As the pandemic forced us to change our very way of
living, consumer behavior also changed drastically. Overnight, many people who
were “fence-sitters” when it came to transacting “online” were literally forced
to online since in-person contact became the least preferred way of doing
commerce. This online commerce forced organizations to really take a deep look
at their customer journeys both online and offline. Digital Technologies,
earlier often relegated to “coming in future” or “nice to have” became
“essential” to survival. Retail was the hardest hit with this realization.
However, we find that now almost every area of the
customer experience is being transformed by new technologies. Customers have
evolved to anticipate new levels of perfection, performance, and just about
everything in between as the possibilities of digital technology improve.
Customers' expectations are continuously evolving; thus, the current customer
experience must go above and beyond old customer care practices. Companies that
give a meaningful but relevant experience that meets or exceeds their
consumers' expectations will be successful.
To stay on top of these advancements and trends, we
must grasp these new technologies and use them to communicate, interact, and
promote in novel ways. Today's organizations need to discover the proper
digital tools to provide a great customer experience, build brand loyalty, and
drive sales growth. CX is taking advantage of today's technology and data to
improve the entire customer experience. This involves sharing data amongst
teams such as marketing and customer support, developing new roles to act on
the data, and using new technologies such as AI, resulting in the
implementation of a class of digital practices that leverage data to improve
the whole digital trip for customers.
Leading firms in customer experience management are
already utilizing these new technologies to achieve a competitive advantage.
This ranking is topped by the utilization of artificial intelligence. According
to one Research, by 2022, consumers would probably be handling 85 percent or
more of their interactions with the organization without the need to be
engaging with a human, at least for simple interactions. Many of the
technological breakthroughs accessible to CX delivery teams are determined by
how artificial intelligence, conversational interfaces, and robotic automation
are implemented. There are two aspects to this. One is related to productivity
and efficiency. By automating frequent and repetitive processes, these
solutions save expenses and boost agent productivity. The other aspect, perhaps
more important, is to do with delivering superior experiences through quick,
efficient, and empathetic engagements during various segments of customer
journeys. Conversational Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence are
another method for automating simple chores. Today's industry-standard chatbots
offer an incredible step forward for organizations looking to automate and
outsource easy, regular inquiries and interactions to an intelligent system,
thanks to an algorithmic learning feature that allows it to learn from past
discussions and adapt replies. Another widely used option, IoT, may boost a
company's bottom line by cutting operational expenses, improving productivity,
and assisting companies in expanding into new markets or developing new goods.
One technique, which seems to be gaining tremendous
traction in understanding and delivering empathetic engagements, is speech
analytics, which is being increasingly used to augment existing AI processes
enabled processes by listening for heightened voice pitches and other emotional
indications, analyzing the customer's sentiments, further contextualizing with
backend order data and transferring them to an agent when appropriate. It also
gives fresh sources of feedback by identifying emotional drivers and focusing
on terms or themes that regularly provoke specific feelings.
Armed with this sentiment analysis technology and
with comprehensive dashboards, agents can quickly acquire a full image of each
client, their purchase history, and their expected goals for each engagement –
and then take on a consultative role, alleviating emergent and even projected
requirements as well instantly acquire a thorough understanding of each client.
These new and continually growing technologies are assisting businesses not only
to extend their client base but also to get a macro-level understanding of
their customers. Adopting such technologies for one’s organization is providing
a more competitive advantage over competitors that have yet to connect
technology with customer experience.
For a few years, a huge focus of most of the
organizations and service providers was to deflect a transaction or engagement
towards a non-voice channel – with the hope that customers would find these
easier and such channels also afford a lower cost to serve. However, as seen,
most of the customers are not very comfortable using non-voice channels
especially with an AI-powered bot behind the channel during a time of crisis or
during a buying journey. In a country like India, literacy rates while climbing
has also proved to be a challenge for a largely English-dominated non-voice
channel scene. Hence, we see that voice is making a comeback, albeit in a
different avatar for service providers! And Speech Analytics and related
technologies are at the heart of this revolution.
This is not limited to service providers or call
centers only! General use of such virtual assistants is happening on an
increasingly wide scale. For example, Taxi and cab drivers in India are
routinely seen using some form of voice-powered virtual assistant for doing
routine things – hands-free! Mostly the interface is maps or google assistant.
The next frontier in Speech-enabled virtual assistants would be real-time
language translation capabilities, which would allow two humans to converse
with each other even though they might speak different languages. 5G and
increasingly powerful speech engines are the key. While we are far away from
Star Trek’s Universal Translator, but such technologies, on a simpler scale can
revolutionize the way we interact with each other and transact online.
The next frontier in CX and EX
definitely involves a significant role for such technologies available through
a variety of interface formats!
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