Do you recall the last time you traveled to one of your dream destinations, dined out at a Michelin restaurant, filed your insurance claims seamlessly, or bought your favorite pair of shoes from an online retailer? If the memory stayed with you, it must have been an experience that matched your expectations. Similarly, tech companies must deliver superior customer experiences (CX) in order to drive loyalty and organic referrals. CX’s core is putting the customer’s needs and wants at the center and building a strategy around it.

As competition heightens, the interaction which a consumer has with a company is becoming increasingly important. Understandably, for IT leaders, CX is the principal strategic priority, ahead of IT security, compliance, and strategy.

Here are a few techniques that organizations can embrace to improve CX:

• Leverage CX data
• Aim at omnichannel experiences
• Implement chatbots
• Make use of the right analytics tools
• Ensure personalization

What matters most to over 70% of customers ¹ is speed, convenience, helpfulness, and friendly service, which is enabled by combining the above techniques and technology.

Brands no longer hold on to the belief of “sell and move on.” The focus is on customer lifetime value (CLV) which requires companies to develop meaningful relationships and foster customer loyalty. To achieve this, most organizations may already be using a host of technologies, among which the four most critical ones are:

AI and ML

In 2021, for a majority of customers, the first contact resolution will be a baseline expectation. ML algorithms help ascertain what works best during service interactions and automatically apply the lessons to future service requests. Thus, it is not surprising that close to 82% of companies ² that have employed AI witness higher rates of first contact resolution of customer issues.

Additionally, AI-driven sentiment analysis helps analyze positive and negative responses of customers and provides insights into their needs. Hence, customer satisfaction levels can be tracked, enabling organizations to identify opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling.

At a more granular level, AI/ML algorithms also make it possible to gauge service representatives’ strengths and weak areas, thereby matching their strengths to specific calls.

Other ways in which AI can impact customer experience are:

• Through predictive analysis for behavioral analysis
• By making accurate and personalized recommendations
• Ensuring consistent, efficient, and friendly service through chatbots
• Enabling effective decisions supported by real-time data
• Facilitating data-backed marketing strategies
• Ensuring round-the-clock automated assistance

The Cloud

Besides AI and ML, we cannot overlook the importance of the Cloud. According to Deloitte, 90% of global enterprises will rely on a hybrid cloud by 2022. For most organizations, the initial reasons to adopt a cloud strategy are to reduce the total cost of ownership or a desire to avoid capital expenditure. The use of the Cloud gives organizations a scope to innovate, as it enhances scalability and operational flexibility. It allows businesses to transform the customer relationship models quickly and align to customer expectations. Moreover, understanding the customer at a deeper level requires companies to integrate knowledge management, CRMs, contact centers, and analytics, which is enabled by Software-as-a-Service, a subset of cloud computing.

An integrated platform that provides better transparency, visibility, and accessibility to customers and includes operational data aggregated from disparate sources makes it easier for organizations to make relevant decisions in real-time.

In a gist, Cloud adoption drives CX success by:

• Accelerating product development
• Minimizing response times
• Democratizing access to data
• Driving deeper insights
• Enabling dynamic decision-making

Internet of Things

Additionally, IoT throws open an untapped opportunity for businesses to enhance CX. With the proliferation of IoT devices, businesses can capitalize on the data collected to deliver personalized experiences to customers. IoT data provide instant insights into customer actions and their real-time activities, enabling organizations to calculate CX scores for each customer. In addition, it provides insights into the customer journey, empowering organizations to engage with them better and resolve their issues proactively. Hence, it helps in improving the quality and accuracy of services.

As IoT facilitates disruptive business models, organizations that have already embraced IoT have moved from a transactional business model to service-oriented offerings. High-tech companies, in particular, can combine IoT and analytics to enhance CX and gain a competitive edge. This move will help them identify new opportunities, gather product usage insights, and serve customers better. IoT and analytics when leveraged together, can make a difference by ensuring:

• Improved demand forecasts
• Frequent drilldowns on the causes of product failure
• Effective business decisions
• Reduced service center costs

As companies decide to move toward IoT-enabled digitalization, they must also leverage technologies, such as edge computing and cloud computing, which support data integration from multiple sources.

VR & AR

While we discuss the emerging technologies, the pivotal role immersive technologies play in redefining CX remains critical. The AR and VR market is expected to grow to over 30 billion by 2030 ³. By integrating these technologies with the marketing strategy, technology companies can make a lasting impact on their prospects and aim for higher conversions. AR and VR can be used to create real-life, emotionally resonant experiences as customers test software products. Organizations integrate physical and virtual objects at different levels, which leads to highly interactive, personalized, and hybrid experiences. These micro-moments redefine the rules of how customers acquire products and services. They have shaped up a new environment that has helped overcome limitations brought by the prolonged pandemic.

Moving towards CX excellence

Undeniably, superior customer experience will remain in the spotlight for most forward-looking technology companies in the mobile-first world. Most of them are already using one of the emerging technologies to enhance CX. Evolving customer preferences, coupled with a compelling need to enable digital transformation, and the urgency to create a distinctive brand has urged them to adopt these technologies quickly. Along with it, a customer-centric approach has helped them to remain relevant and ahead of their competitors as they witness improved market shares and increased spend per customer. They have understood the close correlation between technology and a differentiated customer experience as they strive to deliver value and move toward CX excellence.

Sources:

1. http://files.r-trends.ru/reports/pwc_consumer_intelligence_series_customer_experience.pdf

2. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/17/1008148/from-support-function-to-growth-engine-the-future-of-ai-and-customer-service/

3. https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/articles/virtual-reality-in-business-drives-a-personalized-cx/

Contributor

Sohini Deb

Lead Content Writer, Marketing

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