Customer Experience Trends you need to know as a digital marketer

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Customer Experience Trends


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.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/02/05/10-customer-experience-trends-every-cmo-must-consider/#7c8ac0ae5443

https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/6-big-trends-driving-future-of-cx-technology.aspx

https://mopinion.com/top-digital-customer-experience-cx-trends-for-2019/

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