Customer experience (CX) has always been paramount to business success. However, in the digital age, experience isn’t limited to a singular place or interaction. Customers expect superior brand experiences across all channels – web, mobile, social media, IoT, etc. Not only must the experience be enjoyable or engaging, but if you’re connecting with customers at many different touchpoints, it also needs to be cohesive and seamless.

It’s a tall order, any way you slice it. To gain more insight into how to implement and execute the best digital customer experiences, we took to one of the most popular channels: Twitter. On Sept. 19, Acquia moderated a CX Twitter chat – How to deliver connected digital customer experiences: Crawl, walk, run in the chase for customer connectivity – with some of the U.K.’s foremost experts on the subject.

Here are some of the highlights of the discussion.

What are the biggest challenges facing organisations seeking to create a connected customer experience?

Kath Pay @KathPay

Delivering a unified experience (and tracking this same experience) across all devices. Tech like @bouncex enables the consumer journey to be picked up where they left off on other devices, enabling a connected experience #AcquiaCX

Noreen Cesareo

Challenges include: consistency in brand identity and values, consent and marketing automation, personalisation within digital content, making sense of analytics, breakdown of trust in brand promise, and too much noise on media channels.

Mira Nair @MiraTeachme

Cultural change – how employees think –  is the biggest barrier to CX improvement. Put customers at the heart of business decisions at all levels; the CEO to the junior developer and everyone in between should be asking “What will this do for our customers?” every day. #AcquiaCX

Ninety-six percent of CMOs are not satisfied with their ability to use customer data to orchestrate the buyer journey. @aberdeenuni Why do you think this is? #AcquiaCX

Giuseppe Caltabiano @giusec
Because CMOs today 1) cannot connect data and make it actionable for individual clients 2) cannot establish yet a central command center to orchestrate Xchannel CX 3) still miss tools to manage content excellence 4) lay the foundation to attribute ROI to activities. #AcquiaCX

Janice B Gordon @Janicebg

It is complicated! Not only do you have to collect the cross-platform data but analyse real time to develop strategies that are measured for impact. The fear is that you will get it wrong invest time and money and the customer experience is not improved or worse! #AcquiaCX

Narcis Radoi @NarcisRadoi

Mostly the really big costs of implementing the analytics that lead to this ability to use data. Also the fact that – in enterprise implementations – making these changes takes so long that a new system comes out that makes the system just implemented obsolete.

When does digital personalisation cross the line and how can we find the right balance?

Neil Cattermull @NeilCattermull

When it gets too personal. At the end of the day every consumer wants to feel special and looked after appropriately. I would want to marketed to from a firm that doesn’t know me but happens to know my son’s birthday to sell me toys (rough example). #AcquiaCX

Daryn Mason @CxDaryn

It can cross the line in two ways, when it becomes interruptive/intrusive, and when it becomes spooky/scary. It goes back to the previous comments on the customer journey. Relevance is everything! #AcquiaCX

Alexander Low @Alexander_low

When the sentiment data tells you. The right balance will be when you hit consistent revenue streams #AcquiaCX

Katharine Shaw @KatharineShaw42

Great question on #personalisation. I think there's a responsibility for brands to inform consumers on why they are collecting the data and how this will enhance their experience. Showing the value of #personalisation within the #CustomerExperience is key. #AcquiaCX

What should have the biggest impact on customer experience planning for 2019?

Mira Nair

#Technology by itself has no impact in 2018 or 2019 if not used with a customer-centered attitude. People will create the biggest impact on #CX, and then source the right tools and processes to measure and improve the results. CX strategy is for and by people #acquiacx

Janice B Gordon

Map out idea customer journey, identified & measured the touchpoint & moments of truth. Priorities the points of impact & develop strategy to improve the key areas, get every internal customer on-board to improving the connected external #CX #AcquiaCX #Personalisation

Ian Moyse @Imoyse

Willingness to change – too may are constrained by resistance to effort to change #AcquiaCX

Alexander Low

The evolution of how technology can be leveraged to use data more effectively by asking the right questions. Moving from predictive analytics to prescriptive analytics to guide businesses to getting this right #AcquiaCX

See the full conversation via #AcquiaCX. This particular chat might be over, but customer experience is always top of mind. Feel free to reach out and talk CX with us anytime @acquia.