Customer experience (CX)-the set of interactions between a customer and an organization throughout their Business relationship– is no more an afterthought. It is now an increasingly strategic function within the business and forms the crux of effective digital transformation and customer experience initiatives.

End-to-end customer experiences

Companies that pay attention to the complete, end-to-end customer experiences have more satisfied customers. They look beyond individual interactions across touch-points such as billing, on-boarding, or servicing. Companies such as Google and Amazon have raised the bar for immediacy, personalization, and convenience in providing seamless experiences for their customers. A study by McKinsey & Company reveals that maximizing customer satisfaction within customer journeys can increase satisfaction by up to 20% and lift revenue by up to 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%.

Customer Experience – the key in 2018

In 2018, companies that invest in transforming their customer experiences will gain a significant competitive edge. Therefore, businesses need to make customer experience an integral part of their business strategy in tune with a Walker Research prediction that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by the year 2020. It is expected that more than 50% of organizations will implement significant business model changes in their efforts to improve customer experience.

Customer Touch Points and Omnichannel strategy

Customers now regularly use more than six touch points on an average with the most popular ones being phone, email, Live Chat, online knowledge base and “click-to-call” support automation. Given this diversity, building an Omnichannel strategy offers numerous benefits for both the business and the customer – such as better prospect acquisition, increased channel efficiency, improved customer retention rates, sustainable sales culture, enhanced productivity and revenue generation.

Personalization

Businesses are increasingly leveraging new technologies such as location-based communications, Machine Learning, predictive customer service, big data and machine learning etc. to deliver personalized customer experiences. With these businesses can gain granular, automated, real time personalization without the huge, additional resource costs.

Automated Self Service

The new generation prefers self-service and intelligent chatbots for their initial interactions with businesses. Self-service technology has been proven to enhance customer retention rates and reduce upto 90% of customer support costs and should therefore be a top priority for businesses. Surveys have estimated that 45% of companies offering web or mobile self-service reported an increase in site traffic and reduced phone inquiries.

Conversational commerce

It is expected that Conversational Commerce would have a major role in the future and a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers terms it a business advantage. Conversational commerce is a mix of shopping and messaging, where the act of purchasing is performed through online and mobile conversations. It serves as an additional channel to generate revenue and the business can analyze and dissect the relevant data.

AI and IoT

In 2018 we can expect AI-driven interactions to go beyond being a mere feature and become specialized products in themselves while Internet of Things will raise the customer expectations and satisfaction to higher levels through the connected ecosystem of devices.

We can expect successful businesses to leverage intelligent automation, personalization, artificial intelligence, IoT and machine learning to build data-driven customer centric business strategies, to generate value.

Wolken Software brings to you its new eBook guide to improving customer experience in 2018.The eBook looks at the top trends to watch out for when it comes to how customer experience and demands is expected to change and the how technology is going to play a critical part in its achievement.

The eBook has the following salient sections:

1. Consistent customer experience is key
2. Business models need to change to drive better customer experience
3. Omnichannel customer support want be a differentiator but a standard
4. Personalization of the support experience is going to be paramount for customer delight
5. Self-service, AI and Automation is going to drive the change and ensure success

Read on and discover how your support machinery can cater to the new customer experience demands