Okta : For Better Customer Experiences, Evolve and Deliver with Speed

Throughout COVID-19, businesses have not only had to manage immediate disruptions-they've also had to try to anticipate what's next. The pandemic has upset supply chains, restricted in-person services, and bottlenecked customer interactions on online channels. But with chaos, there's often opportunity to be found. When it comes to digital customer experience (CX), for example, these conditions have sped up trends that were already in motion-now, dynamic and engaging services are non-negotiable.

In this 'Modernizing the Customer Experience' series, we explore how organizations can meet and exceed new customer expectations in the short and long term by using identity to drive digital transformation. Uncertain times encourage change, and organizations that are quick to invest in new and improved digital experiences can inspire trust and loyalty.

Evolve your services

Digital technology is now at the forefront of every business, allowing entire industries to operate remotely while physical distancing measures are in place.

Cloud solutions and online services have a particularly large role to play when organizations need fast new ways of engaging customers and citizens. Government agencies and education providers, for instance, are among those that shifted online due to the pandemic. As agencies prioritize quality digital services, building useful and accessible information portals to engage the public has become crucial. In education, organizations must create online spaces and roll out collaboration tools to power remote learning experiences.

For those with nascent or no digital initiatives, our current circumstances provide an opportunity to expand into new service lines and make improvements that build resilience. The rise of telemedicine in healthcare is a good example of this. By inviting patients to securely provide relevant personal and medical information online, practitioners can better understand their patients' preferences ahead of appointments. And in a taxing time for medical resources, this additional insight helps providers triage patients based on need. Retailers, meanwhile, have introduced measures such as curbside pickup and have met online shoppers with relevant offers and messaging.

The key to scoring a win with customer experience? Finding the right technologies to execute your vision quickly and effectively.

Speed up time to market

Innovating quickly has always been important-but in an era where technology is your brand's calling card, it's essential. Your development teams need a modern customer identity and access management (CIAM) platform to build and launch seamless and secure user experiences at pace.

For more than a third of companies (35%), integrating a CIAM solution with their app takes more than four months. To make up time, look for an option with customizable building blocks for identity and toolkits in languages your developers already know. That way, they can hit the ground running and deliver great new services without relying on custom code.

A modern CIAM solution will also allow you to solve for speed without sacrificing security. Making authentication as secure and convenient as possible will create experiences that customers trust. To achieve that, adopt modern authentication standards like OpenID Connect, OAuth, and SAML, and stay compliant with the latest identity and security specs, like multi-factor authentication. Selecting a third party CIAM platform, will not only ensure your experience is deployed quickly and securely, it will also keep your development teams focused on getting differentiating features to your customers when they need them.

CarMax: One step ahead

CarMax is the largest used car retailer in the United States, selling over one million cars every year. Long-committed to customer experience, CarMax was tailoring online journeys to each customer's device, schedule, timeline, and location even before COVID-19.

Still, the retailer experienced a surge in online engagement during the pandemic. And with the absence of face-to-face interactions, CarMax knew it was essential to ensure they could quickly build trust with customers through digital means.

First, the company began to roll out an omni-channel initiative to unite their in-store and digital experiences. By using Okta's Universal Directory and Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), CarMax built the capacity to keep customer data secure without introducing friction. Having started work on implementation before the pandemic accelerated, CarMax was able to support customers effectively through changing circumstances, completing the rollout across channels five months ahead of schedule.

To further drive customer loyalty, CarMax used Okta's progressive profiling support to incrementally collect data. Gradually, the retailer obtained a well-rounded view of customer needs and preferences, adding depth to the company's personalization efforts. CarMax's product team used Okta's APIs and SDKs to build identity into their apps-and with secure authentication and authorization in place, they can focus on delivering digital experiences that engage their customers.

Okta is the partner you can trust to deliver secure and delightful experiences at speed. Our CIAM platform offers out-of-the-box apps, systems, and capabilities that let you deploy customer identity features with ease, including:

• Repeatable, reusable identity components to quickly launch and manage apps and features.
• Okta Single Sign-on for seamless customer access, which can take as little as 15 minutes to embed into apps.
• Adaptive MFA for context-aware access policies and passwordless authentication to further enhance the customer experience.

To learn more about how Okta can help deliver digital experiences that meet your customer needs, check back for the next post in our 'Modernizing the Customer Experience' series or read our 'Evolving Customer Experience' whitepaper.