July 28, 2021
The Covid-19 crisis has changed the way customers engage with business and the customer experience they demand.
Despite the angst of the pandemic customers quickly became digital-savvy and demand a greater quality experience. The Salesforce customer report records that 88% of customers expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives, 69% want new digital ways to get existing products and services, 54% want expanded touch-points, 54% want new types of products and services, i.e., business model innovation.
So, we are getting remarkable digital innovations and insights during the pandemic than the last decade. Urgency requires secured, reliable connectivity to provide a whole new user experience is the focus of any business strategy.
This has shaped the digital trends of 2021 and will have an immense impact on future trends. Therefore, we see the existing technologies like AI and Data Analytics transforming as well.
The digitally savvy customers are experimenting with more brands. A McKinsey study shows that among 75% of customers in the U.S. who experimented with another brand, website, or retailer in the early days of COVID-19, 60% showed interest in shifting to these after Covid-19.
So, the focus is to create customer relationships and shared values, retain existing and attract new customers.
Everything is running from home through the internet needs reliable connectivity and more bandwidth. The lookout for the multi-lane superhighway and speed will be fulfilled by the 5G network. It will soon become a vital part of the solution in 2021 and beyond.
Organizations must be cantered around customers in 2021. Getting 360 views of customers and achieving real-time engagement models along the customer journey and lifecycle is vital. So, connecting the CX to EX to track customer experiences.
Get feedback from Salesforce measures customer satisfaction in real-time after every interaction. You can use that data to deliver the ultimate customer experience. Applying CX insights to the processes and technology investments reimage the customer journey.
AI has a new role in the C-Suite, the AI Futurist for accelerating the analysis of new data sets. AI Futurist is the digital advisor to executives around COVID-19-influenced scenarios and potential future scenarios. It helps fast, informed decisions, for the mid-to-long-term health of the organization.
These custom deep learning AI/ML tools help build upon neural networks and layers of nodes and process explicit data. The outcome it brings is well beyond human capacity. Tesla motors used these to learn and use the knowledge to produce their semi-automatic cars.
More online engagements bring more fragmented data from multiple channels / touch points. These are difficult to organize. The world business loses trillions of dollars due to these “bad data”. CDPs collect data from across sources, organize, tag, and give timely, well-curated data for optimal operation. Adobe, SAP, Oracle, Treasure Data, and Microsoft are heavily investing in new CDPs. Solutions like Segment and ActionIQ are set to solve the challenge of gaining the 360 customer view.
In short, CX is shaping business models, which in turn are transforming business landscapes.
DBP’s tailored customer management solutions can help you keep up with the industry trends and grow your business amidst the competition during the new normal.
Interested to discuss more, please feel free to contact the author at ashish.bhalla@dbp.com.sg
Ashish has almost 30 years of industry experience in a wide range of business solutions primarily focusing on end-to-end customer experience management. He is the founder and CEO of Digital Business People (DBP), an omni-channel customer experience management company headquartered at Singapore with it’s development and delivery centres in India.