The future of CX is all about hyper-personalization

The future of CX will be far more diverse, and pervasive, than today’s version. The advent of customer-designed ecosystems fronted by web3 technologies, as well as the impact of automation, AI, and robotics, are just a few of the macro forces that will change the fabric of customer and brand relationships. To unlock the experiences of tomorrow’s CX, hyper-personalization will need to be a centerpiece strategy to adapt to changing customer behaviors and escalating expectations.  

Hyper-personalization

As customers come to expect a greater degree of frictionless experiences, a brand’s ability to deliver what customers want in the moment differentiates them from brands that can’t. Whether it’s Amazon’s recommended products or how Spotify curates playlists, 66% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. 

What is hyper-personalization? It’s about giving customers what they want when they want it and sometimes delivering an experience they didn’t even know they wanted yet. To do that, companies not only need customer insights but also must make them actionable through technology like conversational AI to deliver those hyper-personalized experiences in the moment.

Customer Insights

An outdoor retailer found itself sitting on a wealth of customer data—purchase history, membership details, personal interests, newsletter clicks, website visits, shopping cart contents, and in-store rentals. But like 15% of retail companies, they couldn’t fully harness their data to implement personalization strategies. They were shut out of the future of CX.  

But they pivoted. By connecting all that data across channels, including third-party weather and geographic data, the outdoor retailer can now predictively model the next action the customer will take, nudging them towards tent upgrades or a soft-shell jacket. In turn, the customer is better prepared for whatever conditions meet them on the mountain. 

The journey to the future of CX starts with customer insights. Because if you don’t know who your customers are, you won’t be able to create the hyper-personalized experiences they crave.

Conversational AI

To do hyper-personalization right, companies will need to create the types of touchpoints that are second nature to most customers. And with a quarter of all Americans now owning a smart speaker, voice is the next frontier of CX. Conversational AI is transforming CX with its ability to understand human verbal communication while holding a conversation that is indistinguishable from human interaction. Human-like in their comprehension and communication, personal agents are the bridge to hyper-personalization and by extension, the future of CX. They also enable connection to other systems to leverage user data and insights and can make those insights actionable by offering up the next best action. One feature that sets conversational AI apart is the technology’s ability to learn and improve over time through machine learning.

The future of CX is all about hyper-personalization, and customer insights and conversational AI are the means to an intelligent, immersive, and connected CX ecosystem. Web3, with its emphasis on AR/VR, blockchain, NFTs, digital twins, and more, will underpin the types of cutting-edge experiences consumers will come to expect. This technology will be a main driver of differentiated experiences. 

In the future, CX will be smarter; it will encompass the business experience; it will be immersive; it will take place in the metaverse; and perhaps just as importantly, it will be hyper-personalized. On your own journey to the future of CX, experiences like voice and conversational AI will be foundational in making that leap. 

The article has been written by Raja Roy, President of Technology, Concentrix Catalyst