Enhancing customer experience (CX) is a mission-critical mandate for modern businesses, especially since COVID-19 drove a huge spike in digital interactions. According to Adobe, 77 per cent of Asia Pacific (APAC) businesses experienced a surge in new customers through digital channels over the past 18 months.
This demand for digital interactions continues to accelerate across the region. However, less than one in five consumers encounter CX that exceeds expectations. In fact, 71 per cent would switch to a competitor after just one bad customer service experience. CX has clearly become key to business competitiveness and will imminently overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.
Fortunately, APAC businesses recognise the urgency to advance their CX and are set to outstrip other global regions in CX investment this year.
Here are the top digital trends businesses should consider this year as they up their CX focus:
Trend one: AI-enhanced contact centres
In 2022, more businesses will leverage communications technologies enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) that help customer support teams do more with less.
According to Frost & Sullivan, APAC’s contact centre applications market will reach US$966 million by 2026 and will be driven by increased migration from on-premises solutions to cloud-based services to provide outstanding CX.
Contact centres with enhanced AI capabilities will feature voice assistants and chatbots with natural language processing capabilities that improve over time.
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These automated features will be able to provide customers with the required information or route them to human agents when necessary. Sophisticated AI will also help to detect frustration by analysing customer behaviour and transferring unhappy customers to human agents before the CX suffers.
Trend two: Human-first digital CX
While companies accelerate digital transformation, they should evaluate where and how to use technology to automate communications. Businesses should implement AI to supplement human interaction and not replace it. Voice assistants and chatbots can enhance CX, but human agents are still needed to maintain a personal touch.
Conversational commerce, a convergence of shopping and conversations, using messaging tools within the chat to create a seamless shopping and customer service experience, is becoming an increasingly popular channel for personalised customer communications.
Retailers can use 24/7 available AI-powered chatbots and voice assistants to respond to routine customer queries, make personalised recommendations and even place product orders instantly. Complex queries will be escalated to a live customer care representative to provide a speedy, personalised resolution.
Technology is essential today to facilitate scalable and cost-effective customer communications. Despite this, businesses must invest in human resources to work alongside the tech to deliver exceptional CX.
Trend three: Channel integration for more seamless omnichannel experiences
According to Vonage, APAC consumers significantly increased their use of digital channels to engage with businesses and service providers since the pandemic, 52 per cent (retail and e-commerce), 51 per cent (education), 49 per cent (banking and finance) and 46 per cent (healthcare services).
Although COVID-19 accelerated the digitisation of customer communications, many businesses fail to provide a seamless CX. Globally, consumers’ top frustration was repeating themselves to different people and calls going unanswered, with Asia accounting for the most frustrated consumers (37 per cent). About 30 per cent of consumers also reported being frustrated when they could not switch between different communication channels when communicating with a business.
In 2022, businesses will focus on addressing customer pain points and meeting expectations by providing a consistent CX across channels, allowing customers to switch seamlessly from one channel to another.
Forward-thinking technology executives will invest in cloud-based unified communications solutions that integrate all their communications channels into one platform and better leverage customer data.
Trend four: Using predictive analytics to provide personalised, proactive support
In 2022, businesses that are proactive instead of reactive to the needs and expectations of their customers will win customer loyalty. To achieve this, businesses need more visibility into customer journeys. They will need customer data and insights to have a complete picture of each customer’s buying journey, along with the ability to anticipate better and meet their needs.
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Integrating predictive analytics solutions into their communication channels will provide businesses with contextual insights that let them offer more personalised and proactive customer support.
Trend five: Greater focus on employee experience
To improve CX, businesses must also enhance their employee experience in 2022. Skilled and knowledgeable customer support agents are essential to a great customer experience.
Businesses will need to offer more flexibility and enable hybrid work models without compromising the quality of service to retain their customer support agents. This means customer support teams need technology that supports the work-from-anywhere arrangement and provides the same secure functionality regardless of location.
Way forward for 2022 and beyond
As digitisation continues to accelerate post-COVID-19, businesses should prioritise three key elements to provide a seamless omnichannel experience:
- Investing in contact centre solutions that can be integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) and key business systems
- Leveraging AI and human connections to build trust while improving efficiency
- Empowering hybrid workforces with cloud-based unified communications
Service providers need to reassess the current customer experiences they offer and ensure they have solutions and strategies in place to future-proof the business.
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