Instart Logic Blog Why looking beyond the edge is imperative to delivering the experience your customers want

By Natalie LambertMay 16, 2019In the past, the key to winning loyal customers was based on the quality and price of the product or service delivered, but a new differentiator has emerged that is transforming how companies are gaining a competitive edge in the market - the experience.Research shows that consumers expect personalized, consistent experiences more than ever:76 percent of customers say they expect companies to understand their needs and expectations.According to Gartner, 64 percent of people consider experience to be more important than price.57 percent of consumers have stopped purchasing from a company because a competitor provided a better experience.Nearly one-third of consumers wish their experience was more personalized than it currently is.Companies are under constant pressure to meet these growing expectations or be left behind the competition. At the same time, they face the challenge of having to adapt to a new reality that makes it harder than ever to keep their customers happy.The web is changing - whether you keep up or notThe explosion of devices, network connections, browsers, and operating systems make it difficult to deliver an amazing and consistent web experience to every possible combination of "always-connected" consumers. At the same time, businesses struggle to tackle new projects that affect the performance, security, and reliability of their websites. Here are the four main challenges organizations are facing today:1. Digital transformationIt's never been easier to lose customers. A single bad experience - whether it's website speed, poor service, or an outdated platform - could push a customer to take their business to someone else. But updating or scaling technology to keep pace with consumer needs is easier said than done. For example, companies are looking for ways to migrate certain apps and services to the cloud without disturbing the existing experience customers have on their website. It's difficult to do this quickly and securely without a long rollout, while still maintaining a consistent user experience.2. Personalized experiencesThe modern website requires creating personalized experiences for customers and delivering them across any device, system, or endpoint in order to deliver a unique experience every time they visit. However, adding personalization can come with a cost of slower website speed and other performance drag. Traditional caching methods can't be applied since personalized content must be dynamically pulled from the point of origin and can't be cached to save time.3. Third-party scripts and tagsToday, businesses use third-party JavaScript tags, also known as snippets, pixels, trackers, or beacons, to enhance web experiences. The unfortunate downside of these great third-party services like chatbots, payment processors, and analytics tools is that they can negatively impact site performance and security. For every tag you add to your website, you are expanding your surface of attack and introducing more points of failure into your digital experience. Since different teams can add third-party tags without having to go through IT or security teams, it's easy to accidentally introduce a security risk.4. Sophisticated fraudThe current threatscape is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to navigate. Modern security teams are struggling to protect their organizations and customers against attackers that are finding ways to harness the latest technology to behave like humans, making it nearly impossible to predict attacks and attack behaviours. Malicious actors are blending in with real human traffic now - and it's becoming harder to tell who's a bot and who's not.Now that the web has changed, companies are in need of a way to truly manage every aspect of the digital experience. They need complete control over how well their application performs, the access third-party code has, and how well it can protect sensitive customer data.Full control goes beyond the edgeThe web has fundamentally changed and it's going to continue to evolve quickly. This means that companies that leverage the edge to optimize first-party web content are going to see decreasing returns. As content becomes more personalized or is being delivered from third parties, the edge is limited in the type of optimization and security it can provide. In order to fully understand the experience people are having as they interact with your website, it's imperative that companies have visibility and control where the content comes together and where customers actually consume web content - beyond the edge in the customer's browser.Instart's cloud services for application performance and security can help organizations overcome modern challenges and build experiences that keep customers coming back for more using:Continuous insights. The ability to continuously monitor and gather information about visitors in real time right from the browser and combine it with insights from the edge and your origin allows you to gain deep insights into the web experience you're delivering. Having full visibility into the browser enables you to take immediate action on security threats or poorly performing code.Context-aware control. Control over the web experience is even more crucial with diverse network and device conditions, the increase in bots, and the rise of other application security threats. Since the only place that both first- and third-party code comes together is the browser, it is essential to be able to optimize and react to problems there. This is the only way to ensure your customers have a great experience - every single time.AI-driven optimizations. Today's consumers have the option to use thousands of different devices, view your web pages from various browsers, and connect from a range of networks anywhere in the world. It's impossible to create optimal experiences for each of these scenarios without the help of automation, which can be leveraged to help analyze and optimize JavaScript, HTML, and images to ensure the best performance in every single situation.As you think about building next-gen digital customer touchpoints, it is important to remember that your business is ultimately responsible for the web experience. Consumers don't care if a third-party like Optimizely, Hotjar, or Google Analytics cause the page to break or whether your new chatbot is causing slow loading times - they want to come to your website and feel satisfied. The only way to ensure the performance, security, and reliability of your website today is to ensure that you have control where it's needed.Find out how Instart's cloud services for application performance and control can help you deliver exceptional web experiences and boost your web security, here.TechnologyBlog Image: