Exploring the hyper-competitive future of customer experience

The future of customer experience (CX) more: More data, more technology, more surprises and more fun. There is also greater pressure to retain customers, whether the interaction is online or in-store. As customer expectations and habits change, the CX your organization provides must also change.

Studies have shown that customer loyalty declines as customers demand more from providers of goods and services and express dissatisfaction by switching brands. Identifying potential problems and resolving them before they occur is the best way to prevent customers from switching to another provider.

One of the most important reasons why organizations are increasingly embracing digital transformation is to transform the way they serve their customers. The future of customer experience must be closely tied to customer service to meet customer needs and enable organizations to deliver high customer satisfaction.

Experience innovation through a design-driven, data-driven approach

Build competitive advantage through great customer experiences

Here are five ways organizations can better leverage customer experience to maintain a competitive advantage.

Build seamless coordination across the entire customer journey

To say that organizations must put their customers first is an understatement. Without customers, there is no sales, no profitability, and no business. Despite this, organizations have historically failed to ensure that all relevant employees have the right information they need to make important decisions. Organizations that strive to be “customer-centric,” putting the needs of their customers first, will find that their customers return the favor with loyalty.

Expressing and Communicating Mission-Based Strategy

In recent years, organizations have embraced topics such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), environmental stewardship, and other social justice topics. Although not all customers will agree with an organization’s decisions, many customers want to buy from an organization that represents what they believe in. Identifying and embracing the key issues that your organization and leadership supports communicates to your customers that your organization shares their values.

Becoming a personalization-first organization

Organizations should treat every customer as if they were the most valuable customer in the world. This means providing an accurate and ideal user experience through personalization. Organizations can use data to personalize more effectively at scale.

Organizations can personalize their marketing by targeting the customers they want to reach with unique messages that are relevant to them. By soliciting individual customer feedback on purchases, inquiries, and service requests, you can better understand your customers’ needs.

Alternatively, personalization may occur at the product level. For example, hotels are increasingly offering personalized experiences based on surveys and previous visits. One hotel guest might prefer the perk of a free massage, while another might prefer to get their first drink free at the hotel bar. By designing experiences that are relevant to each guest, hotels are more likely to retain those guests compared to competitors who treat all guests the same.

Stay ahead of key technology trends

It is now abundantly clear that technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will revolutionize the way customer-centric organizations interact and deliver value to all stakeholders, especially their customers. These technologies will increasingly impact multiple touchpoints with customers, from prospects requesting more information to personalized messages after a purchase to customer care teams helping resolve issues.

Customers use AI and ML-powered self-service tools, including generative AI apps and conversational AI chatbots, to get the information they need. And if you absolutely must speak to a customer service expert, that employee will use AI and ML to answer your question more effectively and efficiently. Additionally, organizations will increase their use of automation to minimize customer care professionals’ efforts on heavy lifting so they can better serve their customers.

Another key technology trend that organizations should adopt is augmented reality (AR). For example, when a customer hates an online purchase and wants to return the product, it creates a major burden for the customer and a major cost for the organization. Augmented reality allows customers to try products in their own environment before purchasing.

Leverage more customer insights for real-time decisions

Organizations can now track and analyze all customer interactions, especially those for e-commerce businesses. Metrics derived from customer engagement can drive significant business value. Therefore, future CX strategies will be more data-driven than ever.

For example, AI-based chatbots are trained on historical customer data, so they can better understand what customers want and provide solutions faster.

The declining value of third-party cookies that track customers and enable targeting on the open web is forcing organizations and CX leaders to rethink their playbooks. Now, companies must rely on zero-party data and first-party data, which is information shared directly by customers. Information organization is derived from omnichannel tracking across owned websites, social media such as LinkedIn and Instagram, and apps.

But despite the CX insights available, organizations still struggle to make real-time decisions. McKinsey research shows that CX leaders prioritize real-time customer behavior, but only 13% of leaders feel they have the tools to achieve this through existing systems.

The solution discussed by McKinsey is to create a data lake that pools all the data collected and allows relevant parties to access aggregate information to make smarter decisions. CX and customer service professionals can then use customer relationship management (CRM) tools to act on this data.

Embracing the future of customer experience

IBM has been helping companies apply trusted AI in this space for over a decade, and generative AI has the added potential to significantly transform customer and field service through its ability to generate more human-like conversational responses. there is. IBM Consulting helps you put your customer experience strategy at the center of your business and deliver consistent, intelligent customer care through conversational AI.

IBM watsonx™ Assistant is a market-leading conversational artificial intelligence platform designed to help you overcome the pain points of traditional support and deliver exceptional experiences. Watsonx™ and IBM Consulting’s deep expertise in customer journey mapping and design, platform implementation, and data and AI consulting helps you leverage best-in-class technologies to drive innovation across the customer lifecycle.

Explore customer experience solutions