Probably the best way to define customer experience (CX) is by looking at it as the impression (positive or negative) that you leave your customer with after every interaction and during every stage of the buyer's journey. There are multiple, cross-functional touchpoints that factor in customer experience.
Arguably, however, the two significant touchpoints that can make or break your customer experience are your product and employees. Your customers could be delighted by your product or could be completely satisfied by the attention received from your customer support rep.
It should go without saying that excellent customer experience will not only result in happy customers but it will also lead to more revenue. The best and most cost-effective marketing campaign is word-of-mouth where your satisfied customers will promote your brand and product on your behalf.
Below are some of the trends that will shape the customer experience of tomorrow.
Personalization
Personalization is probably the best investment you can make going forward. Customers today are looking for relevant experiences that are specifically tailored to their wants and needs. Everybody is tired of spamming, random ads, or anything else that bombards us on a daily basis.
A high level of personalization is available when an organization leverages a deep understanding of structured and unstructured customer data, multi-channel conversations, and customer preferences. In other words, customization in the context of CX is when companies can preemptively and accurately anticipate the customer's wants and needs, and address them when and where they are appropriate.
Embracing Decisioning And Data through AI
Statistics indicate that by 2020, there will be roughly 44 zettabytes of data circulating on the web every single day. It is an incredibly high and astronomical number that will make it next to impossible for people or entire organizations to make any accurate decisions on their own.
But by making use of artificial intelligence (AI), businesses can identify numerous opportunities and experience that will be relevant to the customer, and which would not have been discovered, otherwise. Employees in the front lines would never have been able to provide the same level of real-time customer experience.
Customer Experience Clouds
Up until now, companies made use of personal clouds for various departments such as marketing, sales, or development - each of which holds the information necessary for that specific program. But as the buyer's journey is changing, so must companies, if they hope to provide an excellent customer experience. To do that, however, they will need to make use of a customer experience cloud that will bring together all the relevant information as a means of streamlining customer interactions.
Augmented Reality
Probably the biggest issue that comes out of online service engagement is that it's never the same as the physical thing. The next logical step in counteracting this shortcoming is by simulating the experience as much as possible. It is where Augmented Reality (AR) comes into play. Depending on your needs, AR can be used in a seemingly endless number of ways - trying to simulate the real world for their customers in the most creative and engaging ways conceivable.
CEOs Are More Involved
Last but not least is CEO involvement in the escalation of customer experience initiatives. It is a huge deal because it's the CEO who ultimately has the final say in regards to what are the priorities of the company and where it will need to invest its funds. And as more and more CEOs become aware of the potential that customer experience brings, it will kick-start a chain reaction. It will be where those who haven't yet caught on will be, more or less, forced to invest, otherwise risk becoming obsolete.
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