How Technology Can Improve the Customer Experience

Customers and markets have seen an immense degree of change during the past few years. Organizations have struggled to keep up with the changing demands and expectations of their consumers due to issues with the supply chain and changes in customer channel preferences.

Through the use of self-service and online auto purchasing, digital technology has been integrated into the customer experience, forcing all sorts of enterprises to engage their target customers in new ways (CX).

Technology, however, is only one aspect of the narrative.

The most effective digital experiences, in our view, begin with a compelling grasp of the client – who they are, what they want, what work they must perform, and even how they feel about themselves.

Regrettably, a lot of businesses approach technology first before returning to understanding customers. Automation is being prioritized over consumer empathy in their never-ending search for operational efficiency, which is a concern. There are no engaging digital experiences without compelling consumer comprehension.

Technology, however, is only one aspect of the narrative.

The most effective digital experiences, in our view, begin with a compelling grasp of the client – who they are, what they want, what work they must perform, and even how they feel about themselves.

Regrettably, a lot of businesses approach technology first before returning to understanding customers. Automation is being prioritized over consumer empathy in their never-ending search for operational efficiency, which is a concern. There are no engaging digital experiences without compelling consumer comprehension.

Companies work to exceed consumers’ expectations by streamlining their customer journeys, but these initiatives will fail if they are focused on short-term click-through and conversion rates rather than long-term happiness, loyalty, and retention.

How they can get there is as follows.

Start By Offering What Consumers Want

Most businesses struggle to understand what their consumers genuinely value in a great digital experience. This isn’t to say that most experiences are bad; rather, the commoditization of digital encounters has rendered most of them uninteresting.

According to a Gartner survey, just 14% of consumers experienced a digital connection with a brand that motivated them to make a different choice.

What is different is when businesses alter their strategy to concentrate on how they can help their consumers feel better about themselves rather than just improving how customers perceive their goods and services. Consumers want to know more about themselves. By doing this, they will have a better chance of achieving their aims or objectives.

Most businesses place more emphasis on “what customers think of us” than “what customers think of themselves,” which is a missed chance to improve. Organizations can utilize the following three strategies to encourage a positive change in their customers’ perceptions of themselves:

Understand that not every digital encounter is intended to be seamless. Depending on the purpose of the consumer, a better experience may cause some friction, allowing the customer to consider their decisions by offering a learning route. A series of brand encounters that help consumers better grasp how to achieve their goals is referred to as a learning path. A Gartner survey indicated that B2B and B2C consumers agreed that if they “realized anything new about their wants or their own aspirations” they were 1.73 times more inclined to buy more.

Consider value over quantity. Catalytic brand experiences are distinctive, and emotive, and have a direct effect on the lives of customers. Customers are thereby altered in some way and are then more likely to continue acting in the manner in which they wish to. As compared to traditional strategies like promoting brand uniqueness, familiarity, or authenticity, these encounters have a roughly twofold impact on brand commitment.

Consider options other than a digital purchase. The following is a summary of the services that you may expect from the company value their. According to Gartner research, consumers who experience this kind of value-enhancing response are far more likely to remain around and make more purchases.

The Brooks Shoe Finder is an example. In addition to asking customers to think carefully about important issues regarding their fitness objectives, the evaluation assists customers in actively reflecting on their running mechanics (e.g., location of their feet, the relative strain on knee joints). This quiz differs from others in that it focuses on the customer’s confidence in their capacity to reach their running objectives rather than just the product itself. As a result, it may assist them to make decisions that are different and/or better informed than they otherwise would have.

These are the words they used to describe how significant it was to them. Do not misunderstand us; we adore technology. But we love customer understanding even more, which is why it’s one of the essential ingredients of a compelling CX.

The Secret To Providing A Great Customer Experience

Organizations must focus on two key themes, or vital elements, for engaging customer experiences: 1) complete experience and customer knowledge and empathy.

Brands may prevent “manufactured insincerity” by making sure each ingredient is included in the broader recipe, which we discuss below.

Improve Understanding of the Client

Few, if any, businesses offer purely digital experiences; they still transport tangible goods, have in-person conversations, and offer physical experiences. This implies that rather than treating the digital journey as the be-all and end-all, you must comprehend where and how clients seek digital experiences throughout the customer journey.

Voice of the Customer (VoC), creating personas, creating customer journey maps, and encouraging more customer-centric choices are just a few examples of successful customer listening practices that may help you better understand and respond to your customers’ present and changing requirements.

Organizations may then concentrate on how they will provide that experience after this point. It’s a skill that must be developed over time in order to be effective, not just once.

The businesses that take the lead with their consumers in mind succeed: According to Gartner’s data, CX programs that surpass management expectations are twice as likely to have end-to-end customer journey mapping in place for more than three years and are 1.9 times more likely to have persona creation activities in place for over three years.

Given the macroeconomic climate at the moment, companies have the chance to reinvest in and develop their CX skills in a way that gives their consumers confidence they are making the correct decision to keep doing business with them.

Customer empathy is a crucial result of great customer understanding.

A key component of a customer engagement strategy, customer empathy strikes a balance between an organization’s objectives and a thorough comprehension of a customer’s position, interests, and intent. This is difficult, especially without the thorough grasp of the consumer we’ve been discussing.

L’Oreal provides a straightforward yet effective illustration of excellent consumer knowledge and empathy.

Oreal is aware of how crucially important skincare is to one’s health. Their Skin Genius mobile application uses an AI-powered evaluation of the customer’s specific skin care needs utilizing a privacy-protected image of your face to combine individualized help with a game-changing digital experience. By acting as an in-person beauty counsellor, it also forces clients to reevaluate their plans and consider their skin-improvement objectives.

Customers are likely to feel better overall if they have a better knowledge of their skincare regimen. Once again, this relates to improving the consumers’ feeling of self.

It’s not necessary for compelling consumer experiences to include extravagant digital capabilities. Little things that are based in human knowledge can have equal power.

Use a holistic strategy and all of your experience

Customers frequently ask us what technology they should purchase or how they should organize their activities to provide better customer experiences. However the question is not fully answered there.

The epidemic has shown us how important it is for staff to provide excellent customer service. Their experiences are important, and this is reflected in employee experience, or EX. Yet, in the majority of firms, the departments in charge of CX, EX, user experience (UX), and the related technological platforms operate independently.

The better issue to ask is how to arrange such that consumers and staff have a more comprehensive and appealing digital experience.

Enter the concept of whole experience, or the purposeful fusion of CX, EX, and UX to provide better shared experiences for all stakeholders.

A B2C company that has embraced complete experience is the Lego Group. It came to the realization that because of fragmented design methods, digital solutions frequently fall short of meeting the demands of consumers and workers.

The LEGO Group originally developed a self-service online catalogue for store customers when the Covid-19 outbreak caused the business to introduce new goods remotely. Unfortunately, because the solution’s design did not take into consideration all end users’ specific and intersecting demands, it did not effectively deliver the high-quality purchasing experience that consumers and sales representatives previously enjoyed in-person. The LEGO Group developed a virtual showroom system that offers a better product viewing experience in order to address this difficulty.

Lego’s employees were able to provide better customer service and enhance the overall purchasing experience by designing and implementing technology solutions that prioritize the needs of customers and employees before those of technology. This resulted in more seamless interactions between customers and employees as well as an improved overall product viewing experience.

Lego succeeded in avoiding the pitfall of engineering insincerity by relying on the essential elements of customer comprehension and TX.