It is already much more than just a trend. In fact, the Customer Experience (CX) concept has become a central piece in any company’s growth and success strategy. At a time when customers become the epicenter of business strategies, organizations are also increasingly concerned about offering good experiences whenever they can. It will help to build customer loyalty and, ultimately, increase profitability and boost long-term business growth.
Talking about a good CX strategy is to refer to all the experiences customers have with a business/provider through their buying journeys. Many of these interactions may be digital, reason why a CX strategy should support multiple interaction channels, going from the physical store to the internet or social media search.
Customer Experience Strategy is the key to business
As we know, modern consumers can be as unpredictable as they are powerful, so it is key to put in place a strong customer experience strategy to avoid bad experiences that will end up damaging business reputation. It is a fact that consumers’ tolerance for poor customer service is increasingly low, and they will not hesitate to share bad experiences online as soon as it happens.
In this area, technology is a key piece for a good customer experience strategy definition. Supporting true omnichannel communication and handling customer interactions with AI, analytics, and automation, wherever suitable, is mandatory.
Let us investigate some of these technologies and understand how they integrate with CX strategies:
Artificial Intelligence: a new path has been charted
With the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the future of customer experience (CX) is now limitless and will be continually evolving. From hyper-personalization to microtargeting and optimized customer journeys, there may be no limits to what a company can do. Let’s take a close look into it:
- Automation and personalization: It is being used not only to automate repetitive tasks but also to assure more complex and personalized interactions between customers and organizations. In fact, according to a 2023 Global Customer Experience Report, almost 80% of operation managers say that AI and automation already have a significant impact on eliminating hard work.
On the other hand, when your customers feel understood, appreciated, and valued, they are more likely to come back, and even to play an ambassador role for your brand. Therefore, that is why figuring out how to create an automated personalized customer experience can truly transform your business with an undeniable impact on a company’s P&L.
- Chatbots and virtual assistance: A digital assistant, also known as a predictive chatbot, is an advanced computer program that simulates a conversation with the people who use it, typically over the internet. And this is already helping to improve customer experience. Some examples come in the self-service area, with support bots working on natural language, thus being able to respond to more complex questions and give very precise answers to customers.
Also important are things like call routing, based not only on workers’ skills but also on existing information and the use of AI algorithms; as well as hyper-personalization working on highly personalized services for each client. Virtual assistance will also improve by using technology that allows sentiment analysis, anticipating customer feelings in real time, and helping create better, more comprehensive, and direct answers to their needs.
- Data analysis and forecasting: By taking advantage of technology in these two areas, it is possible to analyze customer needs and preferences, allowing for better standardization but also some greater precision on the services made available.
Should we go to the Cloud?
Cloud is a good option when we think about customer experience, as it allows organizations to offer efficient, scalable, and highly personalized services. In fact, according to a Gartner study, 79% of the cloud-based contact center systems are already influencing the customer experience area in a very positive way. Check below the main benefits.
Benefits of Cloud migration
1 – Scalability and flexibility: Scaling through customer experience is the catalyst your business needs and is becoming more important than ever. In fact, it does not matter what industry you are in or what product you may be selling; the simple fact that you are capable of scaling proves to your clients that you are providing them a world-class support. On the other hand, it also guarantees a faster response to some unexpected “peaks” of work (allowing you to add or remove agents without the need to invest in additional physical infrastructure).
2 – Remote collaboration: Remote is “the” word nowadays. In this area, it becomes even more important as agents are now able to access the company systems from anywhere and at any time. In fact, when hiring remote agents, it helps to guarantee some greater flexibility in the workforce.
3 – Security: And, when it comes to the cloud and remote collaboration, there is no way but to talk about security. Organizations must really offer some advanced security strategies, in addition to protecting customer data. When working on the cloud, that kind of security is already guaranteed by the provider that makes sure that everything is updated – hardware and software, as well – but also that employees are aware of the risks; in this area, for instance, working with multi-factor authentications is very important.
Employee Experience
And, once we are talking about employees, there is no way not to mention training and a solid organizational culture, as both have a direct impact on the CX area:
- Employee training: There are four key principles of good customer service: personalization, competency, convenience, and proactive. This can only be achieved with good employees. As such, organizations must work on the development of specific skills on their teams, because that sure has some positive, repercussions on customer service and on reinforcing the company’s reputation (attracting and retaining employees and customers at the same time). Empathy, good communication, and problem solving are core skills in providing excellent customer service but there are others as important as the ones mentioned above that must be trained.
- Organizational culture: Organizational culture is regarded as a difficult and complex concept, but it is quite important when it comes to improving customer experience; it reinforces the commitment to personalized customer service, innovation, continuous improvement, and open communication, among many others. In all this process, companies must also work on the humanization of the business by using the most advanced technologies to interact with their customers. ChatGPT, natural languages, bots but also specific applications, WhatsApp or Facebook media are good working tools. Nevertheless, they must always be complemented by human interaction whenever the need for some specific, more customized help, arrives.
Customer Experience with the right technology partner
The Customer Experience area is already a key factor when it comes to business growth, taking advantage of things like the strategic combination of AI, cloud, and employee experience.
These partners have simultaneously worked with new tools that streamline all these procedures and have a more strategic understanding of the market. To guarantee the best customer experience and service, make sure you select the ideal partner company for your company.
