The forces for the next great disruption in customer experience (CX) are aligning now and as with all disruptions, there will be winners and losers. The standard approach and practices for designing customer journeys will only take you so far. What you need now are hyper-personalized customer journeys.
Today’s overarching change is acceleration and it’s occurring in four areas: 1) rapidly changing consumer expectations, 2) demand for better digital experiences and faster self-service, 3) fierce and relentless competition with tech giants disrupting all industries, and 4) the opportunity to create a truly connected customer journey across all physical and digital touch points by using the latest AI and cloud technologies.
The resulting new standard in CX is hyper-personalization, something that is only possible by harnessing AI and massive amounts of customer data across every touch point for your business: physical, digital and self-service, and traditional contact center. Hyper-personalization requires real-time intelligence across every interaction. Simply offering digital channels according to customer preference isn’t personal enough. By giving customers the ability to move effortlessly between self-service and agent-assisted digital channels you can improve customer effort to deliver fast, convenient experiences in a way that feels channel-less. Our research confirms every year that what consumers want is fast convenience. And every year, they become more impatient and more likely to switch brands for better experiences. To win and keep them, you have to go above and beyond.
In order to scale personalization that is unique to every customer at every step along each individual customer’s personal journey, you need the ability to do the following:
- Start the customer experience at the moment of need. The majority of time, this is long before they contact you or even visit your website. It starts with searching online for answers.
- Provide holistic self-service that answers the majority of needs, thus saving customer time. Faster service — instant gratification — builds customer loyalty and advocacy.
- Leverage AI to understand the vast amounts of datapoints available in order to personalize each interaction at every step of the journey. This has to be according to the consumer’s preference in that moment.
- Delight customers with proactive communications in ways that are only possible if you anticipate individual needs at just the right moment in time. Hint: This is not about inundating them with email offers.
- Seamlessly transition customers as needed to informed and prepared agents. Real-time interaction guidance and in-depth knowledge management will make that possible.
Every few years everyone talks about reinventing. However, the companies that succeed over the long term are those that are constantly reinventing, able to harness the potential of the latest technologies and apply them in new and exciting ways to create great customer experiences. The companies that lose ground are those that either don’t develop the muscles for constant innovation or lack the courage to do so.
With disruption, companies of all sizes face both opportunities and threats. While many of these disruptions started 15 years ago, cloud technology is now making the latest digital, AI, knowledge management, and self-service technologies available to all companies as part of a comprehensive cloud customer experience platform. The companies that win now and over the long haul are those that understand how to harness these advancements to delight their customers with extraordinary customer experiences.
With many exciting technology developments, consumer expectations at an all-time high, and competition on all sides, we are at the next great disruption in customer experience. Reinventing customer journeys with a hyper-personalized approach is the next leap ahead.
