Trends to fortify digital customer experience in 2022

Customer and business interactions have continuously evolved with technological advancements. With a forced remote working scenario, the mindset surrounding ‘work-from-home has also changed drastically. Now, as we look ahead, digital transformation is here to stay, and what could have been achieved by companies in the next several years has already been accomplished due to the unexpected transitions in business processes. 

As digital has become increasingly important, so has digital customer experience. Customers these days expect a more personalized experience, to feel valued. Digital experiences are also increasingly the norm these days, are fast, and can be omnichannel, so it is essential for businesses to understand the customers’ past behaviors and predict their future expectations.

Here are some of the significant trends businesses leaders must adopt:

Follow the design thinking principles

Design thinking provides a human-centric approach for innovation or solving customer problems. It enables businesses to empathize with customers, generate creative ideas and define client needs to come up with innovative solutions, all in a continuously evolving technological environment. With the effective execution of transformative projects, organizational goals must be aligned with proper training and development for employees. Complex customer challenges require multi-talented teams and a diversity of skills. 

Adoption of Right Tech and Talent

Leaders must understand that digital experience and digital transformation are about assembling the right combination of talent, technology and processes. A sub-optimal choice in any one of these inter-related areas can thwart a digital experience project.

Personalize your customer’s experience

Customers usually expect custom-made experiences. Hence, it is important to understand their behaviors, gather data, and learn from them by leveraging technologies such as AI, analytics and cloud. With personalized customer experiences, businesses can increase customer loyalty and enhance customer engagement. 

Adopt virtual assistants

Chatbots and virtual assistants do not replace human interaction, but they can instantly answer simple questions and clarifications, get feedback, provide solutions etc. There are platforms which integrate both customized messaging and chatbots for better customer experience. With their 24/7 availability and omnichannel ability, businesses can save time for both the customers and the organization, reduce operational costs, and drive sales. 

The pandemic has disrupted the way businesses operate, and digital technology has permanently changed how we interact with customers. Each of these 4 trends is essential as we continue to improvise customer experiences in the coming year. 

The article has been written by Sean Narayanan, CEO, Apexon