Christophe Cotin Valois, co-founder of Welcome Max, a consulting agency specialized in UX Research and service design, analyzes consumer expectations and behaviors.
What are the main issues surrounding the digital transformation of companies?
The objective is to provide a customer experience in line with today's uses, to define a "user centricity" strategy to develop the business, to reaffirm the brand's positioning and its promise. Digital transformation is not just about tools, but also about business processes and the company's responsiveness to provide an instant response. All these issues call for the company to stop organizing itself in silos and to opt for a transversal vision of the customer, who is agnostic in terms of services. The fluidity of the customer journey, which implies having the right granularity of information, is the sinews of war. This understanding of the customer at a given moment on the different channels is the challenge for companies wishing to address a relevant communication. This organization takes time, because it relies on the company's information system. And for players who have to reference complex catalog offers, it is very time consuming. But this race is endless because new players are appearing -such as the GAFAs- and accelerating the digital movement. If they don't have a consulting capacity, they can force merchants to structure the data injected into their sites and, through a mass effect, respond to customer demand by offering an infinite, highly structured choice.
What are the major changes in consumption patterns in the digital era?
Consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and need precise and relevant information. And this has strong repercussions on customer journeys because product information must be fed by enriched data, which is not always the case. And as the consumer makes less and less effort to look for information, we are seeing the emergence of a curation phenomenon (which Google does very well) and the arrival of players (audience hubs) like Frichtie or Yuka that offer organic, balanced meals for customers in need of inspiration. This is also what marketplaces specialized on verticals are doing. Added to this is a fragmented shopping experience. Today, you can buy products from Monoprix via Deliveroo, which complicates the customer journey. In the end, all these offers lead to what I call the "Netflix effect" (cognitive saturation or overload) and the customer prefers the simplest experience to make the least effort possible.
What trends do you see emerging in terms of customer experience?
The customer experience is full of contradictions, it is a complex mechanism of trade-offs based on a triptych: benefits, value system (protean) and effort. In this context, subscription offers are multiplying because they respond to consumers' need for simplicity. The major retailers will have to seize this subject by proposing automated restocking of everyday products that have no added value. Amazon has been working on this for a long time... All the DNVBs offer it on niches but the big players are late on this subject.
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