(this article originally appeared on CIO Review , and was written by Tal Daskal, CEO, EasySend)

Digital transformation is not about technology. It’s about using technology to improve business performance. Whether the goal is a more agile organization or more data-driven decisions, technology is just a tool. To make it happen, you must first and foremost embrace digital culture.

Digital culture is about making fundamental changes to how companies engage and deliver value to their customers. It is about challenging an existing mindset to create a digital culture that is customer-focused. For many businesses, it means addressing the “elephant” in the room.

Digital Mindset: Why is There an “Elephant” in the Room?

Elephants are those legacy systems that are hard to update and even more difficult to adapt to today’s technology. They are also the untouchable systems that support daily operations and core business segments. Over time, the elephants become obstacles to transformation that everyone sees, but no one challenges.

Without changes in the status quo, organizations cannot create an agile environment that can move quickly to address customer expectations. They lack the data needed to understand the customer, making it impossible to deliver superior customer experience.  When customer experience fails to meet expectations, a company may not survive.

How Do You Move These Legacy Systems?

It’s not easy to move a legacy system. You need a strategy. According to McKinsey, critical components of a successful strategy revolve around the workforce. Companies need to:

• Build a workforce for the future

• Empower people to innovate new ways of working

• Provide a digital upgrade to day-to-day tools

With these components in place, an organization’s success rate for digital transformation more than doubles. No-code solutions address these three components by creating citizen developers who use new digital tools to become the workforce of the future.

Developing a No-Code Strategy

No-code solutions offer a visual development platform to create applications. For example, subject-matter experts can use drop-and-drag methods to deliver customer-facing tools such as support requests. These experts are citizen developers who can design digital solutions that meet customer needs more quickly and more efficiently than traditional coding methods.

Embracing Agility as Culture

Enterprise agility refers to the application of agile methodologies at the enterprise level. The agile principles of constant feedback and rapid iteration are the best ways to create products that serve customers and drive business value.  As a result, agile methods are transforming how enterprises do business.

No-code solutions can reduce the time it takes to deliver new applications. According to a recent survey, 37% of respondents using low- or no-code platforms were satisfied with the speed of project delivery as compared to only 26% for non-users. The survey also found that:

• 64% of users were delivering applications in less than four months.

• 46% of users reduced their backlog of projects as opposed to 35% of non-users.

With no-code solutions, companies can remove projects from the always-full IT queue, resulting in faster delivery of mission-critical tasks.

Embracing Analytics as aDecision-Making Tool

You can’t analyze data if you don’t collect it. Even when you have data, it may be so out-of-date that the results are meaningless. How can a business make data-driven decisions without current information?

No-code solutions can help organizations collect and analyze data quickly. For example, no-code platforms can allow customer service personnel to create and deploy data collection applications. Using the data, customer service can pinpoint places in the customer’s journey that fail to meet expectations. These same citizen developers can then build solutions that better meet customer expectations. They can even create additional iterations based on end-user feedback that continue to improve the customer experience.

Data collection and analysis are crucial to understanding customer behavior. Without data, it’s impossible to make quick data-driven decisions that ensure a competitive edge. With no-code platforms, companies can bring agility to the data collection process. They can deliver data that delivers actionable insights to improve the customer experience.

Revolutionizing Customer Experience

Customer expectations influence customer experience. Individuals anticipate the types of interactions they may have with a company or an industry. Until recently, customers anticipated quality products and services at a reasonable price. Now, customers want personalized experiences, quality interactions, and exceptional customer service.  Businesses need to address these expectations if they want to deliver superior customer experience.

The Importance of Personalized Experiences

Customers want personalized experience. They want to feel valued for who they are. A 2019 survey found that:

• 69% of consumers think companies treat them like a number

• 56% of customers believe businesses have no idea who they are or what they want

• 28% of respondents said they would pay more for a product or service if they received personalized service

Many companies have the information to personalize the customer experience but have difficulty accessing the information because of legacy systems designed around support tickets or order numbers.  However, new technologies such as no-code platforms can collect customer-centered data that can be transformed into actionable insights that personalize the customer experience.

Quality vs Quantity in Customer Interactions

Consumers don’t care how many delivery channels a company has. They are only interested in the channel they are using at the moment. It doesn’t matter if an organization has an award-winning mobile app if the majority of its customers use its website. These expectations mean that every channel must deliver quality interactions every time. What do consumers mean by quality interactions?

59% of customers expect current interactions to be based on past interactions. They expect companies to know and use their interaction history to deliver quality experiences.

53% dislike being redirected to a different page, window, or application to find what they want.  Positive interactions do not require people to hunt for answers.

62% of consumers expect their questions to be answered quickly without having to repeat themselves.

If companies cannot collect and retain information about prior interactions, they cannot deliver the type of experience that customers want. No-code solutions can provide customized applications that enhance consumer interactions.

Exceptional Customer Service Doesn’t Just Happen

Responsiveness and quality of service are the two most important factors influencing a buying decision.

• 74% of respondents base their purchasing decision on the quality of service.

• Customers will pay up to 20% more for exceptional customer service

If organizations want to deliver exceptional customer service, they need to be agile to pivot to meet changes in customer expectations. They also need access to timely data that can drive decisions that improve customer service. With no-code platforms, companies can quickly create data-collection applications to help create an exceptional customer experience.