In a recent Forrester survey of 1,821 enterprise business and technology decision-makers, we learned that the top three investments firms are making in customer experiences are in digital customer experiences. 55% prioritize online experiences; 41% are adding or improving mobile experiences; and 39% are improving cross-channel experiences.

None of that happens without big investments in digital experience technology. As firms like Rewe Group, The Home Depot, Schneider Electric, and Westpac have learned, digital experience strategy shapes the technology you need — an investment that can take five years and cost between $20 million and $200 million.
Application development and delivery professionals should follow the lead of customer experience teams and start with a customer journey map highlighting the digital interactions. We have just published the strategy report, the first of three reports in a planning sequence from our digital experience delivery playbook.

Four Themes Drive Digital Experience Technology Strategy

To find out how advanced firms are building their digital experience strategy, we interviewed technology executives and their marketing and business counterparts in eight enterprises. We also interviewed 13 software vendors, digital agencies, and systems integrators. We found four consistent investment themes among these experts:

  1. It’s a digital experience program, not a web or mobile technology project. You can’t implement a meaningful strategy piecemeal. Think three- to five-year program funded by corporate budgets, not a website refresh paid for by marketing. This is what every sophisticated company we spoke with does.
  2. Customer journey maps bring relevancy to your investments. Understanding the specific devices, touchpoints, and interactions is the only way to know if your digital investments will directly improve a customer experience. DBS Bank in Singapore has built customer journey maps spanning web, mobile, call center, and branch experiences.
  3. Four technology inevitabilities shape your vendor choices. We are developing a technology strategy here. Cloud-hosted, mobile-first, insights-driven, and loosely coupled are the technology principles that best support the strategy with an eye toward business responsiveness, cost, and laying foundations for the future.
  4. Digital experience platforms direct your technology investments. The bedrock of your digital customer experience is a portfolio of software to support marketing, commerce, and customer service interactions on every screen, from tiny watch face to giant video wall. Forrester believes that every company’s digital future rests on smart investments in these platforms.