We are living in a rapidly evolving world, where all customers are exceedingly connected, and technology is highly digital. Customers are educated, bombarded with communications and spoilt for choice. Differentiation via price and features is no longer sufficient; customers today place significance on excellent experiences as the most desired option when making purchasing choices. For organizations this means an increasing linkage between success and technology.
This blog outlines the key CX tech trends that CX professionals must address to stay ahead of the game in 2019 and beyond.
Real-time Personalization
Today’s consumers are notoriously impatient; not only do they demand new, delightful experiences that engage and inspire, they demand them at lightning speed. Real-time personalization, using data, content, and a range of marketing technologies, aims to do just that.
Personalization should serve a purpose for your customers other than just making a positive impact when the customer opens the app, platform or touchpoint. The data you’re collecting about your customers should help you learn what they want to accomplish and why, in addition to what they’re doing in the moment, and which next action makes the most sense for each person. Brands that create personalized experiences by integrating advanced digital technologies with data for customers are seeing revenues increasing two to three times faster than brands that do not. For example Nivea, a German personal care brand, increased sales conversions by 70.34% on its online store when they started displaying personalized storefront pages to consumers.
Research shows real-time personalization will become a new de facto standard for any digital business. The ability to process and analyze data in real-time and generate meaningful personalization for customers is going to be the difference between staying in business or being consigned to the dust heap of history. Achieving that goal requires everything from having the right skills and people to significant investments in IT infrastructure and implementing DevOps processes to manage it.
Data Driven Decisions
Data collection, analysis, and application allows for a richer understanding of the customer across the entire customer journey, and we now have more data sources about the customer than ever before. Take the mobile device; 82% of smartphone users consult their phones while they’re standing in a store deciding which product to buy. Much of the research begins on the brand’s website, reached on smartphones. These mobile interactions inform the business on the customers’ intent to purchase, as well as highlight detailed customer preference at every stage of the customer journey. While the customer is researching a purchase on an app, you’re able to share personalized solutions. You may further retarget that customer with exclusive offers across all related mobile apps and social media channels, and all the while strategically store data from each interaction to paint a full picture of the customer to interpret how to best address their needs and encourage repeat purchases.
Seamless customer journey
Today’s customer is more knowledgeable, empowered, and demanding. The rise of mobile and social media gives the average customer the ability to access and share information anytime, anywhere. As much as 90% of consumers use their mobile phones in the shopping process and 82% of smartphone users consult their phones on purchases they’re going to make while in the store. IBut it is not just the phone, as 75% start and end a task on different devices. Consumers are also actively engaging with bots; there are at least 100,000 active bots on Facebook Messenger exchanging two billion messages with customers. In a nutshell, customers are using multiple devices and online sources to buy products and interact with brands. A customer may first come across a product through a social media ad, check it out on the company website, and purchase it in a physical store. This is where organizations can set themselves apart from the competition: instead of treating each device and each interaction as a separate customer and fracturing the customer journey into disparate fragments, organizations need the technology that will help them embrace omni-channel engagement.
Service on Demand
Self-service interactions have overtaken all other channels. Customers demand information and service at the time of their choosing, on the device of their choice, and in the channel that they prefer. They’re not shy to vote with their wallets; as much as 72% of customers buy only from vendors where they will find product content online.
Having a service on demand strategy promises three main benefits. First, it increases efficiency by managing repetitive tasks and addressing frequently queried questions. Automation will also free up human resources to focus more on complex inquiries and higher-value transactions. Secondly, it will enhance customer experience by eliminating pain points along the customer journey, allowing customers to control the interactions and pull information from their preferred channel, on their own time. Done right, self-service options may lever real-time and behavioural data to provide highly personalized and convenient on-demand experiences that customers desire. Finally, it will provide for intelligent up- and cross-selling; fully integrated omni-channel self-service systems access and prioritize up-sell opportunities by pulling data insights from internal and external data sources and proactively send intelligent upselling messages to targeted customers.