Survival of the Digitalist: Technology Driven Customer Experience

 “Customer Experience is the New Brand Currency to own on an immediate basis.”

Five decades ago, prompt communication was only a dream, and if we look five years ahead it would accomplish the digital dreams seen today. Isn’t it?

Customer experience stands at the center of everything a business efforts to do where Technology and Data are the two reliant elements a company cannot afford to forfeit.

What Customer Experience is all about?
It’s simple to communicate and interact with the audience in a contextually relevant manner by connecting with them humanly, leveraging the power of automated machines.

What will the future of Customer Experience be like?
New technologies incorporating Artificial Intelligence (and its descendants) and audience-based structures will boom the world of customer experience extensively.

Technologies Responsible for Reinvigorating Customer Experience

#Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Chip in Customer’s Journey

As per the breathtaking innovations brought up by the evergreen and robust technology of AI, many experts believe that the technology is going to form the fundamentals of future upheavals.

AI and machine learning tools hold a top-of-mind position among all the big and small scale companies and are continuously hunting for ways to leverage them to the next level.

Chatbot today is seen as a friendly customer service solution that has seen the most maturity in recent times and we have seen them working efficiently besides humans.
Now, Artificial Intelligence has been put to use in marketing, focussing to use robust algorithms that predict the stage of customers and their level in the funnel, and thus, serve them with customized messages at the right time, through the right means.

“AI used to dig heaps of customer data.”

Next, analyzing troves of data, such robust technologies will be used to experiment more on computer vision, facial recognition, and image recognition to advance the customer experience. How?

“Think of the opportunity in recognizing a customer when they walk into the store.” (leveraging facial recognition)

“Think of identifying products in any kind of media, especially video.” (leveraging image recognition)

Artificial Intelligence allied with Machine Learning is expected to bring breakthrough revolutions and is going to matter in an impactful way. They are going to determine and resolve enormous customer service related glitches at lightning speed.

In the coming years, automated machines will be closely linked with customers just like humans, bringing new opportunities for people as well as businesses.

#Blockchain to Orchestrate Data Handling & Recordkeeping

Blockchain is the newest best technology which is experimented to be used beyond its realm of finance, and amazingly, it has delivered successful tried and tested results in other spheres of work. (healthcare, mobile, etc.)

“Blockchain healthcare market, across the world, is expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2025.”, BIS research predicts.

source

Next, it has been escalated to empower customer service by organizing datasets for visualization to standardize and optimize data handling and recordkeeping using the popular frameworks of blockchain: Hyperledger, Corda R3, and Ethereum.

Arizona, USA, recognizes smart contracts and blockchain signatures as legal identities and has standardized recordkeeping for real estate title on blockchain.

Mobile votings, conducted in West Virginia, were powered by super-reliable blockchain.

Soon it will be seen securing data while optimizing TV marketing in the project named Blockgraph ,an initiative of Comcast in association with the Industry Partners.

What next?
Business transparency. Blockchain shares no dependency on data transferring, thus, this trait will be used to foster trust among consumers and help build brand loyalty and better customer experience.

Many big businesses are developing website portals and apps that showcase all blockchain activities associated with customers, those can be viewed by customers anytime to see the status of their business relations.

#Augmented Reality Restyling In-Store Experience

If asked, how can your retail/eCommerce business optimize each sale and differentiate yourself at the same time?

Augmented Realityis the answer. One of the tools with the most potential to achieve it.

The applications of augmented reality in retail already possess great and notable examples. Part of the explanation for this has to do with the objective that the players in this sector have set for themselves to improve the experience of their customers, which is more important than ever.

Creating new experiences and personalizing them to the maximum seems to be the key to differentiate yourself in a saturated market and attract consumers. For this reason, consumer companies are increasingly concentrating their efforts on achieving this.

source

Augmented reality provides a substantial improvement in the customer experience and has an impact on promoting omnichannel, by integrating commerce electronics with physical stores: a customer can.

For example, try on new models in a smart mirror in a clothing store, then send those images to their social networks to contrast opinions, decide what to buy, and, finally, order them online.

The phenomenon is also used to create smart shop windows and shelves, associating the information with physical products. Thus, you can renew your exhibition in an agile way, without investments and making it attractive to customers to visit more.

AR is driving fuel to increase mobile experiences and customer experience and will further continue to do, proving its capabilities and potential in business progression.

In the near future, one can expect to see richer Augmented Reality experiences that will be more playful and interactive and will be a part of everyday life.

[Prefer Reading: “Augmented Reality in Retail: Customer Experience Taken to the Next Level.”]