The Top Customer Experience Challenges and How IT Leaders Can Overcome Them

Updating Outdated or Insufficient Technology

Outdated or insufficient technology can cause major issues as IT leaders build out their customer experience journeys. If teams are working with systems that are not ready for automation, analyzing data inputs must be done manually. Too often, this “creates a matrix of systems with a range of databases, which very often don’t talk to each other,” writes Anna Dyderska, senior business intelligence analyst at the Northumberland County Council in England, on LinkedIn.

“Running a customer-facing technology environment today generally means connecting and using multiple applications that run in the cloud and on-premises. Modern applications also tend to rely on event-driven processing, an architecture that allows for automated actions whenever an event occurs, such as an ecommerce purchase, a question posed to a chatbot, or a login by a loyalty club member. Without this kind of automated responsiveness, a website likely can’t respond quickly enough, and with consistent correctness, to meet consumer expectations,” notes Oracle.

Revamping Impersonal Interactions

Customers place a high value on personalization, with 72% saying they expect the businesses they buy from to recognize them as individuals and know their interests, per a recent McKinsey study. If a chatbot hasn’t had enough generative artificial intelligence training, the responses may be cold and generic, and customers may be turned off.

IT leaders must rigorously train their systems to parse data with generative AI. This will help improve personalization in the customer experience, which was identified as a top use case by 42% of AI decision-makers, according to a 2024 Forrester study.

Managing Data and Organizational Silos

It’s also important to address data silos at this stage. Any silo where “relevant information isn’t properly unified can leave your organization with an incomplete picture of the end-to-end customer experience,” notes Oracle.

That’s why IT leaders need a reliable data management solution that connects customer data from various sections of the business, such as sales and marketing. Once data is clean and consolidated, it’s much easier to extract rich insights.

Experts also recommend regular testing, because “a single oversight in their design or implementation can have far-reaching consequences” notes CDW.

Overcoming Extended Wait Times

Online shopping has made instant gratification the new gold standard, and now it’s up to IT leaders to make sure they can guarantee that speed on the back end. Unfortunately, that’s not what always happens.

“Due to ineffective workflows, complex phone trees and other factors that are almost always invisible to customers,” CDW notes, customers “end up repeating the same information to multiple people, being put on multiple holds and then repeating the information yet again. Poor experiences like these not only diminish customer satisfaction but can also jeopardize retention.”

Speed is one of the major criteria that eases frustrations for customers, so organizations need to consider the back-end phone trees that are in place to eliminate such frustrating interactions. Improving these exchanges dramatically boost customer loyalty and brand reputation, CDW says.

GO DEEPER: Why is customer service the focus of most digital transformation projects?

Business Objective Misalignment

Business objective misalignment can occur when a company’s goals and procedures are not clearly understood by all staff. If one department prioritizes customer experience while another is focused on expanding to new markets, customers in these new regions may experience delayed wait times and inconsistent customer service. This can cause damage to the brand’s reputation.

“When your customer experience strategy isn’t aligned with your broader business objectives, you’ll likely end up chasing initiatives that don’t deliver for the company,” notes Oracle.

To avoid this issue, IT leaders should aim to get buy-in from executives early on so all major players are united about priority initiatives and resourcing plans. So far, companies that have taken this approach saw 3.5 times more revenue growth, according to Accenture.

Overlooking Employee Experience

Neglecting employees can have a significant ripple effect on customer experience. When employees feel undervalued, overworked or disconnected from the company’s mission, their productivity suffers, and that can impact the quality of their customer interactions.

IT leaders must equip staff with the proper training and support to handle customer needs. But it’s also a matter of listening to employees and making sure they are enjoying the work.  

There is an undeniable link between customer experience and employee experience — and brands can’t improve one without improving the other,” notes Forbes. In this “mutually dependent ‘chicken and egg’ relationship, brands looking to improve their CX and drive a corresponding increase in ROI should first focus on creating the best employee experience possible.”