Optimising the Customer Journey Beyond the Pandemic

As world economies grapple with lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses that are laser-focused on and actively investing in digital transformation will thrive — as evidenced by two-thirds of executives already indicating increased investment.¹

An integrated, friction-right consumer experience (CX) that captures new customers and fosters loyalty is key to driving profitable growth for your organization. Successful growth plans involve creating and implementing strategies that optimize digital customer journeys. This supports acquisitions, streamlines onboarding processes and ultimately delivers better outcomes for your business and customers.

This article highlights how innovation, the pandemic and compliance are changing the design of customer journeys and forcing decision-makers to more deeply evaluate digital strategies. It also provides insights that can help turn challenges into growth opportunities.

Marketers have long sought to understand consumers through data, and technology has evolved to help meet that goal — from CRMs to ID graphs that connect and resolve identities. The deprecation of third-party cookies has further pushed the need to effectively collect, manage and activate first-party data.

Competition for new customers in 2021 and beyond will be fierce. With more digital advertising spend pouring into the market, it’s imperative to optimize investments by finding new ways to gain actionable customer insights.

In the US, TransUnion has responded with the TruAudience® Platform and Data Marketplace which combine a more comprehensive view of people — anchored in offline data — with machine learning and automation to simplify audience creation. Marketers and data owners can use the platform to expand first-party data and build custom audiences and taxonomies for omnichannel activation.

In other regions we’re able to offer businesses marketing solutions that provide segmentation and rich consumer insights to help strengthen acquisition activities. For example, in the UK, CAMEO provides different levels of segmentation to understand and target consumers and optimize campaigns. Likewise, in Canada, marketing and audience segmentation offers financial services providers the opportunity to tailor their efforts.

Globally, data and credit regulation is evolving at speed as government’s look to better protect consumers. This is placing new responsibilities and demands on businesses.

In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented in 2018 is widely seen as the forerunner for data rules. In the US, California (the world’s fifth largest economy) adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) to give consumers more control over the personal information that businesses collect about them. Whilst in the UK, the pandemic ushered in new regulations around creditworthiness and the Woolard Review focused on the growing Buy Now Pay Later market. This review of change and innovation in the unsecured credit market could have worldwide ramifications. Globally, in 2021, Apple and Google made significant changes to how consumers are tracked, impacting how campaigns target consumers.

With acquisition activities under pressure, there’s a greater emphasis on delivering an optimal customer experience during digital onboarding. Thus, processes that convert more good customers by providing a high degree of confidence in their identities will lead the way. That means the Know Your Customer (KYC) process of identifying and verifying the client's identity at account origination will need to be optimised. This could be achieved by using configurable identify proofing solutions, such as email verification, facial recognition or document verification etc., to create a friction-right onboarding experience.

Being able to positively identify and letting good customers through whilst detecting and countering fraud threats is optimal. Our sophisticated decisioning engine, powered by a more accurate and more comprehensive picture of consumers, can quickly assess risks, present relevant offers and automate the application process. 

Research by the Economist Intelligence Unit for TransUnion has analysed key trends driving digital transformation and how businesses can build trust in a digital consumer landscape.

The study surveyed executives across 12 countries and provides perspectives on potential changes to customer journeys beyond the pandemic. Two key callouts are:

• Continued interest and uptake of artificial intelligence across a range of security and CX domains in diverse contexts and settings — from insurance and banking to ecommerce.
• Super-apps and digital wallets are going to continue to be disruptive — over three quarters of those surveyed globally predict super-apps will have a positive impact on their organisation’s revenue in the next five years, and 82% think the same about digital wallets.

The adoption of super-apps and digital wallets is changing the digital landscape globally, altering long-established customer journeys and disrupting the relationship between businesses and consumers. The pandemic clearly accelerated wider, faster customer adoption of digital channels.

Both innovations offer consumers convenience and an easier path to purchase. Globally, businesses in Asia (87%) and Latin America (82%) are more confident in the how super-apps can help grow revenue in the next five years compared to North America (61%) and Europe-Africa (69%). The success of Alipay (in China) and Gojeck (in Indonesia) demonstrate the power of platforms that combine marketplaces and services, and potentially inform the direction of similar platforms in the West.

The main barriers to adoption expressed by executives are concerns about security, privacy or fraud (48%), and regulatory limitations on data sharing with third parties (37.5%). In fact, these concerns were the top reported potential barriers to super-app adoption in every region the Economist surveyed. This is because once trust is lost with consumers, it’s difficult to rebuild.

As businesses optimize digital experiences, it’s imperative to understand the risks that might be present with new technology, and the layers of identity proofing and fraud controls that can be used to mitigate those risks. While offering convenience, Super-apps are a risk as all the personal information is stored in one place. Meanwhile, digital wallets are tied to bank accounts and credit cards which means the potential losses are higher if an account is taken over. One consideration to help mitigate account takeovers are device-level checks that could impede fraudsters even if they have the correct login credentials.

For businesses wanting to optimize the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to onboarding to account management, our solutions and hands-on expertise help give you a more competitive edge. Get in touch to find out how we can help your business thrive in an ever-evolving digital economy.