Our top ten articles on digital customer experience from 2022

• Friday, December 16, 2022
• By 3chillies

It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of the year! 2022 has been another busy year for 3Chillies; we’ve been working on some great client projects while also getting to grips with the latest versions of Sitecore, Umbraco and other platforms. We moved to a brand-new office in the centre of Reading, and we’re also looking forward to an equally busy 2023.

We also published over 20 articles on our blog covering topics relating to websites, content management and digital customer experience. In this post we’re going to explore some of our most popular articles from the last twelve months.

In December our CTO Bryan Archer dusted down the 3Chillies crystal ball to have a look at some of the trends we might see in 2023 relating to digital customer experience. Bryan expects there to be a continuing focus on headless publishing, while some DXPs will also continue to increase their support for a best-of-breed “composable” architecture. Low code no code solutions will also continue to influence platforms, with capabilities that empower digital marketers to be less reliant on their IT colleagues. This post is a useful starting point for anyone planning their strategy and roadmap for 2023 – for example, is it time to start thinking about the metaverse?

Every great digital project has strong communication between everybody involved. Conversely, poor communication can lead to missed milestones and output that doesn’t live up to expectations. In November 3Chillies CEO Paul Spearman explored what teams can do to ensure good communication in their digital projects between team members, digital agencies and clients, and between the techies and the non-techies. This thoughtful post explores the tactics and approaches that can help foster a culture of communication and transparency, which benefits everybody involved.

One of the core platforms we use with our clients is Sitecore; we also cover it here on the blog. Over the past two years, Sitecore has been pivoting from an integrated platform with a wide set of digital marketing capabilities, to a more flexible portfolio of separate SaaS based solutions that all work together seamlessly but can be used independently of each other. This model better supports headless publishing and also a “composable” DXP with Sitecore working alongside other solutions. This journey has seen the release of new capabilities, including three new products announced at Sitecore’s flagship Symposium conference, which we explored in this article.

During the year we’ve also covered the release of Sitecore XM Cloud, a SaaS based version of Sitecore’s CMS., and explored Sitecore’s Digital Asset Management and Product Information Management product, in a post titled What is Sitecore Content Hub and what are its main features.

A major event of 2022 for 3Chillies was our move to a new office at the iconic Blade building in the centre of Reading, a great space in an excellent location. In this article from October, Paul Spearman talks about the reasons behind our move as well as our commitment to hybrid and flexible working, and the ability for staff to choose where they want to work. Establishing new working patterns as people return to office life is a journey that many organisations are on, and Paul’s reflections will resonate with other organisations considering some of the issues as they explore hybrid working.

It’s not just Sitecore that has been pivoting towards a more flexible and composable model. Umbraco is an excellent open-source platform which is very easy to use and one we regularly work with. This article looked at how Umbraco is positioning itself as part of a composable DXP, reflected in some takeaways from the annual Codegarden conference. One of the reasons why Umbraco supports this model is the strength of its editing experience in the CMS, as well as a number of solutions from Umbraco partners that have been designed to work alongside the core CMS. In fact we also wrote about one of them in using UMarketingSuite to turn Umbraco into a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), a great digital marketing solution which we are now offering to clients.

Umbraco’s not only been positioning itself as a viable composable DXP but also as supporting headless publishing. This post focuses on using Umbraco’s headless offering Heartcore, but it also takes a deeper dive into what headless publishing is and its relative advantages. One of our predictions for 2023 is that there will be more attention given to headless, but we still think there is a general lack of knowledge about it. This post is a good starting point for anyone wanting to know a little more about headless, and potentially the role Umbraco might play.

Back in June we covered the importance of considering the admin and editor experience in deploying any DXP or CMS. Naturally in any digital project there is a focus on what the experience that will be delivered to customers, but in our view the admin and editor experience is just as important. A system with a poor back-end experience is simply not sustainable or scalable, ends up in wasted time and frustration, and often means that more advanced CMS capabilities don’t end up getting used. This pragmatic article explores the reasons why we need to focus on the needs of admins and editors, as well as seven approaches which can help improve their experience.

Every digital marketing team wants to improve the SEO on their website, but for some it can feel like something between a dark art and travelling down a rabbit hole. Quite often clients ask us what they can to do to improve SEO, so in this post from April we explore some of the basics. We list six ways to improve SEO from making sure Google is searching for your site to focusing on your keywords and your content. We also talk about meta tags, backlinks and core web vitals. Of course, this is only the tip of of the iceberg when it comes to improving SEO, but this article will be a useful starting point.

Website personalisation is a common aim for digital marketers but often remains an aspiration for many, despite having the necessary capabilities within their CMS or DXP. One of the reasons for a lack of progress is that teams are never quite sure how to get started, or lack the confidence, know-how and resources to make it happen. In this post we explore what it takes to get started on personalisation, and the five steps that teams need to follow in order to start their personalisation journey.

A key decision for any digital team is which CMS or DXP for use for their website. There’s no right or wrong answer, and in practice there are multiple factors to consider when making any decision, In this post from back in February we list eighteen key attributes to consider in selecting the right technology for your website project. Some such as cost are obvious, but others such as team preferences are now always given the weight they should be. Getting the right solution is a theme which we have explored on other articles, for example in looking whether to go with an enterprise DXP or open source.

See you next year!

We hope you’ve found the articles we published in 2022 useful. We’ll be back with more in 2023. Until then, have a restful Christmas break and a very happy new year from all the 3Chillies team!