IT Architecture: The Foundation Of New Customer Experience

We talk a lot about IT architecture, yet people are often unclear about what it actually is. IT architecture is "a set of principles, standards, or regulations used by an organisation to direct the process of acquiring, creating, changing, and integrating IT resources within the enterprise," as stated by IT market analyst, Gartner.

IT architecture can be thought of as the process of creating IT solutions governed by guiding principles. However, the definition still doesn't specify what exactly should be part of a deliverable for a well-defined architecture.

IT architecture is crucial as organisations constantly try to connect with their consumers. The observed gap between what organisations are capable of and what consumers need is relevant even today. This gap can be filled, and the organisation can evolve its architecture around customer experience. The same can be done by integrating the customer perspective into conventional change disciplines. Through this blog, Growth Jockey will assist you in better understanding of the importance of IT architecture in building a better customer experience.

Understanding the Customer Experience Pyramid

Even when we are marketers, we are consumers as well. We eat out, purchase automobiles, and shop for household goods and food. And we recall those incidents: the frustrating hours we spent at a car dealership or the enjoyable lunch we had on our anniversary at a little café. Most likely, we rely on our past experiences to help us decide whether or not to return to that restaurant or make another purchase from that auto dealer. We share our stories with our friends and family in the hopes that they will help them decide on whether to visit a store or not. We might even brag or whine about it on social media, affecting thousands or tens of thousands of friends and total strangers.

Building a quality consumer experience does not need a miracle or genius brains. In reality, it is common sense to deliver excellent service. Offering quality customer experience can be taxing, and you may need guidance sometimes. We provide essential advice and versatility for the best CX. At Growth Jockey, we give customer experience officers (CXOs) a ton of flexibility to expand their skills and bandwidth to meet any particular project's and company's needs.

This is where the customer experience pyramid comes in. The major components of customer experience are included within it. By concentrating on five crucial stages, the CX pyramid goes beyond merely resolving today's issues for today's customers.

Stage 1: Communication Level – Provide customers with the information they can use through the proper channel at the appropriate time.

Stage 2: Responsive Level – Quickly and effectively resolve customer issues while balancing business and customer goals, measures, and strategies.

Stage 3: Commitment Level – Customers' needs should be heard, understood, and addressed.

Stage 4: Proactive Level – Offer them experiences that meet their needs before customers ask.

Stage 5: Evolution Level – Improve, increase, or give customers a sense of power.

We understand the necessity of managing risk to ensure healthy business growth and sustained superior performance. This pyramid provides a blueprint for reaching out to your customers more personally. Reach out to Growth Jockey to learn more about CX and CXOs!

Transformation Of Customer Experience Architecture Into Organisational Capabilities

The customer experience architecture or computer architecture links every aspect of a customer's interaction with a business or organization. It illustrates how customer needs and expectations are subject to change. Additionally, it identifies opportunities that significantly impact the business and translates them into distinctive organizational capabilities. Understanding capabilities from the customers' perspective aids in determining which element delivers core capabilities and how this should be developed.

The role of IT architecture is to present itself to customers. There are many types of IT architects who makes sure that the framework is implemented properly. These customer experience architects comprise of Business-focused, vendor-focused, developer-focused, and operation-focused. Additionally, they create high-level solutions for business applications, portfolios, and enterprise systems via IT solutions. This suggests a front end that operates quickly and is focused on the client, with a back end that operates slowly and is transaction-oriented. The customer-facing portion of software release cycles and deployment techniques should be modular to speed up new software deployment by reducing time-consuming integration efforts. Longer release cycles result from the need for the transactional core systems of record to be built for reliability and high-quality data management.

The Importance of Architecture for Consumer Experience

Every business aspires to provide each consumer with a satisfying experience. Furthermore, the organizational framework needed for customer satisfaction is often absent. You might want to consider creating a framework to make your business more customer-centric. Three foundations serve as the framework for an effective transformation of the customer experience:

• A thorough outline of the functions and initiatives must be used to improve the customer experience.

• Leaders and executives must have a distinct vision for the new corporate culture and pursue clear goals.

• Develop key performance indicators to measure both hard metrics and soft, as well as benchmarks that are centred on people.

Building upon this framework is a very individualized process. Organizations must assess their resources, both financial and technological, as well as their ability to implement top-down changes.

Strengthen the Front Lines

The foundation for exceptional customer experiences is laid by customer service representatives and other personnel who interact with the general public. Every interaction needs to be based on a culture of not simply meeting but exceeding customer expectations. In other instances, this might be as simple as managing a challenging billing scenario with professionalism and sensitivity.

A company's philosophy and organizational structure must also be established by CEOs and other decision-makers, as well as cross-functional team leaders who can spot opportunities to promote departmental collaboration. Identifying the areas that both executives and employees believe need to change is the simplest way to start a transformation initiative.

In order to do this, businesses must rely on the knowledge of front-line employees and middle management regarding client compliments, grievances, and demands. In addition, employees must be given the freedom to develop and implement their own ideas in order to feel fully involved in the process and to take ownership of the outcomes of organizational-wide improvements.

To Summarize

It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with customers' shifting needs. Organisations must begin building their capabilities and structures from the outside if they want to stay competitive, ensuring that their operations revolve around the demands of their clients. The need of IT architecture is absolute at this stage. In addition to designing from the outside in, a customer-enabled experience for architecture also helps you get to know your consumers and their needs better. This eventually allows you to co-create fantastic experiences. An IT architecture plan for new customer experience will eventually deploy an architecture-transformation stream, which is necessary for an enriched customer experience.

At Growth Jockey, we are committed to building customised solutions that effectively address the critical challenges faced by our clients across diverse industries. Regardless of the size of your company, whether it's a small-scale enterprise or a large corporation, you can now optimise your IT architecture. Take the decisive step towards unlocking the next level of growth for your brand by contacting us today!