Leveraging Multicloud to Improve Customer Experience

Today, using digital services is the drive of people’s everyday lives — social media, digital payment methods, ridesharing apps, smart home systems, video streaming platforms — that has  become an extension of human behavior, natural and subconscious. AppDynamics, one of the subsidiaries of Cisco Systems, calls it a “digital reflex”. This is why it’s not surprising that digital experience, being a major part of today’s customer experience (CX), plays a key role in making or breaking a brand.

CX in The Era of Digital Reflex

In the era of the digital reflex, digital experience means a seamless end-to-end journey that is entirely digital . Brands are expected to create first-class digital experiences for their customers through not just one or two, but complete aspects: constant engagement, smooth and convenient buying process, stellar app and website performance, tailored and personalized content, etc. Consumers believe that digital experiences are as important, if not more, than face-to-face interaction and will be loyal to the brands that deliver digital experience perfection. According to The App Attention Index report by AppDynamics, 50% of consumers stated that they would be willing to pay more for an organization’s product or service if its digital services were better than a competitor’s. Moreover, based on the same report, people are far less tolerant of problems with digital services than they were a few years ago, and they’re now far more likely to take decisive actions — deleting applications, turning to the competition, and sharing their negative experiences far and wide. 

To answer the demands of this era, businesses need to rethink the way they approach CX. A key to an improved CX is highly accessible technology and innovations, so that businesses can focus on providing what their customers need and prefer. Nowadays, especially since the pandemic, CX is digital-first — first impressions are made online, relationships are forged through applications, and buying decisions are made through digital experiences. Therefore, it’s essential for companies to invest in various technology and innovations to boost their digital presence and performance. Leveraging multicloud is one of the ways.

Multi Cloud and How It Improves CX 

Multi Cloud refers to the use of more than one clouds from different cloud platforms —  can be a combination of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, file sharing and data storage, big data analytics, data governance, and cybersecurity — where each cloud platform delivers a specific application or service to achieve the user’s end goals. For instance, a company may utilize four different providers for each of email services, database services, customer relationship management (CRM), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This combination allows the company to gain the benefits of each platform while avoiding their limitations. In addition, as businesses seek more flexibility, agility, and options, a multi cloud architecture allows them to build an ecosystem where it’s possible to customize their infrastructure, deployment, and management models to meet their demands.

Due to its nature, a multi cloud architecture allows companies to improve CX in three major ways. The architecture provides companies with an ideal situation where their application workloads get the resources they need, when they need them, so the applications would perform as designed without any conflict over access to a shared resource. A multicloud environment also helps businesses improve their data security. Because companies don’t have to rely on a single cloud platform, they will be more resilient against various types of disasters and cyberattacks. When one cloud goes down, other clouds are available to take the workloads. Finally, with more convenience to run the applications in the “backstage” — SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, and others, companies can shift their focus to what really matters: creating and constantly upgrading their CX strategies and implementations.

These days, talking about customer experience naturally means talking about digital experience, and businesses can’t improve the first without also innovating the latter. To survive, it’s imperative for businesses to invest in the right technology to make things better, easier, and more engaging for their customers. Due to its nature and capabilities, multicloud is a technology option companies can utilize to provide better CX.