In the past few years, we have witnessed the maturation and widespread adoption of emerging technologies, not only in businesses but also in our everyday lives. This trend to a shift in consumers’ needs and expectations regarding how they prefer to interact with brands. With this rapid disruption, businesses should proactively embrace and integrate these emerging technologies into their CX strategies to transform their business and foster stronger relationships with their customers. This transformation is essential for reshaping how they connect, delight, and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
1. Tailored Experiences Through Intelligence Integration
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a dynamic and ever evolving technology. We have witnessed the evolution and rapid adoption of AI, culminating in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) with the launch of ChatGPT. ChatGPT enables the generation of text based information on the spot just by inputting prompts. GenAI as a machine learning technology is powerful to produce images, text or videos just by simple user prompts quickly and nonetheless easy to use by anyone. Organizations who have embraced this tool have experienced enhanced productivity, transforming their work processes and customers interactions.
In the context of CX strategy, customers now expect organizations to understand their needs and deliver experiences that are tailored to their desires. Leveraging on their business and customer data, GenAI can now enables companies to personalize marketing, products, and interactions to each customer’s unique preferences.
For instance, Samsung Food, an AI powered food and recipe app that acts like a personalized assistant. It recommends meals based on users preferences, facilitates online ingredient orders, and even controls smart kitchen appliances. In essence, the ability to tailor intelligent experiences to cater for the evolving customer’s expectations and preferences is attainable by harnessing the power of GenAI, thereby, enhancing customer’s satisfaction and loyalty to the brand.
2. Streamlining Customer Engagement & Emotional Connection
With the potential capabilities that AI has to offer, organizations can leverage solutions that harness this technology to be more effective in interacting with their customers. A crucial area is post-sale support, where companies could utilize conversational commerce solutions or agent-assist technologies to streamline customer engagement across channels (web, social platforms, etc.) and automatically trigger answers to inquiries and next best actions, resolving queries quickly and effectively. Customers appreciate being understood. By leveraging this technology, companies can effectively understand and act upon their feedback in a timely manner by implementing processes that transform queries and feedback into actionable insights.
As we progress into the digital era, injecting empathy into the customer experience becomes increasingly important. Beyond leveraging the technology to understand what customer feedback, we can use it to create experiences that help customers discover and understand themselves. This fosters a greater sense of control and deepens their understanding of their needs and goals.
Taking skincare as a vital aspect of one’s well-being. Banging on this aspect, L’Oreal has developed the Skin Genius mobile application that acts as a personal beauty advisor to the customers. Through AI technology, it assesses customers’ skin needs and conditions, enabling them to understand and explore how they can achieve their skin wellness goals with L’Oreal.
3. Navigating Multi-Channel Integration
As we evolve into an experiential economy, it has become evident that the focus for organizations extends beyond fun and engaging customer experiences. It is important to consider how these engaging experiences shape the way customers engage and consume the products and services. Within the spatial computing space, technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have undergone significant advancements, seamlessly integrating into how businesses and consumers can derive value. These technologies enable users to immerse themselves in both physical and virtual world seamlessly.
A compelling example is seen in Zappos, where Virtual Try-on features in their app empower customers to visualize how Zappos shoes will look like on their feet from multiple angle, simply by holding the phone’s camera to your feet. This allows customers to envision how the shoe will look on them without being in the shop and purchase it on the app right away.
Yet, technological capability alone does not ensure the success of a great experience. More often, the true magic unfold when this technological immersion is coupled with human elements such as empathy. One example in the medical industry would be the Smileyscope. Smileyscope is a virtual reality headset that helps young patients keep calm, reducing pain and anxiety, during needle procedures.
In the words of Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine, consumers value experiences either as “time well spent” or “time well saved” in this era of experience economy.
The strategic integration of spatial computing technologies into organization frameworks open up new possibilities across channels. When aligned with the nature of the organizations, these technologies enhance experiences and engagement in ways that resonate with the evolving desires of the customers.
Charting CX Innovation In 2024
Integrating these technologies for a more enhanced CX in the future is not a one-time endeavour; it demands organizations to embed it within their strategic vision, backed by sustained investment for effectiveness. Embracing these technologies requires the adoption of a CX centricity mindset, fostering continuous upskilling and education, and enhancing everyday processes. The drive towards long-term transformation is essential for developing high quality products and services and also offering an elevated CX. This journey is an ongoing commitment that holds the key to sustained growth and success.
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