As consumers rapidly shifted to online shopping during the pandemic, the structural weaknesses in some retailers’ ecommerce models led to the buildup of technical debt which can negatively impact the customer experience (CX) and result in employee frustration and burnout.Â
Addressing technical debt is not what most of us imagine when optimizing the customer and employee experience. However, examining technical debt is critical to understanding and correcting some customer experience (CX) and employee experience issues that many retailers and brands faced as they pivoted in 2020.Â
Technical debt is outdated code, software that goes unpatched, bugs that aren’t fixed, and integrations that don’t quite work seamlessly. The term essentially describes code maintenance work that’s been postponed in favor of other priorities like adding new features or scaling up. As it builds, it can interfere with the pursuit of those other priorities. For example, as consumers rapidly shifted to online shopping early in 2020, the structural weaknesses in some retailers’ ecommerce models became serious issues that impacted app function, stock visibility, checkout, delivery, and pickup, ultimately impacting the customer experience. New features added to systems laden with technical debt also contributed to employee frustration and burnout.Â
Now is a good time for companies to take stock of their technical debt, decide how they want to get rid of it, and implement a plan.Â
What’s the Impact of Technical Debt on Customer Experience?
When a debt-laden tech infrastructure has to add new features or scale-up, customer experience can suffer. For example, the switch from in-store Black Friday shopping events to more online holiday shopping increased ecommerce site traffic by 60% over the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. With that extra traffic came site outages, glitches, and slowdowns at dozens of major retail sitesOpens a new window . For example, on some sites, shoppers added items to their carts only to find that their carts disappeared.Â
Technical-debt-related CX problems aren’t limited to sales peaks. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, from April through September 2020, consumer satisfaction with retailers declinedOpens a new window for all categories except drug stores. Among the complaints: site performance, support, inventory, and shipping, all of which are impacted by outdated technology.
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How Does Technical Debt Affect Employee Experience? Recruitment and Retention?
When retailers add new functions to a system that’s already burdened with technical debt, they do it to meet an urgent demand or fulfill an immediate need. However, this approach’s unintended result can be the creation of operational debt that makes employees’ jobs more difficult. When this happens – especially when the combination of technical and operational debt leads to customer complaints – employees can quickly become frustrated.Â
For example, during the rapid retail pivot to curbside pickup in early 2020, many retailers added functions to their apps to enable customers to collect their purchases without entering the store. In at least one case, a retailer’s curbside app update frequently crashed for customers using iPhones, causing delays in getting orders ready before customers arrived.Â
This problem with the app led to employees having to rush through the store to pick orders off the shelves and then run them out to waiting customers. In addition to customer dissatisfaction, the delays led to higher overtime costs for the retailer and higher employee turnover. It also generated bad press when some workers complained publicly about being pushed into front-line roles without corresponding pay and preparation.
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Technical Debt Interferes with Effective Pivots
Technical debt’s cascading effects on application functionality, business processes, CX, employee experience, employer costs, and brand reputation make it a significant barrier to executing pivots when business conditions change.Â
In 2020, the pivot was the move to curbside and ecommerce—and many retailers struggled to adapt legacy systems to a new way of operating. What the next pivot will be isn’t clear, but companies that work consistently to reduce their technical debt will be better prepared for it, whatever it is.
Three Steps to Reducing Your Organization’s Technical DebtÂ
Getting technical debt off the books is an ongoing process rather than a one-time project because technology and the way we use it are constantly changing. Here are some best practices to keep in mind as you plan your technical debt-reduction process.
1. Start with the experience you want to provide
Evaluate your customer experience first because that will help you prioritize your technical debt reduction process. Ask how you can help your customers—and your employees and vendors—and then consider whether your planned improvements will reduce your organization’s technical debt.Â
2. Take a holistic view of your enterprise
Once you’re clear on the changes you’d like to make to your customer, employee, and vendor experiences, it’s wise to step back and take a fresh look at the enterprise as a whole and look at your roadmap for the next three to six months. Then you can resolve your immediate technical debt issues and get ahead by tackling some of the debt issues you’ll face in the next few months. This holistic approach can widen the scope of your technical debt projects but deliver a much better result than reactive fixes.Â
For example, consider a retailer that wants to reduce some technical debt with their payment processor. Instead of tackling one issue, the retailer can step back, see that customers are more likely to buy if they can store their payment information, and decide to ask the processor to help them integrate a store wallet into their mobile app for omnichannel contactless payments. That could require a new merchant gateway, but by backing up to address other issues instead of just solving the technical debt that’s right in front of them, they’re building a better CX and positioning themselves to generate more revenue.
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3. Work closely with your solution partners and integrators
Your solution and integration partners can help you analyze your existing tech for areas of debt. How have you changed and updated your technology since adopting it? Did those changes alter the customer journey or the way your employees and vendors work? Were those changes positive or negative?
If the impact on customers, employees, or vendors was less positive than you planned for, ask your tech partners if there’s a way to upgrade your platform to optimize those journeys. If you’re planning operational changes, your systems integrator and solution partners can help you remove technical debt before implementing those changes so you can deliver a better experience for not only the customers but also for employees from the start.Â
Then, keep working with your partners to prevent another buildup of technical debt. By keeping it under control, you’ll be in a stronger position the next time your company needs to pivot fast.
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