Digital customer experience remains a hot topic for past couple of years!
Today, market is full of choices for the customers. The product quality is important, however, the customer experience is equally important. Therefore it has become important for the businesses to improve the customer experience to come out more appealing in the market.
Digital experience is nothing but the impression the customer carries after he engages with the business via website, mobile application, chat bot, Kiosk screen, contact centre, live chat or any other such interface.
During Pandemic and now, a lot more percentage of people stay home therefore it’s important for the businesses to have focus on customer experience.
Below are few elements that are important for a business to consider to enhance the customer experience:
Mobile Experience
The majority of the customer’s traffic comes from mobile and the desktop/laptop traffic continues to decline. Therefore the organizations that claim to be customer centric should have “mobile first” approach.
Mobile Experience is not just having a mobile application, it’s extremely important to keep the content updated, well formatted – it’s especially more important for the organizations operating in B2C space. If the website is not mobile friendly, customers will not visit the website even if they like the product or service.
The mobile version of website/application should be a replica of desktop/laptop interface. No element should be compromised. Few elements in Mobile First approach include:
- Engagement Touch points:
The call to action buttons should be large enough for users to tap it easily through the fingers. Hyperlinks should also have space around them so that to users do not struggle to click the right link.
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- Minimalistic Graphics
Complex and landscape graphics do not show well on the mobile devices. The businesses should use simple graphics and portrait layout.
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- Important Elements First
Businesses should display their most important things on the first page. Like best sellers, new arrivals sale items, promo codes, contact information, news. The prioritization varies from business to business, therefore it’s the call of the organization to define the order of importance of the elements and display them sequentially.
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- Easy Navigation
The navigation is one the key areas. It should be very easy for the user. A site map should also be placed to make the navigation easy.
Omni-channel Customer Experience
The customer may use various channels to engage with the business. The engagement points include physical store, website, mobile application, chat, social media, calls, IVR etc..The business must keep every information in record as “customer history” so that customer receives a consistent experience and he also does not have to repeat things that may result in frustration. Aside from enhancing customer experience, having an omni-channel approach will also help business know what the engagement is all about and what they have done resulting in enhanced productivity.
The businesses are adopting to omni-channel approach rapidly and due to this, the self-service options by customer are also growing rapidly.
Use of Technological Tools and AI
The business should adopt to the tools that help customers meet their needs more quickly and at the same time also enhance business productivity. Some of the tools and AI functionalities are as below.
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- Routing the customer query to the right customer representative which is also known as skill based routing.
- CRM to maintain customer data and history of engagement
- Omni-channel contact centre offering 24/7 live support.
- Providing predictive analytics for the customer representative to know and take most appropriate steps.
- Creation of knowledge bank for base and routine queries in order to promote self-service by the customers’ thereby reducing load on customer representatives.
- Use of AI to monitor social media for specific trigger words to share the information with relevant departments to enable follow up action.
All of above help in some way or the other in delivering a personalized experience to the customer. The above tools get business the data that can also be used for the on-going optimization of the process work flows.
Use of Augmented Reality
It’s one of the fastest emerging digital experience trends. It provides immersive experiences – the AR involves customers with virtual content with real world settings from the comfort of their home. Customers can take fully informed decisions by knowing each and every detail of the item without a purchase commitment.
It adds to customer excitement as it is more immersive and it reduces the purchase decision uncertainty. For clothes, there is already a trend of “Virtual Try” with many retailers.
Customer Data Security
The customers are tech sevy and are concerned about the data they share. Therefore the organization must demonstrate trustworthiness. Customers are not comfortable with sharing their personal details due to the fear of scams and hacks and when the organization uses the data for marketing and promotion in an unsolicited way, it becomes a factor of distrust for the customers. Therefore organization must clearly state that for what purpose they will use the data and must obtain customer consent for the same. The transparency will help the customers build a trust on the organization. And gradually it builds up into the market perception which is the key factor in influencing the definition of customer experience.
Digital world and technology is evolving very fast. Customer experience is a major area that drives the business. Always keep an eye on developing trends and keep the organization aligned to them.
