By: Ankit Gupta, Associate Director – Package Implementation, LTIMindtree

The notion of customer experience in manufacturing has become increasingly pertinent in all aspects of modern business, and industrial manufacturing is no different. In order to stay current with industry innovation and remain competitive, companies must find ways to revolutionize their customer experience strategies. By understanding the key principles behind delivering a positive and meaningful customer journey, businesses can ensure maximum efficiency from end-to-end operations that result in optimal customer satisfaction. This blog post will highlight core concepts as well as provide actionable insight into how you can revolutionize your industrial manufacturing operations through enhanced customer experiences.

A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytics Service indicated that, “In the coming years, 82% of manufacturing organizations will invest in creating better customer engagements via digital tool”. A similar study by PwC found that 73% of industrial manufacturers believe that customer experience will be a key differentiator in their industry in the next few years.

So, what changes have led to this trend for industrial manufacturers? Although COVID was a significant factor that disrupted companies worldwide, the wheels were already in motion before the pandemic struck. With rapid globalization and technological advancements, customer expectations have become versatile. The intense competition within the market was driving manufacturers to identify parameters other than product quality.

Customer experience emerged as a crucial parameter for all businesses, whether B2B or B2C. Today’s customers rapidly change their priorities and base their relationships with brands on their interactions and experiences. To remain competitive, manufacturing companies are now prioritizing delivering exceptional customer experiences.

What is the importance of customer experience in manufacturing?

A couple of decades ago, customer experience was a simple process involving understanding, producing, and delivering products that the customer demands. Today customer experience is about a customer’s cumulative experience with a company, including all interactions and touchpoints. Customer experience is the perception that a customer has of a brand based on his experiences, and it all boils down to “Making every customer interaction matter“.

For manufacturing industries, customer experience matters more than ever. The journey of customer experience begins with pre-purchase research and goes way beyond the post – purchase follow-up and after-sales.

Industrial manufacturing leaders constantly face the challenge of disconnected processes and data, resulting in a fragmented view of the customer data that impacts the customer experience. To combat this, customer experience leaders in the manufacturing industry have revaluated their business models and implemented new strategies to enhance the customer experience.

• Subscription-based models work on pre-agreed terms for access to goods or services.
• Direct-to-consumer, products are delivered directly to consumers.
• Creating custom products that meet customer requirements by use of computer-aided systems.

Manufacturing industries have traditionally focused on optimizing customer touch points around products and services. Previously, this was a successful approach; Now, it’s no longer enough. Today the need is for a holistic, dynamic view of customers and to identify the reasons for their purchase behavior – and at the same time to look at them as more than just buyers.

Across manufacturing industries, data plays an integral role. However, it is often not utilized to its potential. Connecting and unlocking the actual data value in real-time helps understand the customer and provide an excellent customer experience. Recognizing the customer journey, training employees, analyzing the Voice of Customer, increasing team collaboration personalization, transparent communication, providing real-time data, and Investment in technology are helping companies improve their customer experience.

This has led to the adoption of the data-first approach by various customer experience leaders, which is possible only by investing in the latest technology solutions.

Investing in technology helps streamline processes and improve the overall customer experience. For instance, implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system allows businesses to enhance and track customer interactions while personalizing the customer experience.

How is Oracle helping manufacturers enhance customer experience?

Oracle is helping reimagine the next generation of customer experience with connected applications, unified customer data, and in-built intelligence at every touchpoint. Oracle innovates to ensure market faster, making supply chains resilient and redefining the customer experience with integrated applications.

For the manufacturing industry, Oracle Customer Experience solutions provide brands with a diverse range of tools to identify and connect with the right customers, providing relevant and timely promotions at customers’ exact moment of need. This includes the ability to streamline sales through traditional direct and distribution channels as well as B2B e-commerce platforms. Moreover, leveraging IoT and AI, these solutions provide excellent proactive support and service to further enhance the overall customer experience.

Oracle Customer Experience helps manufacturing companies in several ways as mentioned below.

1. Enhancing customer experience: Oracle Customer Experience Cloud provides a range of tools to help businesses improve their customer experience, from personalized marketing and sales to more effective customer service and support. By providing a better overall experience, industrial manufacturing companies can improve customer loyalty and reduce churn.
2. Increasing sales and revenue: Using Oracle Customer Experience Cloud, industrial manufacturing companies can target customers with the right messages, resulting in higher conversion rates and increased sales. Additionally, by providing a better customer experience, companies can encourage repeat business and referrals, leading to sustained revenue growth.
3. Improving operational efficiency: Using Oracle Customer Experience Cloud to streamline customer service and support, industrial manufacturing companies can reduce response times and improve efficiency. This can help to reduce costs and improve overall operational efficiency.
4. Providing insights: Oracle Customer Experience Cloud can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can be used to improve product design and marketing strategies. This can lead to more effective product development and marketing, increasing customer satisfaction and revenue.

Manufacturing customers around the world are benefiting greatly from Oracle Customer Experience, which enables exceptional customer experiences at every touchpoint and effective engagement with the most relevant customers at the optimal time, offering tailored solutions across both physical and digital channels. This results in significant enhancements in customer acquisition, retention, lifetime value, and brand loyalty.

To summarize, customer experience is increasingly important in the industrial manufacturing domain. By providing excellent customer experience, companies can retain customers, gain a competitive advantage, increase revenue, improve efficiency and productivity, drive innovation, and ultimately achieve long-term success. To do so, companies should prioritize personalization, transparency, accessibility, data-driven decision-making, and employee engagement.

LTIMindtree’s customer experience solution for manufacturers

LTIMindtree is partnering with enterprises to reimagine their businesses using Oracle cloud applications and technologies. With core strengths in deep industry domains and unmatched functional expertise, we deliver agile outcomes for our clients and end customers. Our main offerings portfolio on Oracle enables us to reimagine their business processes and redesign user journeys for the digital era. Innovative offerings can also be viewed on the Oracle marketplace.

LTIMindtree’s customer experience for manufacturing also known as CX4M offering, provides an end-to-end customer experience Journey on a fully connected Oracle Customer Experience Suite, focusing on CPQ, D2C/B2B commerce, subscriptions, and field operations. Leveraging the in-house frameworks, our clients have saved up to 30% of costs.

Leverage our rich experience in the customer experience space, Oracle Customer Experience cloud stack expertise, and a successful track record with marquee customers in the industrial manufacturing domain. Our prebuilt ERP agnostic, plug-and-play components integrate with Oracle Customer Experience products to solve specific business problems faced in the manufacturing domain.

LTIMindtree has been a trusted partner of Oracle for more than 20+ years, and we have been enabling customers to transform their businesses by leveraging the power of Oracle cloud. Our unique offerings, industry expertise, and go-to-market strategy have enabled helped us to deliver to 75+ global clients through our 50+ Oracle cloud tools.

To know more about how LTIMindtree can help you provide better customer experience to your customers, talk to us today.