5 Key Enterprise Trends Driving Customer Experience

“Your business results depend on your brand’s ability to retain and add customers. You must win at every interaction the customer has with your organization, whether that be a marketing campaign, a call to a contact center, an invoice or a delivery reliant on the supply chain. Every department must play its part in a coordinated fashion.”-Gartner

Technologies are transforming the digital arena at such pace which demands organizations to embrace smarter and innovative approaches to create and deliver a unique customer experience. Today, customers have a plethora of channels to navigate and multiple ways through which they can interact with the brands. The customers are empowered, and when it comes to delivering unique experience it becomes the most daunting task for an organization to keep up with their expectations.

Back in 2016, Forrester reported about 72% of businesses discovered, improving customer experience as one of their primary objectives. So what approaches businesses are employing to build customer-centric interfaces and enhance their customer experience. What are the major trends that are driving customer experience for your business?

Below are the key trends that are driving customer experience and creating a huge impact on all aspects of the business.

Accelerated Customer Interactions

Digital innovation is increasing the need for more personalized interactions between the customers and brands. Customers have raised their expectation bar higher and if a brand does not meet their expectation or if a company fails to comeback with quick resolutions to their queries, they will be replaced soon. Therefore, it becomes quite essential for business leaders to set a benchmark for their organizations and keep upgrading their approaches to meet their customer’s’ expectations.

Though the medium of interactions has been changed, the focus remains on customer interactions that drive value for both enterprises and customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is today’s technology that has enhanced customer experience to a great extent and transformed businesses from transaction-based to interaction-based customer relationship. CX network found, “36% of businesses are already at the beginning/planning phase of their AI journey. By 2020 more than 53% of organizations anticipate their AI operations will be established.”

Changing the game with Big Data

It is proven that company who uses data analytic are tended to deliver the more personalized experience and drive better customer engagement. Data intensifies the customer experience and most of the business leaders observed data analytics helped them to increase their revenue, reduce costs and deliver high-level experiences. According to McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estimation, “retailers who are using data analytics at scale across their organization could increase their operating margins by more than 60%”.

Technologies like big data have made it easier for an organization to gather customer information. It helps digital leaders to extract meaningful directions and clear understanding with absolute accuracy that results in process improvements, product development and adds significant value to the organization.

Internet of Things Keyed Up Customer Experience

Internet of Things is today’s buzzword and a game changer in this connected world. This technology has a potential to connect multiple devices, make them smarter and improve customers’ interactions with brands. For example, a sensor is embedded in smart devices which can identify any problem or if there is any maintenance is required. They will then notify the users about the problem and send an alert to the service center notifying the same. And if there are any minor issues it will be fixed remotely even before it becomes noticeable by the users.

With such advancement, enterprises will have great opportunity to deliver personalized customer experience and improve their brand interactions. Gartner report says, “smart homes and smart commercial buildings grew to represent 45% of total connected things in use in 2015, due to investment and service opportunity and the research firm estimated that the figure will rise to 81% by 2020.”

Virtual Assistants

Virtual Assistants have bridged the gap between humans and gadgets to deliver competitive customer experience. Gartner research report says, “more than 30% of online browsing will be done through voice by 2020.” Virtual assistants are the applications designed for customer engagement such as Alexa, Google Now, Siri that helps users inquire about their ticket booking, and flight information.

Speech recognition system has helped contact centers to enhance their caller experience. According to Opus research report, “49% business leaders have deployed speech analytics and out of those respondents, 83% said they have achieved their expected return on investment within a year, with one-third receiving a return on investment in just 6 months.

Mobile Commerce

According to BI Intelligence, “mobile commerce will make up 45% of total e-commerce, equaling $284 billion in sales by 2020.” People are glued to their smartphones and life has become unimaginable without its presence. Jaime Toplin, a research associate with BI Intelligence said, “millennials use their phones as their primary device, and as they make more, they’ll spend more. And on the retailers’ end, they are going to create more opportunities for people to buy.”

As users spend most of their time on the mobile app, brands have focused more on ensuring a seamless experience to enhance their user’s loyalty. Customer engaging trend like a Bluetooth radio transmitter- Beacon, sends a quick notification onto the shoppers’ smartphone through their downloaded application, when they enter or come near a certain area. This notification makes shoppers aware about the ongoing sales or promotions in that particular brand/retail shop.

Gene Alvarez, managing vice president at Gartner said, “the best leaders design their customer experience from the point of view of the customers’ motivations and goals, and then they build their brand around the customer experience; not the other way around. However, customer experience projects vary in complexity. Understanding the different components will help organizations focus on specific efforts that, in aggregate, will help improve the customer experience.

Emerging technologies are enhancing customer experience and leading businesses with new and exciting strategies. It builds up the most effective user-centric experience where the customer gets what they want and the organization gets their desired outcome. These five trends are extremely essential for decision-makers to include in their strategy to endure in this competitive digital world.