Tag: AI

Top 6 Customer Experience Megatrends to Prioritize in 2024

Delivering exceptional CX becomes more of a business imperative. It hinges on seamless digital and self-service options. While empowered employees remain vital for tackling intricate customer scenarios, AI is emerging as the ultimate game-changer, capable of optimizing every stage of the customer journey.

2024 is going to be absolutely amazing for the companies preparing to embrace the power of Cloud computing, AI, and advanced customer experience (CX) applications. It’s not unknown that the customer demands are shifting significantly. The need for instant, hassle-free solutions are rapidly increasing among the customers. At this point, delivering exceptional CX becomes more of a business imperative. It hinges on seamless digital and self-service options. While empowered employees remain vital for tackling intricate customer scenarios, AI is emerging as the ultimate game-changer, capable of optimizing every stage of the customer journey. By harnessing these technologies, companies can unlock dramatic improvements in customer loyalty and streamline CX operations across the board.

1. Sustainability Drives Customer Satisfaction

A 2023 study by IBM revealed that 83% of global consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable brands. Additionally, a Cone Communications report found that 90% of U.S. consumers consider a company’s commitment to environmental and social responsibility when making purchasing decisions. 

From the above-mentioned status, it’s quite evident that consumers today are increasingly aligning their purchasing habits with their values. Businesses that go beyond simply offering products and services and demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainability will win over environmentally and socially conscious customers. This can encompass eco-friendly packaging, ethical sourcing practices, and community engagement initiatives.

2. Omnichannel CX: Meeting Customers on Their Terms

73% of customers expect consistent service across all channels (phone, email, social media). Additionally,customer experience becomes 1.5 times more important in omnichannel customer journeys. Customers today expect a seamless experience regardless of the touchpoint they choose. This necessitates breaking down siloed operations and integrating all customer interaction channels to ensure consistent messaging, information access, and service quality.

3. Smart Subscriptions and Personalized Experiences

The subscription economy is booming, with a McKinsey report indicating that global subscription services revenue reached $335 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2025. A majority of the customers expect companies to use their data to personalize their experiences. Businesses are moving beyond one-size-fits-all subscription models. By leveraging AI and advanced analytics, companies can offer dynamic pricing, tailor content and recommendations, and personalize service levels based on individual customer preferences and behavior. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also increases customer lifetime value.

4. Prioritizing Customer Accessibility   

A study by the National Center for Disability and Journalism found that 26% of adults in the United States have some form of disability. Additionally, a WebAIM report highlights that over 98% of home pages on the top 1 million websites have at least one accessibility issue.

Creating an inclusive and accessible customer experience goes beyond just complying with regulations. By making websites, mobile apps, and customer service channels accessible to users with disabilities, businesses tap into a wider market segment and build stronger customer relationships.

5. Personalization Powered by Generative AI and Data

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 40% of customer service interactions will involve generative AI (like chatbots). Additionally, a report by Accenture reveals that companies with strong personalization capabilities achieve loyalty program revenue that is 18% higher than their competitors..

Generative AI offers exciting possibilities for personalization. Businesses can leverage this technology to create dynamic marketing campaigns, tailor user experiences, and offer personalized support through chatbots. However, it’s crucial to ensure responsible and transparent use of AI to maintain customer trust.

6. Embracing New Technologies, with an Eye on Data Privacy

According to a study by Statista, the global market for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) is expected to reach $800 billion by 2025. Additionally, a report by PwC highlights that 72% of consumers are concerned about how companies use their data.  Emerging technologies like AR and VR have the potential to revolutionize customer experiences by offering immersive interactions and product demonstrations. However, businesses must navigate the ethical and legal landscape surrounding data privacy. Building trust by adhering to data regulations and prioritizing transparency is key to successful adoption of these technologies.

Final Thoughts

Strategically implementing these top customer experience megatrends in 2024 empowers businesses to build resilience and cultivate enduring customer relationships. By prioritizing sustainability, omnichannel accessibility, data-driven personalization, and ethical AI integration, organizations demonstrate a commitment to environmental responsibility, customer convenience, and building trust. Furthermore, empowering employees through automation and fostering a customer-centric culture not only elevates customer satisfaction but also cultivates loyal brand advocates, propelling businesses forward in a competitive marketplace. Embracing these trends transcends mere adaptation; it signifies a proactive approach to shaping a future-proof customer experience that thrives in the ever-evolving business landscape.  

CRM and the Role of AI for the Future of Businesses

Everywhere that you see today, customer data is blowing up. People (and all their modern devices) are sharing data, which even refers to household products. This is happening, as behind each device, interaction, and products there is a customer, which equates to a first-time opportunity for organizations to delight their clients and customers with unprecedented experiences that are most intuitive, predictive, and relevant than ever, upholding the role of AI for the future of businesses in this modern world.

Everywhere that you see today, customer data is blowing up. People (and all their modern devices) are sharing data, which even refers to household products. This is happening, as behind each device, interaction, and products there is a customer, which equates to a first-time opportunity for organizations to delight their clients and customers with unprecedented experiences that are most intuitive, predictive, and relevant than ever, upholding the role of AI for the future of businesses in this modern world.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) embedded in trade and commerce and CRM platforms are creating striking new possibilities for the customer experience and beyond.

Out of more than 1000 global companies analyzed by IDC 28% of companies already use Artificial Intelligence and 41% are planning to use AI in the next two years. Click To Tweet

In December 2016, President Obama released a detailed report on the role of AI for the future of businesses, automation, and the American economy. The report endorsed technology being the primary driver of growth in GDP per capita, overruling labor, or capital in the U.S. However, it also warned that the larger economic gains that can be found by AI could remain to a selected few, as the winner-take-most nature of the IT markets means that only a few may come to dominate the markets that hold the role of AI for the future of businesses.

Recently the pioneering market intelligence company IDC, in collaboration with SFDC, released a report on the economic impact of using AI for Customer Relationship Management activities, ranging from marketing and sales to customer support and retention. Whereby they confirmed, out of more than 1000 global companies analyzed  28% of companies already use Artificial Intelligence and 41% are planning to use AI in the next two years. Hence, 2018 is expected to be a pivotal year for AI adoption for enterprises, paving the road for the role of AI for the future of businesses.

Within CRM specificity, it is a known fact to many that 50% of business activities in the Customer Relationship Management platform are already in the cloud. No wonder vendors of cloud-based SaaS CRM ranging from IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and even Google have doubled down on the war for acquiring lion’s share of the market of the enterprise cloud.

The term Artificial Intelligence or AI is an extremely broad term that defines a wide range of technology that includes machine learning, NLP (Natural Language Processing), computer vision, and several other predictive analysis approaches that heralds the role of AI for the future of businesses.

The challenge in this golden age of AI revolution is to determine how we can develop the right expertise and process for collecting data, as well as build AI algorithms and models fast enough to reap the benefits of this technology.
Given the fact that most companies do not even know where and how to begin, building AI based new systems, apps, and capabilities or having AI already ingrained into CRM, will significantly hike any companies’ skill to deliver high-impact and smart customer experience quickly and effectively.

Customer intelligence in a CRM starts with the cluster of rich data that resides in one location and caters to a single comprehensive view of each customer. Without this data, AI algorithm (no matter how advanced it is) will not be able to present a meaningful predictive analysis. Additionally, this approach not only turns CRM platform into an ideal technological choice for managing customer relationship but it can help to build all kind of apps like the one that can predict late payments, accounts receivable, supply chain management that can predict stock level according to expected demands and more.

E-commerce firms can also use the CRM database to elevate buying experience by providing personalized and automated recommendations and special offers that can help draw shoppers to their e-commerce websites. Thinking ahead of times, embedded intelligence can even learn from conversation history and coach sales agents in the next steps they must take to reach out with their best offers to the customers.

To conclude, with all trends that are transforming the ways we do business and interact with customers, the role of AI for the future of businesses will surely show us even more exciting and innovative developments during the upcoming months in 2018.

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What Is The Impact That Big Data Technologies Will Have On CRM?

Every business by now has heard about Big Data and its growing importance as many businesses are drawing their attention to it. However, nowhere is the use of Big Data technologies more important than in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms. By continuously keeping track of data, any small or big business establishment can learn more information that they can subsequently use to improve its brand’s customer satisfaction and experience.

Every business by now has heard about Big Data and its growing importance as many businesses are drawing their attention to it. However, nowhere is the use of Big Data technologies more important than in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms. By continuously keeping track of data, any small or big business establishment can learn more information that they can subsequently use to improve its brand’s customer satisfaction and experience. Thanks to the Internet, in a world where customers know more about businesses than ever, keeping customer satisfaction high is most vital towards retaining businesses.

Big data is projected to grow into a $53.4 Bn market by 2017, up from $10.2 Bn last year and this is how it will help the CRM industry today. Click To Tweet

Nevertheless, despite the benefits of Big Data, there are several companies who avoid or do not use Big Data to develop a precise and clear CRM strategy.

How can you manage Big Data challenges?

Here are our advice and suggestions for managing “Big” data:

  • Archive all unused or sparely used data.
  • Use time-honored RDBMSs (Relational Database Management System) for your transactional data.
  • Use NoSQL (non Structured Query Language) for those extremely large and practically non-shrinkable data volumes.
  • Tier your data storage to make the most of cost efficiency.
  • Divide data sets into manageable-chunks as per their function or need.
  • Use Indexes.
  • Store your data in more efficient formats to speed up queries and save space.
  • Do not over-normalize data.
  • Query subsets or rather to say representational data sets.
  • Use ‘disk-to-disk’ backup for enhancing reliability and speed.
  • Use the state-of-art available technology for storage, networking, and retrieving data.

What are the most used Big Data tools?

  • Apache Hadoop
  • Apache Samoa
  • Lumify
  • Talend Open Studio for Big Data
  • Apache Storm
  • RapidMiner
  • Elasticsearch
  • R-Programming
  • HPCC Systems Big Data
  • MongoDB

In a recent survey done by Forrester of British businesses, it was found that more than 66% of establishments used their CRM either on an “ad-hoc” basis or “without any predefined plan”.

Data without any planning is just useless and similarly, a plan without any data is just a matter of wish fulfillment. Therefore, if business leaders are required to build loyal customers, they must build and rely on successful CRM strategy along with Big Data, just like, as it was when Social Media got integrated with CRM technology in the past.

Understanding Big Data and CRM

On a primary level, all business practice Customer Relationship Management to a certain degree. Even before modern day computers came into existence, businesses used to keep data of their important and steadfast customers on a ‘Rolodex’ or simply on cards. This data would encompass basic information like the customer’s contact information and also what business the person has done with the company.

There are several companies, which still do a similar thing today, only with Google Docs and Excel worksheets replacing a Rolodex. However, there is so much more information in this digital age about customers, which businesses can gather from social media apps, websites and so on, that today’s businesses need CRM platform to store all that multitude of data.

While all these information may not directly provide to a business, yet still this information is still in public and is extremely useful, as it shows what the customers really think or what they are trying to tell to the business.

For an example, of how Big Data can keep customers and their interests, let us look at Walmart. It has been rumored that Walmart is constructing a 40 (PB) Petabyte or 40 million Gigabyte of Cloud Data to keep track of the inexhaustible number of products they are shipping across the globe. While this retail giant in the older times could have to wait for several days or months to know the condition of their sales in a selected sector or area and then make adjustments accordingly, now they can do it instantaneously, that have made them a retail Titan.

You can always think that your small or medium business does not need a Cloud storage facility that large, and hence you might as well view Big Data as something, which is not required for it exceeded your business’s technological capabilities and needs. However, in reality, Big Data is for everyone, and that is the exact reason where CRM software platforms like SFDC (Salesforce) or Hubspot can be of your help.

Aided by Big Data Technologies a salesperson can store all information of any client in one place and then use CRM software solution to efficiently share the data with everyone. When this process is multiplied by every other sales representative in an organization, and keeping track and sharing data with everyone else becomes a routine activity, then higher-ups in the organization can note trends and fruitful approaches, which can keep the customers happy.

What is Big Data Technologies
Big Data

Integrating AI

This explosion of Big Data Technologies is going to be further facilitated in the future by the spread of IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence). The challenge in this technological innovation is not just collecting the data, but as well as processing it. CRM software can help over here, as in the present times there are too much of information out on the Internet and kudos to machine-learning, CRM software when integrated with AI technology can continue to grow and come up with superior conclusions as they analyze this flow of ever-increasing data.

lead capture

The Future is now

While not every business can build a data cloud akin to Walmart, yet CRM software like ConvergeHub and others can provide an affordable means to keep track of your data, which everyone in your organization can access and help managers draw conclusions by analyzing and processing data, which is too vast for our human minds.

The Past, Present, and Future of AI in Customer Experience

It can be debated, for all the good things that technology has provided to businesses over the last few decades, it has also compromised on customer experience, which is a key element, responsible for growth in any businesses. Nevertheless, at present we have just starting to realize the potential of AI and understand the potential implication for Artificial Intelligence applications, to make a more than welcome impact in the field of customer experience.

You can thank IBM’s Watson for creating an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that was integrated into a plethora of businesses and customer facing applications. You can credit Facebook and Skype for their recent buzz about chatbots and the gold rush of venture capitalists and developers creating an onslaught of bot developing companies. You can laud Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s Siri for applying intelligence into mundane everyday devices and bringing to life; voice, as the new user interface.
Nevertheless, the truth remains that we have also at present just starting to realize the potential of AI in customer experience.

The-Past-Present-and-Future-of-AI-in-Customer-Experience-CTA

It can be debated, for all the good things that technology has provided to businesses over the last few decades, it has also compromised on customer experience, which is a key element, responsible for growth in any businesses.

Websites, call-centers, apps, emails and other offspring of modern digital technology have offered companies scopes to scale and automate customer engagements, while also ushering in process efficiency and cost management systems. However, this also came at a price. As over the years, numerous customers have complained that these very processes and systems were the very elements that undermined and hindered satisfaction for the buyer’s community.

Think about it now. When was the last time that you enjoyed calling up and talking to customer service representatives? Or, for that matter, when was the last instance you were transferred between customer support executives, where the next support personal was already plugged-in into your customer account details and had the precise knowledge as to why you were calling?

It is really a matter of grave disappointment even today that many aspects of the customer journey are still disconnected. A symptom of outdated business models, where many important touch-points are independently run, in many businesses. Of which, many of these touch-points do not connect or even talk to each other, the way customers expect them. Pragmatically, in several cases, they even actually compete or conflict with one another, over the course of the customer journey.

The main reason behind this slow growth for improving customer experience is that businesses are most often viewed as cost centers rather than long-term investments.

However, in the recent times with stellar improvement in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology, AI opens up an unforeseen opportunity for introducing more personalized intelligent and scalable engagements with the customers, to help them solve problems and accomplish tasks, which contributes to improved overall satisfaction for the buyer’s community.

However, for AI to break new grounds and introduce new values, customer support and marketing strategists must step into an innovative approach regarding CX and so consider its impact beyond its novelty. Moreover, this growth of AI in CX cannot be hampered or throttled by existing CX perspectives and processes that abound today’s customer experience analogies.

AI applications in CX

Whether you are a CEO (Chief Experience Officer), CIO, CCO (Chief Customer Officers) or CMO in marketing, IT or service industry, Artificial Intelligence represents a blank slate for ushering improvement and innovations in CX. For, with a mix of right vision and intent, customer experience can thrust businesses into an accelerated path of maturity that can guide any organization with a new purpose, which is based on customer centricity.

Here are some of the ways by which you can apply AI to CX:

Chatbots

Chatbots are virtual agents that can perform intelligent conversation, which can be applied to various customer engagement scenarios. Under their hood, chat bots are just sophisticated computer programs that are  developed to simulate conversations with humans online- and they are a long time in the making.

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg the co-founder and Chairman of Facebook, in partnership with 1800FLOWERS, demonstrated a Chabot application at the F8 development conference. In this demonstration, Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook Messenger to show how a consumer can talk to a virtual agent and order flowers of his/her choice, without leaving the window.

What was unique with this demonstration is that the Chabot was capable of picking up conversational cues to suggest floral arrangements that meet the customer’s personal needs and goals.

Although, other Chabot applications that have hit the market have borne witness to some of the challenges, such as poor design and execution, and a universal emphasis on transactions over experience, but in reality, bots can be truly so much more if we allow our imagination to unlock new possibilities.

Virtual concierge

Whether they are docked in hardware devices or messaging platforms, virtual concierges are bots that are designed for providing personalized services. In certain instances, these bots are partnered with human counterparts to perform the task as a ‘digital-butler’ to aid us in booking travels, buy or find gifts and commodities, coordinate with a human on specific experiences and others.

A recent example of using on-demand virtual concierge in the retail business is Operator, which is developed by Garrett Camp, who is also the co-founder of Uber.

Operator aims to build a new front door to eCommerce by using messaging app.

Another example of using virtual concierge in the travel business is Lola, which is developed by Kayak’s founder Paul English. Lola is a new travel app that personalizes engagements with human thoughts along with AI.

Virtual assistants/attendants

While virtual concierges are designed to aid users in achieving simple-to-complicated tasks, virtual assistants and attendants make use of Artificial Intelligence to help users with commands and questions. Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Echo, Google Now, and Apple Siri are some of the examples of virtual assistants/attendants, among others.

Recently, each of these applications is vying each other to become a platform for its implementation in common devices and appliances, collaborating with the developer communities to help extend the functionalities of these applications in horizontal and vertical planes.

Cognitive computing

Cognitive computing is the simulation of human thought process to augment human engagements. One of the most well-known platforms in this space is IBM’s Watson, the AI platform that is famous for beating-down human contestants on the wildly popular American TV show “Jeopardy”.

Cognitive computing involves self-learning systems to recognize patterns, mine data, process natural language and interact with people in a way that is intelligent, value-added and complementary.

One such example is Softbank’s partnership with IBM, for adding emotional and cognitive intelligence to its line of robots, named “Pepper”. These robots are deployed in financial, retail and hospitality settings for proving an enhanced personal form of engagements to the visiting customers.

In the present times, self-service options are limited to ATMs and kiosks, where the abilities of these platforms are limited to nurturing customer relationship up to transactions. With ongoing researches on cognitive assistance, people will soon be able to have a natural conversation with machines, where their words, gestures, and expressions will be understood by these systems.

Initial applications where AI can improve CX

Although AI pilots can be used for, testing and learning everywhere, in a customer journey mapping exercise- here is a list of where AI applications are implemented today.

  • Personalization
  • Questions/answers
  • Customer self-service
  • Pre-emptive routing
  • Product/service innovation
  • Task performance/management
  • Predictive service/sales
  • Augmented engagement
  • Digital concierge/assistant collaboration

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Takeaway

Today’s customers live in an omnichannel world, where AI provides a means to facilitate up to date and precise responses across all platforms, at any and every point in the customer journey.

This represents a new ground for what is referred to as ‘conversational commerce’. Where as an alternative for resolving disjointed touch points and instances, AI will aid the enterprises to stitch together a more natural and complete customer journey to integrate, improve, and re-imagine customer experience.

Customer engagement is not a cost center, but it is an investment in customer relationship. So whether it is integrating back-end CRM, introducing new touch points; predicting trends, behaviors and expectations successfully, AI implementation needs a new blueprint with imagination and ingenuity, which will not only enhance CX but can improve every aspect of any business in the long run.