Customer experience (CX) best practices are no longer just great to have; they’re now a critical aspect of customer success and business ROI. Even though CX technology and trends are constantly evolving, it’s challenging to determine which ones are best for your brand because of the rapid pace of change. It’s no wonder that CX is the cornerstone of a successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.
The days of simply relying on product quality and affordability are long gone. Now, it’s all about the experience. In the eyes of 45.9% of organizations, customer experience beats out items and pricing hands-off. Customers agreed to pay more for a better experience 86% of the time.
Here are the top five digital CX trends for 2022 that are worth learning more about:
- More Human Digital Interactions
Businesses that invest in personalization generate more revenue than those that don’t. Customers who have a personalized experience with a retailer are 6times more likely to return to the business. The present Gen X and Z consumers have shown a definite preference for humanized encounters over digital ones, besides the popularity of hyper-individualized customer experiences.
A growing number of people are open to communicating with artificial intelligence (AI) through empathy. Having empathetic relationships with clients helps firms better connect with them. It isn’t easy to portray a human experience using AI because so much of the interaction is automated. Investing in more intelligent chatbots that interact with customers in a human-like manner is necessary, not a luxury.
- Virtual Metaverse Experiences
Metaverse is a futuristic virtual world where we can work, play, unwind, meet new people, and have fun by enhancing video calling and conferencing. VR/AR/MR technologies are projected to seamlessly combine the virtual world with the actual world as they continue to develop over time. Metaverse is growing among executives, analysts, and investors who want to get a footprint in this new market.
There’s a whole new world on the digital plane that resembles real life. It’s possible to provide customers experiences that feel like the actual thing due to a mixture of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and sensory gestures/inputs.
CX in the metaverse is getting attention from big companies like Microsoft, Epic, Roblox, Reality Labs, etc. Businesses can take advantage of this demand to provide customers with memorable experiences that drive them to return. Customers should easily navigate between the company and other aspects of the metaverse in a pleasant experience. Rather than using traditional methods of communication, holograms and immersive experiences would be used instead.
- Real-Time Data-Driven Experiences
Almost every business now has an online presence, and clients can access various platforms through multiple forums. These platforms are built to track user behavior across all their implementations and integrations. Advanced data technologies allow real-time data collection and data-driven judgments. From their data impressions, customers are provided with individualized experiences. Real-time data plays a critical part in these experiences and decisions.
A unique experience is created for each consumer based on the data impressions they leave on all the platforms they use. Predictive, proactive, and prescriptive experiences can be created using the stored data with advanced technology like machine learning, AI, and analytics.
- Self-Service Experiences
As the future progresses, patience is a virtue that gets tiresome in all of us. Customers can be impatient and don’t want to be kept waiting. When a service request or query is sent, they don’t appreciate the time that elapses before it’s addressed. Self-service support is widened, and 88% of global consumers opt for it. It appears that they’re attempting to address the problems on their own, with the help of the portal. Self-service empowers customers, is convenient, and saves them a great deal of time.
A growing number of businesses are providing self-service experiences that allow customers to accomplish their goals without regard to time constraints. Additionally, it saves the service provider time, money, and resources. They don’t have to send someone to respond to every inquiry from a consumer. Customer retention and income are enhanced when issues are resolved quickly.
- Personalized Experiences
There will be a significant emphasis on personalization in 2022 as organizations begin to understand how technology can help them build stronger, more robust, and more individualized relationships with their customers on a large-scale basis. However, this is just the beginning. Personalized email headers and subject lines, for example, have been proven time and time again to increase click-through rates.
Micro-moments are sales opportunities that can be open for just a few seconds but can be tremendously valuable to businesses that know how to detect and pounce on them at scale –this will be a big issue in customization in the next year. When a client goes online to make a purchase or simply look for information on a topic, these micro-moments can open.
Brands will spend a lot of time and money in the year 2022 trying to figure out how to recognize and take advantage of these micro-moments so that they can send a customized offer to a potential customer when they need it. With today’s technology, it’s becoming easier, more accessible, and easier to reach the right customers at the right moment, which is a cutting-edge marketing issue.
Final Thoughts
Personalization or hyper individualization is now the focus of customer relationship management – it’s becoming increasingly dependent on technology in practical lives. Predictive technology-driven solutions must be used by every organization and dedicated CRM/CX platform to keep up with the continuously changing expectations of consumers. CRM/CX organizations that accept change and adopt newer tech developments are those most likely to remain on the cutting edge and progress.
