Creating competitive advantage in Financial Services through digital experiences.

Nearly 90% of buyers say that the experience a company provides matters as much as products or services (Salesforce).

That is why the #1 investment to achieve the greatest return and impact on your business, right now and into the future, is your client’s digital experience.

Customers don’t just want an outstanding digital experience that adds value and feels personalised – they expect nothing less – and will go elsewhere if they don’t get it.

According to Forbes, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience, yet many B2B leaders acknowledge that their digital offerings lag behind customer expectations.

Salesforce found that at least 72% of customers will switch brands if they have a bad experience, proving how essential this is to business, brand loyalty, and retention. 

Why digital innovation is your single biggest competitive advantage.

In a noisy and overcrowded marketplace, products and services are increasingly commoditised. 

Digital experiences that exceed expectations are key to standing out and connecting in meaningful ways, while also attracting, engaging, and retaining.

If digital experiences fail to engage users effectively, or fall short in meeting people’s expectations, they cannot drive meaningful results. Businesses miss opportunities to create strong connections with customers and can fall behind competitors, losing vital business.

Digital experiences are also a key driver of purchasing decisions and business growth. Therefore, investing in your digital experiences doesn't just give you an advantage, it’s the most powerful strategy for delivering long-term business success.

What is a digital experience and why does it matter to your business?

Digital experiences include all touchpoints users have online through digital channels like websites, mobile apps, social media, emails, online ads, and even search results.

A good digital experience is seamless and easy to navigate. It provides value, is user-friendly, and meets the needs and expectations of the audience.

A great experience resonates with relevance, feels intuitive, and continually adds value, providing solutions to achieve tangible outcomes. It's highly engaging and helps make a deeper connection to have both instant and lasting impact.

An elevated digital experience is hyper-personalised and omnichannel optimised. This means it feels personal and tailored to each user, with clear cohesion across all channels, linking all the touchpoints together through a seamless user journey, adding value.

In my experience, the best digital experiences also surprise and delight, exceeding all expectations to create something innovative that is meaningful and memorable.

Connecting the dots through the complete user journey...

As the CEO and co-founder of 7DOTS, a digital innovation agency that partners with clients to elevate their digital experiences, I have seen firsthand the positive impact it can have and how this has become the single biggest indicator of business success and we’re not alone.

A recent report by Gartner said that 89% of companies compete primarily on the basis of customer experience. That’s almost 90% of your competitive advantage determined by your customer experiences.

According to a 2024 report by Salesforce, “88% of customers expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives to improve customer experience.”

All the data supports how businesses simply cannot afford not to prioritise digital experiences in the highly competitive marketplace today.

What are the top solutions to key questions business leaders are asking?

Of course, all businesses and organisations want to create the best digital experiences they can. However, the digital marketplace is rapidly changing and evolving at such a pace it’s hard for many business leaders to know exactly where to invest to get the greatest return.

Key questions business leaders are asking:

1. What’s the most effective way to improve performance and drive growth to scale?

2. How should we be using AI? How do we improve efficiencies and be human-centric?

3. How to hyper-personalise customer’s experiences with omnichannel optimisation and customisation of content across all touchpoints?

4. What should the technology stack look like?

5. What’s the best way to create competitive advantage through digital experiences?

The biggest challenges offering the greatest opportunities with data insights.

The biggest challenges I’m hearing from business leaders daily is that they don't yet have their data working for them - either for attribution, ROI, or intelligence.

The issue is that without the data being in order, it's hard for businesses to know what is working well (and what isn't, so they know what to focus on), to improve performance, or create a personalised experience.

It is crucial for businesses to better understand the key drivers of performance and growth with their digital experiences.

We know these things are critical to creating an effective digital experience that creates competitive advantage and this is why we focus on helping clients with this issue first. 

How do you create competitive advantage through digital experiences?

At 7DOTS, we strategically focus on creating competitive advantage through digital innovation because our clients know their business and reputation depends on it.

We do this by combining strategy, technology, and creativity to create extraordinary digital experiences that help businesses grow and thrive.

We focus on:

• End-to-end customer experience connecting the dots to ensure every touchpoint works effectively.
• A performance engine approach to deliver measurable results at pace.
• Hyper-personalisation to create tailored experiences for everyone across all touchpoints.
• Human-led thinking powered by data-insights. Our unique methodologies uncover hidden human-insights and behaviours, aligning strategy with audiences’ needs to add meaningful value.
• Cutting-edge technology and creativity, including Ai, to create effective, efficient, scalable solutions.

How we do it.

We partner with clients to identify the crucial areas that provide the most significant opportunity to create competitive advantage.

We do this by focusing on three key areas:

1. Understanding the audience

2. Creating better experiences

3. Driving better results from digital 

1. Understanding the audience:

Our unique methodology for uncovering key insights drives digital strategy and execution through human-centric research and data, enabling holistic and effective client strategy.

2. Creating better experiences:

Our proprietary attributes framework enables us to elevate the digital experience beyond expectations. This creates experiences that move from transactional to quality relationships. Pulling people closer to your brand.

3. Driving better results from digital:

Our growth team wraps our core expertise to drive continuous performance at pace and constantly improve and optimise through key measurables and outcomes to deliver value at each step.

Real-life examples to demonstrate this in action

John Laing

We worked with John Laing, a leading international infrastructure investor, to establish a new business model through their digital experience. They wanted to create a distinctive digital face that would set them apart within the industry and align their digital platform with the new business model. The result is a fresh new website that breathes life into the brand, showcasing their leading commitment to sustainability and making a significant impact.

Miller Insurance

We recently partnered with Miller Insurance to refresh their digital experience, breaking free from the industry's traditional "sea of sameness." Their bold new brand positioning “Go be great” transforms insurance from a cost into a catalyst for growth and greatness. Evoking heritage while embracing innovation, the refreshed digital experience is sleek, immersive, and unique. Elegant layouts, dynamic visuals, and compelling storytelling create a distinctive, modern digital presence that stands out in a crowded market.

Coca-Cola European Partners

We worked with Coca-Cola European Partners to consolidate all their European websites into a single site to increase governance, consistency, and efficiency. It was important to ensure regulatory and accessibility compliance and seamless integration with financial and sustainability reporting tools. Together we created a world-class corporate site to engage stakeholders, deliver a compelling user experience, and set the benchmark for the industry. By Aligning the brand strategy with digital innovation, the new platform sets a category benchmark, delivering consistency, engagement, and long-term scalability across the market. As a result, organic traffic increased by 1800% over the course of our partnership.

If you’d like to chat to us about how you can create competitive advantage through digital experiences, then let’s connect.