With 9 out 10 companies competing on providing exceptional customer experience, it has become the new battlefield and top priority for businesses this 2020. What happens to companies that choose not to take customer experience seriously? Customers simply leave them. Quality product or service is no longer the key to winning customers. How you treat and interact with customers, or their perception of how you treat them, is what wins them over and drives loyalty. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most important customer experience trends this year.
Customer Experience as Top Priority
Customer engagement should be every business’ top priority this 2020 as it impacts productivity and profitability. eConsultancy and Adobe’s recent Annual Digital Trends report revealed that 20% of B2B companies find that the most exciting business opportunities are in customer experience, beating social media, video and content marketing.
Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is all about inspiring interactions between customers and brands. No one wants to do business with any company that treats its customers poorly, no matter how good the products or services are. Customer engagement is critical in nudging customers to move along their journey and you need to willingly take part in the experiences that you are creating for them. If done right, you’ll build customer loyalty and drive revenue. This means investing in technology and skilled team that will help you deliver consistent customer experience. Walker’s latest report on the future of B2B customer experience states that 62% of companies will invest to meet the needs of customers.
Engineering
Companies are now embracing the fact that engineering provides the power for real-time connect with customers. Designing a great customer experience requires having the right systems and applications in place so your team can collaborate more efficiently, communicate with customers in real time and deliver service consistently. Gartner, a leading research company, has predicted during its annual customer experience summit that 25% of customer service and support operations will integrate chatbot technology across engagement channels this year. The software decisions your company make will impact the type of customer experience you deliver. Your potential to create innovative customer experiences can come from AI-enhanced omni-channel messaging solutions, such as Glowing Customer Engagement Cloud, which provides real-time interactions and messages that foster a deeper connection between your brand and your customers.
Omni-Channel Engagement
Brands that engage with their customers across multiple channels – which can be through website, email, apps, social media, sms or text messaging – will stay ahead of the curve. While there are numerous available channels to reach customers, communication and messaging need to be consistent, both offline and online. In the PWC’s 2020 report, they highlighted that the number of businesses investing in the omni-channel experience has increased from 20% in 2010 to 80% in 2020. Furthermore, Adobe recently shared that businesses with established omni-channel customer engagement strategies benefit with a 10% year-on-year growth and 25% increase in closing rates.
Customer Feedback
With connected and mobile customers, expectations are at an all-time high. If your company does not have proper customer experience strategies in place, you will find it tough to meet their expectations, let alone exceed them. This could lead to poor customer experience and frustration that could hinder your business growth. In the Future of CX survey of 15,000 consumers by PwC, a multi-national professional service network, 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they patronize after a just one negative experience, while 92% says they will completely abandon the brand after 2-3 poor customer experiences. Simply put, satisfied customers will remain loyal. Unhappy customers will not hesitate to leave and seek better customer experience elsewhere, most likely your competitors. Ensure you pro-actively obtain customer feedback to help you determine if your clients are satisfied with your service and identify areas for improvement early on before they turn to social media or review sites to air their frustrations with your brand.
Self-Service
More customers these days prefer to find the answers regarding your services or products than to contact support agents. According to Zendesk research on self-service, a massive 91% of their customers said they prefer to use a knowledge base if it’s comprehensive and meets their needs. It’s prudent for your business to capitalize on the self-service or self-help trend because it’s the most efficient and cost-effective way to support your customers. Remove any barriers and make relevant, helpful, easy-to-navigate and searchable information available to your customers. Creating a self-service customer portal will drive customer engagement at a fraction of a cost of setting up a customer service support back office.
Customer Service Skills
There needs to be a focus on your employees who are on the frontline and customer facing. No matter how much you invest in technology or plan customer engagement strategies, your team members’ experiences and skills are crucial in providing excellent and consistent customer engagement. You have to create a positive, healthy and cohesive culture within the walls of your company and empower your team by helping them acquire the right skills, and training them on current technologies and applications to adopt to digital transformation in customer experience. Learn about the top five strategies you can implement to provide more personalized and engaging experiences for your customers. It’s amazing what can be achieved with the right team, right skills and right environment!
Looking to Boost Your Customer Engagement?
Contact Glowing at +1 (650) 687-7046 and we’ll empower your business and team to engage with your customers through our enterprise-class mobile messaging and customer engagement technology suite, Glowing Customer Engagement Cloud.
Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.