Improving customer experience means creating a more positive perception in the minds of customers in both how they are treated by your company, and the feelings that they have across their interactions with your organization. Every touchpoint contributes to the overall customer experience. Managing customer interactions is therefore critical for delivering an excellent customer experience.
The need to be proactive and manage customer interactions has never been greater, especially when you consider these four emerging trends: empowered consumers, new technology, increasing regulations and the explosion of data.
The empowered consumer
The company-consumer dynamic has shifted. Gone are the days where organizations could control the message. Connectivity, mobile and social media have empowered consumers with the ability to learn about products and services on their own terms, consulting on-line reviews and peer-to-peer recommendations to form an objective point of view, and then, while in store, using their smartphones to compare prices.
This fundamental shift means that organizations must move from being product-focused to customer-centric companies. They can no longer provide consumers with what they think they want. Instead they must deliver a customer experience that is omni-channel, immediate and personalized to the wants, needs and preferences of each individual customer.
Source: Forbes
New technology
According to Moore’s law, the rate of innovation doubles roughly every 18 to 24 months. A perfect example of this theory in practice is the realm of communications.
Think of how quickly recent advancements in communications technology have gone from being introduced to be an integral part of people’s lives; developments such as voice technology and wearable devices to name just a couple.
Another example is the acceptance of the cloud. Once feared as a security risk, operating in the cloud is now commonplace. This has made it possible for new digital products and services to be implemented, deployed and adopted at hyper speed.
Innovation continues to impact the ways we communicate. New channels are constantly being developed. What’s on the horizon? Which new channel will become the next hot thing in how people receive and share information? It might be a smart appliance. It could even be a holographic mixed reality device.
Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/why-marketing-tech-spending-will-keep-growing
Regulatory complexity
The majority of industries must comply with a multitude of regulations when it comes to communicating with their customers and potential customers. Leading the race in the United States is the energy industry, which is governed by over 45,000 restrictions!
To deliver a superior customer experience in a heavily regulated industry is a complex process. The arrival of digital is one reason why. Case in point: in the U.K. energy sector a digital bill must look exactly the same as a printed bill. Another area that’s adding to the regulatory complexity in industries and countries around the world is the need for all communications to be accessible for the visually impaired.
As these two examples illustrate, regulatory complexity is on the rise and the statistics back it up. In 2004, according to Thomson Reuters, banks in Europe dealt with, on average, 10 regulatory changes a day. In 2018, that number was 185 regulatory changes a day.
With such an overwhelming amount of regulations to stay on the right side of, ensuring your organization is compliant is stressful enough but now the penalty for non-compliance is even harsher.
In Europe, fines can be as high as eight figures. In other words, if you’re not compliant you could be put out of business.
The complexity of regulations and the need for complete compliance is further complicated by the fact that many companies are operating on legacy systems that are outdated and hard to upgrade. Consequently, the ability to modify these systems so they can accommodate newly initiated regulations is lacking, putting organizations at risk for non-compliance.
Explosion of data
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/driving-to-the-mall-and-googling-luke-cage-banks-try-to-keep-clients-attention-with-data-1541586600
The key to being able to create personalized, relevant customer experiences is data. The richer the data the better the customer experience you can create.
A data area that most companies haven’t fully tapped into yet is unstructured data, which is data such as video, voice and user-generated content.
Does it really matter?
Consider this.
Unstructured data is approximately four times the size of structured data and growing at almost double the speed.
A new technique that forward-thinking organizations are leveraging to mine unstructured data is data enrichment. This process allows companies to complement an existing data point with data from another source. Being able to do so allows organizations to further enhance their view of each customer, deliver a more personalized and relevant experience and drive more intelligent business decisions.
Delve deeper into the reasons why accelerating your CX efforts is a must for proactive organizations. Download the whitepaper “Top 4 Converging and Disruptive Forces Impacting Customer Experience in 2019” today.
Rob brings over 18 years of industry experience in technology marketing – both direct and channel, to his position at Quadient. Previously, Rob led Marketing at Avaya Canada, go to market for medium businesses at Dell Canada and brings marketing, finance, manufacturing and logistics experience from his time at Maple Leaf Foods. An avid composer and musician, Rob continues to combine digital and social media to drive awareness and consideration in the B2B marketplace. Rob holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business.