Prashant Deorah, CEO & MD, Puretech Digital speaks about Customer Experience Trends in the day and age where customers expect something different.
Customer experience, or CX, is a hot trend right now. Maybe it always should have been, but in an age where “the shop around the corner” has turned into Alibaba, where literally anything is available, people expect more. They expect different. They expect experience. At least if they are to return.
Often, it’s the CMO who is in charge of the
customer journey experience. And right now,
that journey is going digital in a big way. While that is no big news to those
in the know, the trend is becoming more prominent. So, let’s have a look at
what customer experience trends are right now!
It’s
Becoming Even More About Experience
Product
and price are great, but as mentioned: Alibaba is around the corner. So is
Amazon. So, it is just about any other shop on the planet. Unless you’re
selling spaceship rides to the moon, how unique is your product?
According to CMX: “Eightypercent of consumers would voluntarily reveal personal information in exchange for interactions.”
Social
media has opened doors for companies to truly
connect with their customers. What’s more, people today expect it. They
expect blogs. Content. Communication. The interaction with a business is
sometimes as important as the product
itself. Big data, on the other hand, has allowed companies to make the sales
journey unique for each individual. Today
sales are less about a price tag and more
about a personalized experience.
Predictive
Analytics + AI
Predictive
analytics combined with AI…it’s a thing. There will be machines able to predict
customerbehavior to a point where people
will start to expect a personalized
treatment. That’s to say: depending on how much information people are willing
to give away.
AI enables
businesses to collect and process a lot of data that humans, by themselves,
cannot. It takes data analytics to a whole other level.
And what’s the proof that it works?
According to Forbes: “Amazon uses big data to create personalized product recommendations for its customers. The data works—35% of Amazon purchases come from those recommendations.”
And: “Sprint used predictive analytics to predict which customers were most at risk for leaving the company. Sprint could then proactively target those customers with personalized retention offers.”
Data
Ethics
Data
ethics is what makes people oh and ah about how Apple tried to prevent the FBI from hacking a phone because they wanted to protect the rest of the population
from spying eyes. It’s also what made people boo
when Facebook sold their data.
How is
that relevant to customer experience? Because people may want personalized treatment, even online; but that
does not mean they want that information coming from third parties. It’s one
thing that Amazon collects information while you shop, it’s another if they are
getting information from Google, or Facebook, without your explicit approval.
It’s also important where security is concerned. An odd
100 years ago, the local priest, or doctor, probably knew the most about the
people in their town. The grocer may have some ideas too, at least as to their
shopping preferences. That was three individuals — three individuals that could
gossip about you to the rest of the world. Today, businesses — both large and
small — collect personal information. If someone hacks their systems, people
freak out. It’s their personal data,and they expect it to stay safe. We all know
the horrors some companies have suffered around security leaks.
With data
collection comes the responsibility to keep it safe.
Surveys
Are Going, but They Are Not Gone
While it’s
no secret that customers are tired of surveys, they are still one of the best
ways for a company to find out relevant data. Surveys
need to be short and concise and used as little as possible, but even tired
clients realize that filling them out can
help a company become better. Once the AI and data collection mastery have taken over, they will become less and less
needed.
AR and VR
Ever tried
decorating your home using virtual reality? If not, what does it mean? It means
you can check out what your new furniture will look like in your home before you buy it. Ikea now allows you to
do that.
If you’ve
ever tried ordering clothing online, or
through a mail-order catalogue, you know
how a hit or miss it can be. Virtual and
augmented reality can take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation — without
you having to visit the physical store. And with things like furniture, it
eliminates you having to try to imagine what it will look like. You can’t exactly try on furniture in the
shop like you can with clothes.
Similarly, apps can allow customers to customize a car, and know what the finished
product will look like.
While this
is a new trend, it’s certainly something that can be used to improve customer
experience. Even the
marketing experience.
Systemness
This is a trend that’s been noticed mainly in healthcare; the integration of
different departments into a system that allows them to work together. Gone are
the days when medical files need to be faxed over from one wing of the hospital
to another.All that’s needed is an app (or system, if you so like) where data is updated in real-time. Today a patient can
receive personalized care easily, thanks
to this.
Systemness may have been the most prevalent within healthcare and education, but the same kind of thinking can be applied to many other businesses.
In Closing
The customer experience journey is constantly changing, thanks to new technologies and, with them, the ways of thinking. Customers today, expect as personal an experience as they would have received if they went into the local store in their home village a hundred years ago. Thanks to social media and big data — now with the advantages of AI you can process it all.
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