In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, delivering a seamless customer experience is essential for staying competitive. However, many companies still manage their marketing technology (martech), sales technology (salestech), and support technology in isolation, leading to a fragmented customer experience. To resolve this issue, businesses must adopt an integrated customer technology strategy that aligns all customer-facing technologies to work cohesively.
The Customer Experience Imperative: Moving Beyond Siloed Tech Solutions
Traditionally, companies have managed martech separately from other departments, with sales and customer support teams operating in similar silos. This approach, while functional internally, fails to serve the customer effectively. Silos hinder the creation of a unified customer experience, which is now more critical than ever, given that products and services have become increasingly commoditized. Today, the customer experience is the key differentiator that can make or break a company’s success.
Transitioning to a customer-centric strategy requires a significant shift in mindset—from being company-focused to being customer-focused. Although this approach has been advocated for years, it has yet to be fully realized in many organizations. The primary challenge lies in the outdated IT principles applied to customer-facing departments, which are often based on practices better suited to non-customer-facing functions. To succeed, companies must develop an integrated customer technology strategy, emphasizing three key elements.
1. One Customer Technology Owner
To deliver a consistent and frictionless customer experience, companies must appoint a customer technology owner who aligns all customer-facing teams with IT on matters such as company security, login standards, and migration procedures. This role ensures that organizational silos do not lead to overlapping or conflicting goals, resources, or technologies, which can result in a fragmented customer experience.
For example, the Swiss company Straumann Group has taken steps in this direction by consolidating its marketing, sales, and support teams under the leadership of their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). By placing all budgets, resources, and technologies under one umbrella, Straumann Group ensures that its customer-facing teams work in harmony to deliver a unified brand message and experience.
2. Plug-and-Play Architecture
The architecture required for customer technology differs significantly from that of traditional company technology. Customer technology architecture is a layered ecosystem that interacts with customers in a more fluid and dynamic manner. Each layer must meet different security levels and API integration requirements, allowing customers to access various types of data.
In contrast, company technology is built on a closed system with a more centralized architecture. The focus here is on exploitation, predictability, and scalability. However, customer technology demands a plug-and-play, democratized approach that prioritizes experimentation, disruption, and prototyping to keep up with rapidly changing customer preferences.
Table: Comparison of Company Technology and Customer Technology Architecture
| Aspect | Company Technology | Customer Technology |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Closed system | Layered ecosystem |
| Architecture | Managed centrally | Plug and play, democratized |
| Focus | Exploitation, predictability, scalability | Experimentation, disruption, prototyping |
| Requirements | Limited and stable | Atomized, fluid-like customer preferences |
| Adoption | Implementation and training | MVPs and use cases |
| Replacement Frequency | Five-yearly to yearly | Yearly to monthly |
The heterogeneous nature of customer technology’s user base and the high frequency of software replacement demand a more Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach, enabling companies to experiment with new customer use cases swiftly and efficiently.
3. Governance Policy
Effective governance is crucial for managing the volatile nature of customer preferences. Unlike company technology, which is focused on managing tangible units and internal efficiency, customer technology must handle intangible customer preferences, which are ever-changing and often trend-sensitive.
The data collected by customer technology systems is primarily individual customer data, with a strong emphasis on customer privacy and compliance with legal standards. In contrast, company technology focuses on collecting and processing data related to employees, with a primary concern for employee security.
Table: Comparison of Company Technology and Customer Technology Governance
| Aspect | Company Technology | Customer Technology |
|---|---|---|
| Output Controlled by | Company | Customer |
| Output | Managing units | Managing preferences |
| User | Internal, homogeneous | External, heterogeneous |
| Data | Collecting company data, focus on employee security | Collecting individual customer data, focus on customer privacy |
| Features | Limited, stable | Ever-changing, trend-sensitive |
The governance policy for customer technology must also include guidelines for software replacement, customer data management, and a shared feature backlog to ensure that the technology remains aligned with evolving customer needs.
Shifting from Company Technology to Customer Technology
The shift from focusing on company technology to customer technology is a fundamental change that recognizes the growing power of the customer in driving business success. Unlike employees, who are relatively predictable and homogeneous, customers are heterogeneous and constantly changing. They are not on the company’s payroll; instead, companies must seduce customers into choosing their products and services.
This shift has profound implications for how technology is governed and managed. While company technology is about transporting stable units like bricks, customer technology is about managing a wheelbarrow full of frogs, trying to keep as many on board as possible by the time they reach the end of the funnel.
Conclusion
In an era where customer experience is the ultimate differentiator, companies must move beyond siloed martech, salestech, and support tech solutions. By adopting an integrated customer technology strategy that includes a single technology owner, a plug-and-play architecture, and a robust governance policy, businesses can ensure that their customer interactions are seamless and their brand remains relevant in a rapidly changing marketplace.
The shift from a company-focused to a customer-focused mindset is not just about adopting new tools but about fundamentally rethinking how technology serves the business. In doing so, companies can better meet customer needs, drive loyalty, and achieve sustained success in the digital age.
