The expanding digital landscape is constantly spawning new ways to connect with customers. As marketers. We have to react accordingly, making sure our attention, budget and headcount is focused in the right areas. The need to be agile and fast-to-react can often mean it’s difficult to take a step back and view the bigger picture.

At the same time, we’re also seeing continuous change in the dynamics between brands and customers. Social media has given birth to the ‘empowered consumer’, who holds immense influence of the reputation of brands. The customer is aware of the power they now possess and will use it to their advantage when choosing products and interacting with brands. Consumers no longer expect good customer service, they demand it.

Digital expansion is continually presenting new opportunities for strengthening relationships with customers, but with those opportunities comes risk. Marketers can no longer afford to look at each customer touchpoint in isolation or solely focus their attention on customer acquisition, they need to understand the whole customer experience.

Marketers who aren’t already acting on improving their customer experience are already going to be playing catch up.

By 2017, 89% of marketers expect customer experience to be their primary differentiator. – Gartner