Customer experience is about influencing three things – product preference, loyalty and advocacy among customers. Simple features that make a customer’s life easier make your product more preferred than alternatives. The sales and marketing experience that demonstrates your business’ commitment to customer satisfaction increases loyalty. Finally, how you deal with after-sales support improves product advocacy. All of this together determines the experience that a customer has with your business.
A Gartner study published earlier this year found that nearly 89% of marketers competed based on customer experience. However, a lot of marketers struggle with precisely measuring the impact that their various CX initiatives have on the top line. Fortunately that is changing thanks to technology. Modern analytics tools have made tracking customer behaviour quite efficient and accurate. Today it is possible for marketers to track the exact navigational pattern; including mouse movement, hovers and clicks, that a visitor to your website makes before they make a purchase or abandon the cart.
Besides analytics, technology has shaped CX in a lot of other ways as well.
IoT In Retail
Similar to navigational tracking for websites, technology now makes it possible for brick and mortar stores to benefit from similar tools. Smart CCTV cameras and sensors work in tandem to analyze customer traffic patterns and shopping behaviors at retail stores. Such IoT innovations in the retail industry are immensely helpful in identifying bottle necks and also identifying ways to reduce client wait times and improve their customer experience. Integrated with big data, retailers can identify unique customer preferences and provide an experience that is personalized to each one of their guests.
Higher Product Quality
Building a high quality product comes at a cost. But thanks to technology, the cost of production has been on a downward spiral and this is turning out to be a good thing for customers. This is especially true for businesses that cater to digital products. When YouTube launched in the mid-2000s, 2-3 Mbps speeds was the norm. In fact, this was regarded as “high speed internet” . This did not really make it possible for high quality streaming. Today, internet services with speeds of 50 Mbps or more are not uncommon. This allows digital businesses to offer services like HD videos and high quality gaming and this enhanced product quality in turn improves user experience.
Seamless Checkout
Technology has made it more secure for customers to store their confidential details, like credit card numbers, online. This has in turn improved customer experience significantly. With services like Uber, customers no longer have to hail a cab and keep cash ready to pay – your app tracks your trip and automatically bills you at the end of it. Such seamless checkouts are also becoming common in the retail industry. With mobile wallets like Apple Pay, customers may seamlessly check out at retail stores by waving their phone in front of the cash terminal.
Technology has been changing every facet of customer experience and one article cannot explain all the evolution that is happening. But as technology gets cheaper and innovations get cheaper, expect the adoption of such technologies to rise. Because of these advances there has never been a better time to be a customer experience professional.
