .........
The Generation Divide: A New Era of Customer-Centric Service ..............
Prioritize Behaviors Before Tools, but Technology Is the Key Enabler .........
Change Starts with Customer Empathy First, Then Vision .......................
The Digital CX Ushers in Digital Transformation .......................................
The State of Digital Transformation ...........................................................
The Digital Transformation Checklist ........................................................
5
7
10
10
11
12
14
16
22
4

Genesys’s study also
indicates that 84% of
consumers would share
a negative customer
service or sales
experience. When asked
the communication
methods for sharing
that experience, good
or bad, 37.2% reported
social media and 36.7%
reported other online
communities
5
THE STATE OF
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
CX is personal for your customers, but it’s also a social object
whose value goes beyond one person. The impression you
leave on someone, regardless of the engagement stage,
can evolve into a customer expression that is shared online
and in the real world with those who will listen. Those shared
experiences are social objects because they invite interaction.
And ultimately those expressions influence others, who may or
may not have ever had direct contact with you.
You get the idea.
In every moment of truth, then, positive experiences aren’t just
necessary, they’re the new standard.
CUSTOMERS WILL PAY FOR
BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE
In 2014, Genesys, the market leader in omnichannel customer
experience and contact center solutions, conducted a survey of
2,000 US and UK consumers. Among the findings, the company
learned that 93% of respondents were likely to recommend a
product or service after a positive customer service experience.
Of course they would. Great experiences become social objects.
In addition, Genesys learned that the return on investment
(ROI) of delivering a great CX is priceless. For example, over
32% of the highly coveted 18–24 year olds in the US are very
likely to pay a premium for an above-average CX. And it turns
out that every demographic is willing to pay a premium if
people are assured of a great CX.
Imagine that.
On the other hand, a staggering 99% cited that poor customer
experiences, such as having to repeat themselves, and lengthy
waiting a long times, etc., would switch companies or brands as
a result.

Figure 1
6
Source: Genesys, 2014
Which communication methods would you use to share
your good or bad customer experiences?
For 18–24 year olds, social media and online communities trend even higher,
at 62% and 47.8%, respectively.
Social media
Review site / online communities
Email
Company website
Customer service agent / representative
None of the above
37.2%
36.7%
27.4%
21.1%
20.0%
19.6%
Age affected how
many people picked
Social media.
Age affected how
many people picked
Review site /
online communities
47.8%
52.6%
33.3%
28.1%
32.4%
62.2%
53.1%
28.5%
24.0%
18-24
34-44
45-54
55-64
65+
18-24
34-44
45-54
55-64

CUSTOMER SERVICE IMPACTS
CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS
Similarly, in a 2014 global
report, Accenture found that
61% of global consumers
switched service
providers in at least one
of 10 industries, which
represents a 4% increase
over the previous year. Not
surprisingly of course, 82%
agreed their previous provider
could have done something different to prevent
them from switching.1
Imagine that.
What sent the customer packing? The usual suspects
of course, ranging from resolving their issue on the
first contact to lacking proactive communication
to learn about ways to improve their customer
experience.
But here’s the thing that businesses have yet
to really understand or appreciate: Customer
retention is far more cost effective than customer
acquisition. There’s really no excuse not to invest
in the customer experience because it impacts
the bottom line. After any negative experience in
marketing and sales, for instance, 60% of global
customers stopped doing business immediately and
66% started to look for other options they hadn’t
previously considered. An overwhelming majority
of global consumers (85%) switched providers
because companies simply “don’t make it easy to
do business with them.”
Interestingly enough, the report also found that
consumers are becoming acutely aware of the
data and buying preference these companies are
gathering and are now coming to expect more
value-added offerings. Only 21% of customers
felt1
like their providers offered them a customized
experience. Things could be better. Business could
also be more personal.
SEPARATING GOOD CUSTOMER
SERVICE FROM THE BAD
Both the Genesys and Accenture surveys show that
negative engagement takes away from the CX.
Other common issues continue to crop up, like the
dreaded “hold of death,” negatively impacting
customer perceptions and experience, including:
• Giving the same information or repeating
themselves multiple times
• Getting transferred (and maybe even dropped)
multiple times
• Dealing with agents who don’t have a full grasp of
callers’ native language
• Not being able to get through the system to talk
to a real person
• Being unable to get the information needed to
resolve the issue
• Having to use private information to verify
personal identify
The great irony is that customers are contacting
customer service. It hardly seems like companies
are adequately serving their customers to truly
win their loyalty. We are missing opportunities to
provide support in ways people value. That notion
of loyalty is becoming elusive in its meaning and its
ability to earn it among customers. As of 2013, only
23% of consumers said they feel loyal towards their
providers. That’s pathetic. And at least one-third
of consumers said they always consider shopping
around for better deals. Significant portions of
customers are now part of what Accenture has
dubbed the Switching Economy, which is estimated
at $1.3 trillion in the US alone.
Contacting customer support almost seems like a
last resort. In fact, 82% of consumers agree that they
only contact customer service when they can’t find an
answer online. Among Millennials, this is especially
true: 87% percent of this group agree with this
statement, and that number is only going to increase.
7
61%
of global consumers
switched service
providers

Why? Because according to a study done by
Merchants (a Dimension Data company), many
Millennials and Generation Z behind them don’t use
a phone the way the rest of us do.2
Actually calling
someone or leaving voicemail is almost a foreign
concept. They’re far more proficient online than we
can imagine or appreciate.
Did you know that among Millennials, or Generation
Y in the graphic above, the phone is their fourth
choice for customer engagement, behind electronic
messaging, social media, smartphone apps, and “I
don’t know.” It only ranks above paper mail.
What’s more is that Generation X is not far behind.
OneReach, a company that integrates voice and SMS
platforms for businesses, found that 44% customers
would rather text customer service than stay on
hold. This is something that we hear consistently.
Additionally, 88% of younger customers (18+)3
would
choose to do business with a company that offers
text as an option for engagement rather than those
that do not.
This trend signals the future shape of CX. The
results highlight just how little organizations know
about customers through digital channel interaction
and how infrequently strategists ask them about
their experience.
How can you improve CX if you don’t know what the
experience is or what’s desired?
It’s no wonder that Merchants found that customer
satisfactions levels were down for a fourth year
running. After all, frontline contact center staff
reported that they couldn’t keep pace with the
complexity of transactions. They also admitted that
they aren’t being equipped with the new tools or skills
needed to keep up with increasing and diversifying
customer expectations. This complexity isn’t going to
simplify. It will only become more complex.
Over time, as all generations become more digital
in their own respective ways, we can expect channel
preferences to change over time.
8
Figure 2
Age proﬁle Phone Electronic
messaging
(e.g. email,
SMS)
Social
media
Smartphone
application
Paper mail Don’t know
Silent generation
(born before 1944)
55.6 6.6 0.7 0.3 17.2 38.0
Baby boomers
(born between 1945 - 1960)
59.6 22.5 3.5 3.0 13.4 33.8
Generation X
(born between 1961 - 1989)
46.3 44.1 20.7 17.2 9.6 33.4
Generation Y (Millennials)
(born after 1990)
29.4 42.3 36.4 31.9 5.9 33.1
Age-proﬁled channels | 2013/14 Report sample question
Which channels are most popular with your age-profiled customers?
Percentage of contact centres | n=574
Source: ‘Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2013/14, © Dimension Data 2009–2013’
http://www.dimensiondata.com/Global/Downloadable%20Documents/2013_14_benchmarking%20summary%20report.pdf

9
DON’T STOP AT IMPROVING
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Is improving the customer experience an opportunity or just an exercise in futility?
After all, we’re just talking about one small part of the CX here: customer service.
Yet without proactively investing in anything less than a complete overhaul in CX,
we can only contend with part of the problem. What’s the value in that?
Sooner or later, all things comes to an end. And while every customer relationship
ends at different stages for different reasons, a relationship should never terminate
prematurely because you neglected to invest in the experience a customer has and
shares in every moment of truth. You have to define a standard for CX. Then you
need to develop a strategy and roadmap to bring it to life. Finally, you have to hold
all work to that standard. If you don’t, those relationships will end too soon, and
you miss the opportunity to create and cultivate the CX.
So what, you say. Negative customer experiences happen every day. Some things
are out of our control. There are customers that cannot be saved.
But most of us would agree that customer acquisition is more expensive in terms of
money, time, and resources than that of customer retention. If that’s true, then why
is CX limited in priority, scope, and scale today?
The answer lies in how companies value the CX role within its culture and vision.
You’re customer-centric or you aren’t.
Part of the challenge is that business strategists largely miss the gravity and
transformative nature of CX because they think CX is solely about customer service
and support. It is after all, a delicate state in the customer lifecycle: A customer
has a problem. They need help and direction. These are high-risk moments in the
customer relationship. More than that, though, these are opportunities to deepen
customer relationships.
Customer experience isn’t just a reactive role. It’s also proactive and it spans the
entire customer journey and lifecycle. That means the customer service and support
play a part in a much grander production that synchronized marketing, sales,
product marketing, and really anyone who is directly involved with the customer.
I’ve yet to have an executive tell me that customers aren’t a priority. Yet, in a
2014 study conducted by CX consultancy Temkin Group, only 12% of large
B2B organizations were shown to have reached the highest two levels of CX
maturity (out of six levels), what Temkin Group refers to as a “customer-centric
organization.”4
Those companies that do have higher levels of CX maturity focus
more on employees and culture and less on cutting costs, the study found.
The future of CX starts with creating a culture of customer centricity within the
company and that works its way out.
The future
of CX starts
with creating
a culture of
customer
centricity
within the
company and
that works its
way out.

10
SHARED EXPERIENCES
COMMUNICATE THE STATE OF
THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
You’ve heard it before: a happy customer tells a
few people; an unhappy customer tells everyone.
Numbers have been difficult to quantify in the
past, but it’s clear that people who share negative
experiences tend to drown out those who share
positive experiences. That’s just human nature.
It’s also a significant problem.
Why? Because shared experiences are now public,
searchable, and permanent. They don’t vanish.
Search engines find and organize them. People—your
customers—also find them. And it all happens before
someone consults your website or representative.
This underscores the place in which to begin our
work: the experience customers have and the
ideal CX we think they have are different. The gap
between the two is different for every business, but
it’s there nonetheless. And in an increasingly digital
world, the ability to measure and account for the
many touch points a customer comes in contact
with your business is eroding, as is our grasp of the
factors that contribute to the CX gap.
You may think you own of CX, but you don’t, at
least not in the way we think of CX at present. What
customers say about you when you’re not around
is the articulation of your CX. It doesn’t happen just
once. Nor is CX truly measured or represented by
an NPS. Just because someone is likely to refer or
recommend a product doesn’t mean that they do.
And even if their experience is positive one moment,
it can change in the next.
Welcome to a new era of marketing and service,
in which your brand is defined by those who
experience it.
Your customers owe you nothing. Your job is to
deliver an exceptional experience. You need to make
them feel part of the brand. Do that, and they’ll feel
like they can take part ownership of it.
THE GENERATION DIVIDE:
A NEW ERA OF CUSTOMER-
CENTRIC SERVICE
It sounds like a strange title for this section, I know.
Wasn’t customer service always customer centric?
Clearly, it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to
get to know the people that keep us in business.
Research shows that the customer that we know—our
traditional customer—and the connected customer
are notably different. And like the CX gap, the gap
between the traditional customer and the digital
customer is widening. Just as they have different
behaviors, they have different values and expectations.
With those values and expectations already fragmenting,
so are the tools. According to Dimension Data’s key
2014 themes and emerging trends report (see Figure 2):
Generation Y—those born after 1990—choose the
telephone as their primary desired service channel
dead last, only 29% of the time. They prefer email/
SMS 42% of the time, social media 36% of the
time, a whopping 32% of the time for mobile apps,
by far dominating the need for app support.
Generation X—individuals born between 1961
and 1989—also prioritize email (44%) and social
media channels (21%) for customer service.
Baby Boomers—typically those born between
1945 and 1960—mostly still prefer the telephone
as a primary communication channel (60%), but a
full 23% rely on email and SMS for good service.5
There are, of course, serious implications to meeting
the needs of all of these different customers and their
channel preferences. But the first thing to accept is
that there is no one customer or one single view of the
customer. Different needs require different approaches
to services and support. That requires a shift in
perspective in how we value investments we make in
scaling our vision and intentions and how that matches
up against customer behaviors and expectations.
The skills and competencies necessary to service
customers through this omnichannel experience are
incredibly different than customer service in the past.

11
In the 2000s, phone conversations still made up 65%
of service interactions. In the 2010s, that plummeted
to 33%. Change. Yeah, it happens. And this rate of
change and customer expectation gap means legacy
technology and legacy thinking simply won’t deliver.
Common among all the groups, too, is the ability to
share these frustrations online in real time.
This means that your brand is now co-created with
your customers. It’s not what you say about you that
counts; it’s what they say that counts.
What your customers have to say about you is no
longer relegated to call centers or in web forms and
emails. Nor is it limited to sites designed to host
customer reviews. In the era of social media, sharing
experiences is just a part of everyday behavior.
Experiences, good and bad, come to life in pictures,
videos, animated GIFs, vines, and whatever’s next.
Nor do these experiences disappear. They
accumulate, becoming part of your marketing
infrastructure. They become part of the social web.
No longer is a company
measured solely by its actions
and words; it’s now also
measured by its inaction and
silence. You can’t ignore what
your customers are saying
about you. Continuing as
we have been, focusing only
on the traditional customer,
simply increases the CX gap.
No matter how much you invest in customer service
or new engagement technology, it’s not enough.
Responding isn’t enough. Solving problems isn’t
enough. Scaling new technology isn’t enough.
The time is now to set a new agenda and vision for
your CX imperative. Your work must invest in positive
experiences as well as counter those that suck. And
it starts with understanding who you’re trying to
reach, what’s important to them, how they connect
and why, and how all of this is different than your
current initiatives.
PRIORITIZE BEHAVIORS BEFORE
TOOLS, BUT TECHNOLOGY IS
THE KEY ENABLER
If it doesn’t matter how much you invest in
technology, then how do you change your CX to
focus on the digital consumer?
What may sound like a riddle is actually the
foundation upon which we will build. Leading
companies do it every day. If they don’t, their
competitors will. As former Intel CEO Andy Grove
said, “Only the paranoid survive.”
Smart leaders are proactively evaluating new
products, models, systems, and services to stay
ahead of the game.
How do they do it?
Believe it or not, the best technology infrastructures
are partnered with the best working models (people,
process, and decision making).
Everyone else tends to deliver customer experiences
through siloed approaches. One of the great ironies
in customer relationship management (CRM) is that
generally speaking, there’s no real relationship in
view. It’s been entirely based on using technology
to manage relationships and customer information:
managing customer workflows, routing cases
properly, achieving first contact resolution. Efficient?
Yes. Do these systems truly manage the customer
experience and the lifetime relationship? They could.
The problem is ownership. Someone owns CRM.
But who owns the customer relationship? CRM
as a function and system is typically owned by a
department responsible for the technology and
serves as the internal business users of the system.
We all know the story about silos, though. They keep
data and workflows in one place, whether by design
or by default. While well intended, CRM doesn’t
track to how customers engage with companies;
it’s simply a system of record. Relationships span
multiple groups as a function of the traditional
business funnel, and as such, any information
No longer is
a company
measured solely
by its actions and
words; it’s now
also measured by
it’s inaction and
silence.

12
that’s siloed also silos or fragments the customer
experience. This means that where technology stops,
an other technology begins and ends, and the same
is true for the customer experience. It’s not seamless.
The customer experience is a journey that should be
designed with supporting technology that allows for
active and consistent customer engagement across
the journey.
Now that connected customers are becoming, well,
more connected, siloed models don’t match up to a
new generation of expectations and demands. Until
businesses are comfortable with restructuring the
entire organization around customer experiences and
end goals - in this case, the customer relationship -
customers will continue to get the short end of the
stick in times of need.
Look, customers see one brand, not departments.
They want one great experience, not fragmented
exchanges and transactions. They’re human, not a
block on a call-center routing diagram.
Tomorrow’s customer requires sophisticated and
scalable technology to drive human engagement.
Or to use tech terms, customers want companies
to offer contextually aware, personalized customer
engagement. There is no substitute for knowing who
your customers are and what they want, in the right
moment, on the right screen. Regardless of where
a customer engages with a company, some net of
information is created, and it’s not only your duty as
an organization to use that information, but soon it
will be your lifeline. It’s customer relationship, not
customer management.
Genesys, with its CX Platform, is among those
companies serving a new generation of connected
customers aiming to deliver cross-functional
engagement throughout the customer journey.
It’s helping increase the importance of a single
integrated platform across all channels with a solid
underpinning of analytics that feeds insights to
everyone involved in the customer experience. A
single platform helps agents and customers and
starts to put a real relationship within reach.
Technology is helping companies do the right thing. Now
the challenge is to change businesses from the inside out.
New processes and rewards mechanisms have to
be put into place to deliver and scale an experience
based on all of this new information and capabilities.
Change has to start somewhere and it has to
start with someone. No matter what promise of
technology you buy or build, the real work starts with
you and the people responsible for change. Yes, it’s
part technology but in the end …
… it’s also human.
CHANGE STARTS WITH
CUSTOMER EMPATHY FIRST,
THEN VISION
Empathy is a gift. It allows us to see people and
appreciate their needs, expectations, and aspirations
outside of the personal biases we carry into every
decision. It reminds us we’re human. It reminds us
we’re alive.
As important as it is, though, empathy is often the
last thing driving the future of CX, if it’s included at
all. We make decisions based on our experience,
not those of people who are different than us.
Not different in just preferences and interests, nor
just in demographics. No, what I’m talking about
is differences in behavior, in how people live life
digitally and in the real world.
The future of CX lies in the ability to balance the art
of empathy and the science of ones and zeros, which
translates big data equally into a-ha moments and
actionable insights.
We must invest strongly in learning what we don’t
know, validating what we think we know, and
prioritizing opportunities that result from that work.
Change has to start somewhere
and it has to start with someone.

13
Yet, even today, this is still not the case. Why?
Some people say, “Give the customers what they
want.” Our job is to figure out what they’re going to
want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If
I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would
have told me, ‘A faster horse!’’’ People don’t know
what they want until you show it to them. That’s why
I never rely on market research.”
--Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2011)
Customers don’t know what they want, and it’s your
job to get them to need what they never thought
they needed. Sounds straightforward enough, and I
guess it is if you’re Steve Jobs. For everyone else, an
approach like this might seem out of touch, ignorant,
arrogant, or a combination thereof.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear those words
from Steve Jobs or Henry Ford in planning meetings
with business strategists and executives. It’s almost a
learned response to quell change or protect comfort
zones. “I don’t have to do it if they didn’t do it” is
the rationale.
It’s all a bit absurd when you think about it. You’re
not Steve Jobs. Market research, specific to the
evolution of customer behavior, is not only critical,
it’s mandatory.
Oh, and about that Henry Ford quote. It turns out that
researchers cannot find evidence that Ford actually
uttered those words. However, Ford was quoted in
Dale Carnegie’s best-selling 1937 book, How to Win
Friends and Influence People, as saying, “If there is
any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get
the other person’s point of view and see things from
that person’s angle as well as from your own.”
Perspective is at the heart of CX. That sounds more
like it.
Figure 3
CLOUD
CLOUD
DISRUPTIVE
TRENDS +
TECHNOLOGIES
APPS
EP
HEMERALGEOLOCATAAION
GAMIFICATAA ION
2NDSCREEN
BIGDATAA
A
TTW
EARABLES MAKERS
BEACONS
INTER
NETOFTHINGS
SHARING
VIRTUALAI
+AR
PAPPYAAMENTS
REAL TIME
SOCIAL
MOBIL
E
MESSAGING
Within the Wheel of
Disruption, the “Golden
Triangle” is encircled
by other emergent
technologies and sectors
affected by mobile, social,
and real time, such as big
data, geolocation, cloud
and more.
Source: Altimeter Group 2014

14
THE DIGITAL CX USHERS IN
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
After hearing Jobs and Ford quoted so often, I
decided to research companies that were not so
complacent in their resolve to compete for the
future. Companies such Starbucks, Univision, LEGO,
and Sephora, among others, told my Altimeter
Group colleagues and me how changes in digital
customer behavior led to their formal efforts in digital
transformation. The result of this year-long research
resulted in the free report, Digital Transformation:
Why and How Companies Are Investing in New
Business Models to Lead Digital Customer
Experiences.
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation is a formal business
investment in new technology, models, and
supporting systems and processes to change the
way companies sell, market, operate, and scale in an
increasingly digital economy.
Figure 4
ORGANIZATIONS UNDERGOING DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION EFFORTS
Is your organization undergoing a formal digital transformation effort in 2014? Altimeter defines digital
transformation as the re-alignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more
effectively engage digital consumers at every touchpoint in the customer experience lifecycle.
I don’t know. 2%
No 10%
Yes 88%

15
COMPANIES MUST FOCUS ON JOURNEY MAPPING
TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Which of the below best describes your company’s efforts around the customer journey/experience?
42%
We’ve talked about
the need to do so,
but no one has
taken the lead yet.
We are researching
customer behavior now
and waiting for results
to inform our digital
transformation strategy.
We have completely
mapped out the customer
journey within the last year
and have a clear
understanding of new
digital touch points.
The need to do
so hasn’t come
up or been made
a priority. 3%
25%
12%
12%
We have not officially researched
the digital customer journey but
we have updated digital touch
points with new social and
mobile technologies and
investments.
Digital transformation goes beyond technology,
though. Technology affects everything, from how
we connect to how we collaborate to how we share.
It affects how we work, learn, and buy. As a result,
digital transformation must be as much human as it
is technology.
In conversations with companies excelling in digital
transformation, I learned that they look at both sides
of the change, technological and human, both inside
and outside the organization. They are studying
why customers and employees do what they do
or why they expect things differently. As a result,
digital transformation is enterprise-wide. At the
same time, the effort can be localized to expedite
experimentation, with successes rapidly globalized.
With so many technology trends affecting business
and our daily lives (mobile, social, wearable, maker,
sharing, et al), innovation was clearly a constant
moving forward.
Digital transformation is a significant movement
among progressive businesses, modernizing and
innovating every aspect of the business ecosystem,
inside and outside the organization.
Businesses have no choice but to invest in a culture
of change to get ahead of technology rather than
react to it. It would be a mistake, though, to invest
in any one channel alone or invest in each channel
in isolation. For digital transformation to succeed,
people, processes, systems, and technology must
work together as a cohesive whole.
Figure 5

16
THE STATE OF
Following the initial research project where we
interviewed those digital strategists and executives
leading digital transformation, we then set out to
survey executives and digital strategists to capture
the true state of digital transformation to serve as a
benchmark as this movement develops over time.
Digital transformation is massive, so we decided to
focus our research series on CX. Specifically, we were
interested in learning how businesses were changing
or investing in change as a result of the digital
CX (DCX). To focus our work, we defined digital
transformation as:
The realignment of, or new investment in,
technology and business models to more effectively
engage digital customers at every touch point in the
customer experience lifecycle.
The hypothesis was that decision making, touch
points, influences, and so on, were notably different
for digital customers than for traditional customers.
Digital customers’ evolving behavior would then
force a shift in marketing, sales, product, and
technology investments and resources to compete
in new ways and places. As a result, our work looked
specifically at digital transformation through a
customer-centric lens.
What we learned is both humbling and promising.
Figure 6
Source: Altimeter Group Digital Transformation Survey, 2014. N=59

17
Digital transformation is a result of businesses
seeking to adapt to this onslaught of disruptive
technologies affecting customer and employee
behavior. As technology becomes a permanent
fixture in everyday life, organizations are faced with
an increasing need to update legacy technology
strategies and supporting methodologies to better
reflect how the real world is evolving. The need to
do so is becoming increasingly obligatory.
From the onset, we learned that many businesses are
indeed undergoing digital transformation but most
don’t know why. And that’s the root of the challenges
that any CX initiative faces moving forward.
In our survey, 88% of
executives and digital
strategists stated that their
company is undergoing
a formal digital
transformation effort in
2014, yet only 25% stated
that they had mapped out
the digital customer journey.
(Note: Participants were given
Altimeter’s definition of digital transformation at the
beginning of the survey.)
And even though 25% mapped
out the journey, a significant
percentage of those efforts
were based on abstract
work that did not take
digital customer behavior
into account. In other words,
teams did not proactively
study the differences and
opportunities around defining the digital CX. Even
more troubling, 42% had not officially researched the
customer journey and 12% talked about the need to
do so but no one had yet taken the lead.
The good news though is that another 12% were
in the process of researching customer behavior
and were waiting for results to inform their digital
transformation strategy.
Clearly, there’s more work to be done. It begins
with a leadership organization willing to lead
beyond comfort zones. It also takes resolve to
move forward when so many choose to lean on the
words of industry luminaries like Steve Jobs and
Henry Ford. The challenge moving forward is right
there in the numbers.
Digital transformation doesn’t just mean increasing
digital investments, either. It means thinking and
acting “digital first.” Important questions that any CX
research is mean to answer include:
What would my digital customer do?
How is that different than what my traditional
customers do?
How fast is this changing, and where do we
emphasize investment moving forward?
Again, change comes down to people. If you’re
like the businesses we studied, the top challenge in
digital transformation is changing company culture
(63%) to pursue new opportunities.
Every story of change starts with those who have the
vision and courage to see what others cannot and do
what others will not. Digital transformation is really
no different than what businesses have always done.
Investing in technology enables them to integrate
and improve, even to design for DCX and the
people, processes, and politics to support them. It
represents the future of business—and relationships.
Digital transformation does indeed represent the
next stage of business development and the future
of CX. It will improve how companies work, inside
and out. But for companies that don’t know how
their customers or employees are evolving, digital
transformation is just new technology operating
under the guise of change.
88%
say that their
company is undergoing
a formal digital
transformation
only
25%
had mapped out
the digital customer
journey

18
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
MAPPING YIELDS
A NEW UNDERSTANDING
THAT CONSUMER HABITS
AND EXPECTATIONS ARE
OUTPACING CURRENT
ORGANIZATIONAL FRACTURES
Digital transformation isn’t an end goal; it’s a
continuous journey. It’s the result of learning
more about the relationship between technology
and customer behavior to earn relevance among
customers. The companies we interviewed are
continually undergoing journey-mapping exercises
to stay up to date on that relationship and maintain
their relevance.
Studying the digital customer journey begins with a
simple set of questions, including:
• What uniquely defines the persona of our
customers?
• What is different about their customer journey?
• What are the touch points they frequent, how do
they use them, and with what devices?
• What are their expectations, what do they value,
and how do they define success?
• How are they influenced, and by whom?
• How and whom do they in turn influence?
In one of our interviews with the Intuit CX team, we
learned that the company studies the relationship
between customer technology usage and path to
purchase. The Intuit team starts with a simple but
integral question: based on technology adoption,
what is our customer’s path to purchase? The team
looks beyond demographics to psychographics (e.g.,
shared behaviors and interests) in order to create
accurate buyer personas and better understand the
new customer journey. The result is a more natural
and meaningful CX.
When we interviewed Tom Eggemeier, Executive
Vice President of Global Sales, Service & Support
at Genesys, he told us how excellent customer
service can be a driving function in great CX—with
the caveat that new technology can serve as both
enabler and barrier to change.
“You can achieve
great differentiation
with customer service.
Consumers will pay more
for excellent customer
service,” he said. “That’s
getting replicated in social,
too. Mobile technology
makes it much more real
time but introduces the
added challenge of
channel switching.”
He added, “People are expecting higher levels of
customer service. My grandparents owned a mom-
and-pop grocery store and knew their customers
inside and out. We got away from that. Now,
with big data enabled through social and mobile
technologies, we’re getting to a point where you
can get better personalized service now than you
could in my grandparent’s store. It’s predictive and
real time.”
Although technology isn’t the only catalyst for digital
transformation, companies see new tech adoption as
progress toward better customer experiences. As a
result, technology investments become expressions
of experimentation.
In conversation we had with Nestlé’s global head of
digital and social, Pete Blackshaw, we learned that
another way to understand the digital customer is
to focus a dedicated team on innovation. Nestlé
formed such a team and opened an innovation
outpost in Silicon Valley to “deepen relationships
with consumers online and in social media,” said
Blackshaw. The company is seeking strategic
partnerships with innovative companies to better
understand consumers’ needs and respond to them
more quickly.
Consumers
will pay more
for excellent
customer
service

19
IS HOLISTIC AND CUSTOMER
FOCUSED
Creating or improving the DCX begins with research,
not guesswork. Companies must study their
customers’ personas, behaviors, and expectations
throughout every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Once armed with information, they can shape the
digital transformation by specifically aligning people,
processes, and technologies against goals and
milestones to map a new and effective journey for
digital customers.
In our research, we learned that customer journey
mapping is referenced in two ways:
• It is the act of outlining the customer journey
through physical and digital touch points. This
may or may not be informed by research.
• It is the act of researching and charting the
customer journey based on digital customer
behavior and trends.
The two aren’t always related, but they should
be. A best practice is to combine the two: invest
time in researching physical and digital journeys
and in researching how customer behaviors and
expectations play a role at each touch point. Such a
comprehensive, research-based approach to journey
mapping informs the development of a CX strategy
that is accurate and relevant.
We spent some time with the team over at Motorola
Solutions to better understand the company’s
methods for defining the DCX strategy. Motorola
Solutions has invested significantly in journey
mapping, from awareness through advocacy,
to learn how to optimize the customer’s digital
experience. Motorola Solutions’s leader for Systems
of Engagement, Grant Ferguson, told us, “We have
experience to build on, but we continue journey
mapping to help us focus on improving experiences
at every customer stage.”
But journey mapping isn’t as simple as traditional
funnel and linear maps. DCX work reveals a
complicated, tech-laden path where customers
continuously move from one screen to the next. This
is a good thing.
We spoke to Bridget Dolan, Vice President of
Interactive Media at Sephora, who told us that
technology outlines a complicated path, where
customers may or may not follow any one route. For
this reason, Dolan believes that journey mapping is
something necessary for every new project.
“Sephora is such a multifaceted experience that
there’s not one path or map you could create. We
think of it as optimizing, experience by experience.
We look at each piece and how it interrelates,” she
said. “We’re constantly surveying and watching what
clients are doing to use different technology in-store,
online, and on mobile.” As Sephora demonstrates,
mapping the customer journey is a journey in and of
itself. This is key, because it implies that research is
ongoing and that business models must be adaptive
to new insights.
Along the digital transformation path, companies
discover areas for internal collaboration on optimizing
the customer journey from the inside out. This, too, is
a good thing. While part of journey-mapping work is
to uncover what’s new and what’s irrelevant, another
part is optimizing the CX from within.
Thus, digital transformation is most effective when
DCX becomes a shared effort across business
functions and lines of business and is least effective
when work is confined to a silo. Any group that
touches the customer during the lifecycle must be
part of the effort to align the transformation with
DCX. Whether it’s social, mobile, print, kiosk, online,
in-person, or one of a myriad of other marketing,
sales, service, and loyalty channels, many touch
points are not necessarily integrated internally. Yet
customers only see one brand, and whenever there’s
friction in the digital transformation process, it’s
largely found in the seams of how each team works
together today.

20
“We learned that the
customer has one
unified relationship
with the company,
digital and physical, in
and out of store. We
also uncovered nine
different areas of our
work stream that are,
by default, connected
because of the
customer’s journey.”
- Adam Brotman, Starbucks CDO
Digital transformation depends on a seamless, holistic
journey between physical, digital, and mobile touch points,
both internally and externally. Because digital transformation
requires understanding the holistic journey, internal silos
must be broken down so teams can collaborate to improve
engagement, deliver a holistic experience, and eliminate
friction, gaps, and overlap.
In early 2014, my team and I discussed digital transformation
and DCX with Starbucks Chief Digital Officer, Adam Brotman.
Brotman told us that Starbucks looks at the customer journey
from the customer’s perspective. “We learned that the customer
has one unified relationship with the company, digital and
physical, in and out of store,” he said.
He also told us how this point of view affected organizational
transformation. “We also uncovered nine different areas of our
work stream that are, by default, connected because of the
customer’s journey. We found an important flywheel effect of
connectivity that affects all platforms,” he said.
Brotman points to the business impact of integrating
experiences through internal collaboration. “As one flywheel
got stronger, it made another stronger. It was necessary
that we connected these findings to a business perspective
too, as each work stream is layered upon another,” he said.
Once Starbucks recognized that multiple touch points were
connected in the same customer journey, the company
modified interdepartmental workflow and collaboration
processes to maintain alignment.
Repeatedly in our interviews, we found that the case for
digital transformation was born from the rapid rise of social
media and the pervasive adoption of smartphones. As social
and mobile media gained momentum over the past decade,
early adopters with large enterprises set out to lead the
charge for developing initiatives that focused on mobile and
social first, rather than adding them on to programs later. By
thinking about social and mobile customers from the onset,
companies would create strategies that more thoughtful and
organic rather than awkward, desperate, or trendy.
In our research, we also found that social- and mobile-first
efforts have paved the way for something bigger—what has
now become a digital-first or born-digital modus operandi.
A broader digital perspective was needed to expand a
company’s focus to all disruptive technologies in order to
unite and scale disparate efforts around digital customers as

21
they evolve. Doing so helps prioritize initiatives that bring
about holistic change across lines of business and supporting
functions.
The best CX initiatives consider technology’s effect on
behavior and expectations, not just the technology in and of
itself. We learned that companies that invest in a digital-first
approach are looking at more than just digital. In most cases,
these companies are exploring technologies as a platform and
how each network or platform functions on an individual level.
For example, companies look at the context, or the state
of mind of consumers—how they use screens in each state
and what the associated behaviors across all screens are—
to understand what’s happening and how to improve the
customer journey.
Companies such as Sephora see digital first as a quest to
consistently improve DCX. This work suggests that over time
a best practice could constitute the ongoing pursuit of an
ultimate customer journey, that is, understanding and solving
for the evolving digital customer journey as customers’ needs,
expectations, and demands develop.
Understanding the need for customer journey mapping and
actually investing in it are two very different things. The gap
in spending between marketing and customer relationship
development is vast. But there are some signs of a changing
tide. Said Genesys’s Eggemeier, “I’m seeing much higher-level
discussions across the board. Five years ago, we were selling
to the CIO. Now it’s chief customer service officers, CMOs,
sales executives, and even some CEOs in Fortune 10–type
companies that are getting really concerned with the customer
journey. Genesys’s own growth in that time is a testament to the
level of spending [on developing customer relationships].”
By broadening focus beyond technology to customer
behavior and improving the digital customer journey,
strategists learn how to design a roadmap that’s targeted
and meaningful. Continuing this work constantly informs and
evolves digital transformation efforts, getting businesses ever
closer to an ultimate journey.
Now, let’s get to work
“Five years ago, we
were selling to the CIO.
Now it’s chief customer
service officers, CMOs,
sales executives, and
even some CEOs”
- Tom Eggemeier, Genesys
Executive VP of Global Sales,
Service & Support

22
Establish a Vision for Digital Transformation Leadership
� Document the factors that are disrupting your market. Assemble data and proof points that help you
make the case to the C-suite or decision makers.
� Clearly articulate why this is critical to your business, using examples of other companies and the
benefits they’ve realized. Develop a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis
that assesses your actual position for transformation.
� Draft a sample vision statement and supporting narrative for what digital transformation looks like
in the end, the topline advantages it carries, and how it enables business goals and improves CX in the
process. Document and articulate short-term and long-term purpose.
� Seek out an executive sponsor to help rally support and act as a leading champion of digital
transformation efforts.
� Ensure that executive sponsors communicate the vision for digital transformation and the benefits
and updates throughout the effort to rally employees across the enterprise.
THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
CHECKLIST
The road to digital transformation is far from easy, but it carries great rewards for businesses and
customers alike. It takes a village to bring about change, but it starts with the spark and perseverance of
one person who can spot important trends and create a sense of urgency around new possibilities.
There are many roles needed to help businesses recognize the opportunities to change and lead the
efforts in doing so. Companies will need the support of executives, strategists, change agents, and
trusted external partners to learn, collaborate, and lead.
Toward this end, we’ve developed a checklist based on the best practices that surfaced in our research.
This list becomes the change agent’s agenda to make the case, plan, build momentum, and push digital
transformation efforts forward in an informed, scalable, and meaningful way:
1

23
Define the DCX
� Identify past research related to your customer journey, and map the digital customer journey as it
exists today. Interview stakeholders about digital customers to assess challenges and opportunities.
� Document the differences between the current journey and that of digital customers. Observe persona
traits or characteristics that are unique to your digital customer.
� Chart a sample journey around what the right experiences for the right customers could be, based on
digital behavior. Organize the journey by channel and screen.
� Observe the gaps in touch points where investments are and are not today.
� Assess the processes, policies, and systems that prevent you from engaging the digital customer
Pinpoint what it would take to overcome the hurdles.
� Continue to study the ultimate customer journey every six months to adapt investments in relevant DCX
strategies.
Assemble a Digital Transformation Team
� Identify candidates for a cross-functional transformation team.
� Develop a responsibility assignment matrix for the cross-functional group and an ongoing
collaboration schedule and reporting process. This enables the team to prioritize and delegate projects.
� Build a strategic alliance with IT. The department must be part of the workgroup.
� Form a data collection and insights team as part of the digital transformation workgroup. Create new
roles to collect and analyze data and put it into context for the workgroup and stakeholders.
� Measure the impact of transformation at the enterprise level and at each touch point to identify the gap
between existing and required expertise for transformation processes and technologies.
� Document progress and benefits. Establish a reporting process to the workgroup and ultimately to
stakeholder groups.
3
2

24
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION MAKES BUSINESSES MORE HUMAN
While early in its evolution, digital transformation represents the next big thing in CX and, ultimately, in how business
is done. Companies that get it and invest more in learning about their digital customers’ behaviors, preferences, and
expectations will carry a significant competitive advantage over those that figure it out later, if at all.
Need proof? A 2010 MIT study commissioned by IT consultancy Capgemini found that “digitally mature”
companies are more profitable—up to 26% more profitable—just in case you’re looking for ROI.6
The transformation is not a destination, however. It’s a journey of continually seeking out how to use technology in
ways that improve CX and relationships. It represents an effort to introduce new business models and creates a way
of staying in business as customers become increasingly digital.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS BIG AND OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD.
Understand how people use technology first to inform your strategy
and give your work a sense of purpose.
THE KEY TO DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION IS
THAT IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
COMES DOWN TO
PEOPLE
NO MATTER
HOW DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION IS
PURSUED, BUSINESSES
ARE CHANGING ALONG
THE WAY
Figure 7
Whether it’s related to
customers, employees, values,
or expectations, behavior is at
least as important as becoming
increasingly digital through
new investments in strategy
and technology. To borrow
from informatics professors Erik
Stolterman and Anna Croon Fors,
digital transformation can also
refer to the changes associated
with the application of digital
technology in all aspects of
human society.
Customers aren’t the only ones
who represent disruption—
employees are also at the heart
of change. In our research, we
met scores of digital strategists
who realized that the sense of
urgency for digital transformation
wouldn’t rain down from the
C-suite. Instead, they recognized
that change agents were needed
to create awareness. Grassroots
leaders stepping outside of their
day-to-day role are the reason
most businesses are rising to the
occasion of digital transformation.
Businesses undergoing digital
transformation are creating new
processes, forming new business
models and teams, and investing
in new technologies and systems
to work in ways that are more
relevant to the state and evolution
of today’s markets, each in their
own way. In doing so, they’re
leveraging digital transformation
to become more customer centric
and more human and to update
their culture for a new generation
of customers and employees.

ENDNOTES
1
Show Me You Know Me: Playing to Win by Building
Relationships at Scale. Accenture, 2014. http://
www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/
PDF/Accenture-Show-Me-You-Know-Me-Building-
Relationships-Scale.pdf
2
2013/14 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking
Summary Report. Dimension Data, 2013. http://
www.dimensiondata.com/Global/Downloadable%20
Documents/2013_14_benchmarking%20
summary%20report.pdf
3
People Want to Text Your Business (infographic).
OneReach, 2014. http://mms.businesswire.
com/media/20140813005563/en/427713/5/
Infographic_-_People_Want_to_Text_Your_
Business_-_HiRes_vF.jpg
4
“Only 7% of Large Companies Are Customer-
Centric, According to New Temkin Group Research”
(press release). PR Newswire, May 8, 2012. http://
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/only-7-of-
large-companies-are-customer-centric-according-to-
new-temkin-group-research-150582135.html
5
2013/14 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking
Summary Report.
6
“‘Digitally Mature’ Companies Are More Profitable
– Study.” Information Age, November 5, 2012.
http://www.information-age.com/it-management/
strategy-and-innovation/2131043/-digitally-mature--
companies-are-more-profitable------study
DISCLAIMER
ALTHOUGH THE INFORMATION AND DATA USED IN THIS
REPORT HAVE BEEN PRODUCED AND PROCESSED FROM
SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE, NO WARRANTY
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED IS MADE REGARDING THE
COMPLETENESS, ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, OR USE OF THE
INFORMATION. THE AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS OF
THE INFORMATION AND DATA SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY
FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS CONTAINED HEREIN OR
FOR INTERPRETATIONS THEREOF. REFERENCE HEREIN TO
ANY SPECIFIC PRODUCT OR VENDOR BY TRADE NAME,
TRADEMARK, OR OTHERWISE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE
OR IMPLY ITS ENDORSEMENT, RECOMMENDATION, OR
FAVORING BY THE AUTHORS OR CONTRIBUTORS AND
SHALL NOT BE USED FOR ADVERTISING OR PRODUCT
ENDORSEMENT PURPOSES. THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED
HEREIN ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
25

Brian Solis, Principal Analyst
Brian Solis (@briansolis) is an award-winning author, prominent blogger, and
keynote speaker. Solis works with enterprise organizations and technology
vendors to research the state and direction of markets, competitors, and
customer behavior. Through the use of proven frameworks and best practices,
Solis analyzes trends, opportunities, capabilities, and areas for improvement to
align new media initiatives with business priorities.
AUTHOR
26
About Altimeter Group
Altimeter is a research and consulting firm that helps
companies understand and act on technology disruption.
We give business leaders the insight and confidence to
help their companies thrive in the face of disruption. In
addition to publishing research, Altimeter Group analysts
speak and provide strategy consulting on trends in
leadership, digital transformation, social business, data
disruption, and content marketing strategy.
Altimeter Group
425 California Street, Suite 980
San Francisco, CA 94104
info@altimetergroup.com
www.altimetergroup.com
@altimetergroup
650.212.2272
About Genesys
Genesys is the market leader in multi-channel customer
experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud
and on-premises. We help brands of all sizes make great
CX great business. The Genesys Customer Experience
Platform powers optimal customer journeys consistently
across all touch points, channels, and interactions to turn
customers into brand advocates. Genesys is trusted by
over 4,500 customers in 80 countries to orchestrate more
than 100 million digital and voice interactions each day.
Genesys
2001 Junipero Serra Blvd.
Daly City, CA 94014
www.genesys.com
@genesys
US: 888-GENESYS (436-3797)
International: +1 650 466-1100

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