It used to be that IT departments were there to keep the lights on and the servers blinking. Now those same people are responsible for driving the company’s digital transformation. Because the success of a company depends on how well its departments communicate with one another, and with the customer.

Let’s look at how IT leaders will pave the way in helping businesses improve their customer relationships.

Personalize Experiences

IT departments can create loyalty in customers via new technology. Customers expect personalized experiences from businesses — connecting on their preferred channels and aware of their preferences and history. IT leaders will understand that journey and use tools to optimize the experience.

Customize and Connect

IT will play a major role in marketing by using tech to reach customers wherever they are, on whatever device they’re using. By extending the reach of the business across social media, emails, apps, and online paid campaigns, IT and marketing can create targeted interactions that build a relationship with customers and create a more seamless experience.

Uniting Departments

It’s not just the service departments that are meeting customers where they are. Every department from marketing and sales to service has an ongoing relationship with the customer. Think of ongoing email campaigns or upsell opportunities; we have software guiding these evolving relationships, and businesses rely on IT to implement and maintain these new platforms. IT leaders are helping shape the whole business and in turn shaping the brand.

Go Mobile

With 6.1 billion smartphones in circulation by 2020, the need to become a mobile-first business isn’t hypothetical. And with millennials 2.3 times more likely than older consumers to consider not buying from a company with no mobile app, IT and sales will be bonded forevermore. Those apps are going to be the front doors of businesses — and the check-out, and the service center, and a whole wing of the marketing department — and the IT team’s choices about how to implement that interface will make all the difference in getting people in those virtual doors.

Pushing for all this change is downright terrifying for a lot of IT leaders (and CEOs!). Budgets and general resistance to change can get in the way, but there’s no point in putting it off any longer. Somebody’s got to design that door, find a place for all the other departments inside, and make sure the customers like it.

How to do it? Start here, with The IT Change Agent’s Handbook.