Around 88% of respondents consider delivering an outstanding customer experience (CX) an important goal with 38% expecting top-line revenue growth as a result
Mendix announced a new research report that explains the lingering challenges organizations are facing as they attempt to deliver a better digital customer experience (CX). The report also reflects the accelerating pace of low-code adoption as a means of CX improvement.
The report was commissioned by Mendix and conducted by market research firm Reputation Leaders from November 19 to December 17, 2021. It is based on a survey of 522 senior IT professionals in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the U.S. Just under a quarter (23%) hold C-level positions.
“Customer experience quality is critical for digital brands because the competition is only a couple of clicks or swipes away. Unfortunately, IT organizations are so steeped in technical debt — particularly with the developer shortage — that there just isn’t enough time to innovate and tackle the backlog. Using low-code, companies can easily modernize legacy apps and deliver exciting, new experiences that take advantage of alternative reality, virtual reality, hyper-personalization and hyper-automation,” said Johan den Haan, CTO, Mendix.
Digital disruption and the pandemic both accelerated the need for digital transformation. As businesses become more digital, they quickly learn that CX is a necessary differentiator. In line with that, 88% said that delivering an outstanding CX is an important goal, but slightly more (90%) are challenged to deliver it. The two most common obstacles are cybersecurity (49%) and data integration (42%), which the major low-code platforms are addressing head-on. Meanwhile, customers are frustrated by long waits or response times (28%) and unresolved issues (27%), so many organizations (63%) are attempting to improve customer communication and make digital choices easier with the goal of increasing customer retention and loyalty. Some 38% expect to see top-line revenue growth as a result.
AI and automation are being used to improve CX by providing faster responses to customer queries.
Already, 29% are employing chatbots and virtual assistants. A whopping 93% are using or planning to use AI. One of the key AI use cases is hyper-automation, which Gartner defines as, “a business-driven, disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many business and IT processes as possible.” In fact, Gartner expects hyper-automation will be one of the top three drivers of low-code adoption through 2022.
Many organizations are saddled with aging technology that remains mission-critical. A whopping 80% of respondents said low-code provides an efficient way to redesign CX because more can be accomplished with fewer resources.
Low-code is a more effective way of modernizing aging legacy systems because it accelerates software development and reduces costs. Importantly, low-code provides a means of integrating with legacy and other systems, so new functionality can be added to aging applications while maintaining the application’s integrity. At the present time, 52% are spending the majority of their budget maintaining systems and only 14% are prioritizing innovation as a budget line item.
Nearly a third of organizations struggle to find and retain developers or UX designers, which is a symptom of the global developer shortage. Most organizations plan to realize their CX goals using in-house employees with existing IT skills (61%) and training their existing staff (48%). This suggests that pressure on IT departments continues to increase as digital experiences evolve across web and mobile platforms.
