Five Customer Experience Trends to Dominate in 2020

Customer experience 2020

Daniel Starch, the pioneer in customer research and marketing, introduced Starch Test. The test measures the effectiveness of print ads.

Fast forward a century, marketing has moved quite ahead of print ads, and we often notice new trends driving customer experience. A mix of technology and psychology is creating a stir in marketing. Topped with data privacy in the age of social media, customer experience strategies are more customer-focused than product-focused. No wonder CX leaders rang 3x higher ROI than the laggards.

Let’s see five customer experience trends to dominate in 2020.

1. Omnichannel Customer Experience

When 72% of customers expect brands to remember their shopping history, making your brand’s presence everywhere is obvious. The key to measuring users’ pulse is being active on various channels your users interact at—stores, marketplaces, web stores, brand’s website, mobile app, etc.

Apart from the omnipresence, the experience should also be consistent for the users. If the bots are aware of all the financial, verbal, face to face, and chat transactions, so should be the agents—online and in-store. Erratic information flow irks 89% of the customers and becomes a roadblock for delivering good CX.

Only after collecting a buyer’s purchasing fragments from various channels of their interactions, you deliver a personalized experience. This ultimately converts leads into loyal customers.

2. Technology—AI, IoT, Automation—at Forefront

Behind consistent user experience is the technology stack the brands are using. Bots that learn quickly and build databases of customers’ queries, automation deciphering verbal communication, and AI-enabled experience are the rising trends.

These technologies collate all the stopovers and milestones a user makes in their journey and render a road devoid of bumps with real-time insights. Trying cosmetics on your face live on a beauty store’s app is one such example that lends higher confidence to the buyers.

Likewise, self-functioning machines are making users’ life easy. IoT enabled devices can buy your staple needs without you visiting a store. Automation like voice assistants is a crucial part of 55% of young Americans these days.

3. Predictive analytics for Hyper-Personalization

Hyper-personalization collates data about users’ behavior and sentiments in real-time. Then using predictive analytics, brands offer tailor-made suggestions and products suiting users’ demands. This leads to a higher conversion rate.

Finding the right time, platform, and method to advertise to a user is possible using predictive analytics. After sifting through gazillions of data, segmenting it according to the customer demographics and designing and testing marketing automation are only possible using advanced analytics.

Predictive analytics also delve deep into the negative feedback. This realm of data has a high potential to improve customer experience.

If you are not predicting using heaps of data,  you may not serve 80% of customers who enjoy and expect personalization.

4. Balance Between Humanity and Technology

With technology comes the challenge to induce the human factor in customer experience. Despite all the bots humming around the communication channels, consumers crave for a human touch. And 85% of marketers believe in this.

However smart and intelligent a bot gets, consumers often like to talk to a human on the other side. The reason is emotional intelligence and empathy a live agent offers.

Another factor that demands humanization is the check on the rampant use of personal data. Once users lose trust in a brand due to unethical raking of data and eventual misuse, their loyalty erodes. This has given rise to companies investing in new roles like ethical officers. These officials ensure the proper use of data in the age of impulsive marketing.

5. Crucial Data Protection

With GDPR, CCPA, and HIPPA—in the healthcare industry—data protection is not only an ethical need but also a policy to abide by.

Bots and data collection methods like surveys, social media tracking, and marketing campaigns crawl across the dimensions of the internet. These collections are vital to design AI solutions and personalized marketing. But these also expose personal data of the users to vulnerable security links. One of the biggest leaks was Yahoo’s in 2013, involving 3 Billion users.

To mitigate such risks affecting customers and their brand loyalty, companies need to create deep and wide moats to reach datasets.

2-factor authentication, data encryption, restricted authorization to servers and data centers, and robust security of network and firewalls are some of the ways. Additionally, employee and consumer education and sensitization are obligatory to act proactively and promptly in case of threats.

Conclusion

The trends might change, but at the core, transparency and relationships go a long way. In vague attempts, brands should not forget these. Most important is to keep users informed about the impact of the choices they make.

Creating an unforgettable customer experience is not only about trends and strategies. CX is a domain to be handled by experts like Acuver Consulting. If you need a result-oriented solution, contact us today.

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