Experience is the key to a long-term love affair with technology

It’s incredible how quickly we can get used to technology. There seems to be no time at all between the introduction of an amazing innovation that completely changes our day-to-day lives, and it becoming an unremarkable necessity in our lives. In fact, often the only time we’re aware of the ‘experience’ of using technology is when it may dip below our high expectations.

This is not a modern phenomenon. At the turn of the 20th century Marcel Proust described the telephone as “a supernatural instrument before whose miracles we used to stand amazed, and which we now employ without giving it a thought, to summon our tailor or order an ice cream.” The novelist also mentioned the anger and irritation we feel whenever the new invention fails to work – something that will be familiar to any modern technology user.

This furnishes an important lesson for any technology provider – the ‘wow’ factor of new devices or services does not last long as they become integral parts of our lives. Users will quickly demand perfect performance and a consistently good user experience once the ‘shiny, new feeling’ is over.

Take mobile devices, for example: users are now looking at their mobile devices 150 times a day on average. People expect seamless and effortless technology experiences – whether it is high bandwidth broadband in order to download content in seconds or easily connecting to Wi-Fi at home and the workplace at the click of a button. If users don’t achieve perfection they’ll have no compunction about seeking out alternative providers.

The challenge for all organisations is therefore to gain insight into their network performance that provides them with the knowledge to deliver a smarter, faster and more agile network that keeps pace with user demand. If they fail, they will risk losing revenue associated with positive user experience.

The cost of a bad experience
A poor experience can be catastrophic to any business from causing reputational damage to loss of revenue. The rise of social media has not helped as a simple tweet or blog discussing customer dissatisfaction can now reach the millions. For example, in 2007, Jeff Jarvis, a US blogger, famously reached millions with his open letter of complaint to Dell – and it’s still making its way around the internet today.

Experience has become monetised and our digital world has transformed into an ‘Experience Economy’ where every poor-experience second can be metered at a cost to the business. On the other hand, according to NewVoiceMedia, following a positive customer experience, more than two thirds of customers would recommend a company to others, and the same proportion said would remain loyal to the brand.

Managing user experience and expectations with IT is considered one of the greatest challenges for businesses today. However, businesses that are getting it right will be presented with the perfect opportunity to turn customers into brand ambassadors that help generate revenue.

Optimising the “brains of the business”
Meeting and exceeding user expectations in today’s Experience Economy must become a top priority for CIOs. According to IDC, this year CIOs will require an entirely different set of IT skills and roles in the advent of mobile, social and big data, including management of innovation, information intelligence, customer experience and digital business. The firm suggests that CIOs can adapt and transform their enterprises during the next four years to help evolve and set a new standard for the next-generation of CIOs.

In a similar vein, CIOs will need to go beyond network hardware as simply the “connectivity highway” to focusing on how the network has become the brains of the business, providing the best performance for optimum customer experience.

Through the assessment of IT infrastructure, businesses can help to solve challenges by supplying the right set of technologies to meet customer demand. A simple, fast and smart software-defined architecture powered by a high performance network will be key.

High performing technology to handle user demand
The increase in both mobile device and applications has become a greater challenge for IT departments, as most lack the visibility and tools at the application layer to effectively monitor, prioritise or control data traffic.

Many businesses often require their IT department to use multiple and siloed network management systems to handle the entire network. This can result in a fragmented and disconnected management process which can lead to IT failures and a negative experience for the user. Additionally, this approach can be costly and place a strain on critical IT resources.

In order to gain stronger visibility into the network, businesses can look to a solution that will unify multiple network management systems into a single pane of glass to provide ease-of-use and increased simplicity in managing the network.

For example, by analysing the network, hospitals can optimise and measure life critical applications to deliver better patient care and ensure IT resources are allocated efficiently and adequately. With better clarity into the applications being used via the network, IT could proactively monitor application performance and response times, and ensure point-of-care applications are optimised, before clinicians enter complaints.

Furthermore, by adding increased support within the network - using a combination of high performance hardware with software-defined architecture managed through a centralised management solution – businesses can ensure customers deliver positive and consistent experiences to users in their environment. This leads to better use of IT resources, increased ROI and business agility, and ultimately an enhanced user experience.

Roadmap to success
By using a software-defined architecture solution that will combine network visibility, analytics and policy, over high performance wired and wireless infrastructures, businesses can retain user or customer advocacy and loyalty. These network solutions are designed to deliver the requisite intelligence, performance and operational simplicity to handle demanding enterprise environments.

What this means for the end user is a network that is so seamless, fast and reliable that the user can actually be justified in taking it for granted. We might lose our sense of wonder in new technologies, but their performance will keep us happy and satisfied.