All commerce norms that we knew – before Covid-19 hit us – are in a renewal phase, with digital taking the cake while the personal touch during the purchasing experience shouldn’t be missing from the table. The impacts of the market transformation are found across the whole customer lifecycle. Customer preferences are based on trust and personal approach criteria from the brands’ side, while at the same time consumers seem to experiment with the way they shop and the brands they choose.
Customers and brands need to re-establish the way they connect, as established brand loyalties are being questioned and customers are testing the best fit for them, searching for new purchasing ways, and switching from one brand to another, as if the brands were the products and not reversely.
“71% of consumers have switched brands at least once in the last year”, Salesforce reports.
Brands should be one step ahead and always be alerted, seeking methods to delight their customers throughout the whole shopping path and build a meaningful and qualitative bonding with them. As digital experiences reach excellence, consumers’ expectations are raising more and more, making it more challenging and sometimes more difficult for companies to anticipate their needs. Technology can give the solutions needed while at the same time can make that exact process unstoppable transforming the race into a speed marathon.
CX and similarly customer engagement is omni-channel, with customers turning to at least nine different communication channels to connect with their preferred brands craving more personalized digital experiences and an interactive approach in-store. They want it all, an interconnected shopping world ready to satisfy them adequately through every possible channel, anytime they want to, adopting hybrid shopping tactics more and more.
As mentioned in one of our latest blog posts the definition of the CX today is of a broader meaning and not only restricted in customer service. Though, brands should measure every ingredient of Customer Engagement success and redefine even the typical Customer Service to keep pace with customer expectations. They should provide holistic customer service treating the customers thoughtfully in one way or another in order to provide the ultimate customer experience.
What does that mean nowadays?
A well-trained team of shop assistants is always high-valued in customer service since consumers seek the humanized factor throughout their shopping interactions in-store – an element irreplaceable, they had missed because of the pandemic restrictions.
However digital footprints seem to keep expanding especially since customers demand 24/7 assistance. Thus, companies should supplement human agents with innovative self-service support options, a service implemented through interactive chatbots based on AI. Millennials and Gen-Zers, as the generations of the future, seem to embrace this trend that apparently is here to stay.
Providing the right customer service can reward the brands substantially. Not only customers are more likely to re-purchase, but they are more willing to recommend the brand to others too, triggering the word-of-mouth power. In that way, brands can deepen the relationship with their customers, inspiring trust – an ingredient complex and multifaceted but also essential in the market battleground.
In INTELIQUA, through EliquaCX, we enable brands to identify their consumers, analyze their behavior and connect with them in real-time. Among the QC capabilities, we help our clients proactively engage with their customers through a consistent methodology.
