With 2020 having thoroughly shaken up the landscape—in business as much as everywhere else—it’s more important than ever to take a look at the trends that experts expect to shape customer experience (CX) this year.
Further CX digitalization
A recent Harvard Business Review showed that, while 72% of corporate strategists state that digital efforts have so far fallen short of revenue expectations, no less than 62% say their companies are working on new initiatives to make their businesses more digital.
With more and more customers turning ever more to online avenues to get what they want, chatbot technology, in particular, is becoming increasingly more critical, to be able to provide immediate support and service at any time, anywhere in the world.
Mobile prioritization
Research has revealed that desktop traffic has been declining over the past years, with 52% of internet traffic now coming through mobile devices. In fact, it’s been established that 50% of customers will simply stop visiting a non-mobile-friendly website.
Some big companies have responded to this with premium apps, like Adidas’s Tango, a digital soccer community where brand enthusiasts create and post soccer challenges for fellow users, harnessing customers themselves to increase customer lifetime value.
More adaptive loyalty programs
Amazon has demonstrated that loyalty programs can yield incredible results – even with a fee of US$119 a year; their Amazon Prime members have been proven to spend 250% more than the average Amazon user, spurred by premium benefits like free shipping.
Fender, having discovered that customers tend to abandon guitar after about a year, launched a subscription service, offering daily seven-minute videos that teach users how to play. The app has gained over 100k users and grossed over US$400k in revenue.
Behavioral pairing
Contact centers, especially, are developing this concept – most other businesses, frankly, just aren’t equipped with the technology and manpower to make it work on their own.
Instead of having any available representative respond to a customer query, behavioral pairing looks up all available history and data on the customer, to match them with the service team member that has the most appropriate temperament, skills, and experience to resolve the case, ideally resulting in an exemplary customer experience.
These, then, are the trends most likely to impact customer experience in 2021, and what you should certainly be exploring with your CX partners.
