T
he season to reflect on corporate
strategy and plan for the coming
year has arrived and it is in this
last quarter of the year that brands retreat
to take stock of and asses their plans of
action. As strategy retreats are held, budget
meetings convened and review sessions
arranged, the most important aspect
around which business must revolve – the
customer – needs to take center stage in
these discussions.
As these thinking processes kick off, the
key question that needs to be asked, and
comprehensively answered is “What are
the customer experience trends to watch
out for in 2019, and what do marketers
need to know to position their brands for
disruption?”
That 2019 will be a year for customers to be
amazed at new and delightful experiences
on offer is not in doubt, because brand
research and innovation teams have been
working overtime in the last two quarters
of 2018 to develop solutions to bedazzle
customers.
The recently concluded customer service
week saw customer experience innovation
at unprecedented levels with activities
designed to wow customers delivered
with orchestrated precision. Given that
customer experience is and will continue
to be the new corporate battleground,
customer
delight
stemming
from
convenience, access and personalization
are the brand strategy buzzwords.
So what should brands watch out for?
What will form the five big things in
customer experience in the coming year?
What should top leadership have on their
corporate score sheet and what should
appear on the CEO’s daily dashboard to
evaluate progress?
Customer Inclusion
Brands that take into account customer
inclusion will significantly stand out
from the rest. Sensitivities to unique
customer needs, that include customers
with disabilities, gender alignment,
age and regional attributes, will endear
organizations to customers that are
increasingly celebrating diversity and
looking out for who is looking out for
everyone else.
Customers today are on the watch to see
if brands really recognize the multiplicity
of dimensions, ideals, and physical
manifestations, and are constantly
observing to see if there are initiatives in
place to cater for these needs. Brands need
to therefore ask themselves amongst many
other questions - about their provision for
persons with disabilities, and other special
needs, both internally and externally.
Diversity and inclusion needs to be a
strategic business priority, and brand
strategists in tandem with the customer
experience team need to evaluate the
systems, structures, products and services
planned for the coming year, to evaluate
if access to, interaction with and impact
on, is wired and adapted to cater for these
differences. This also addresses the need
for inclusivity as an employer, because
internal branding is an inseparable
element of external branding.
Diversity brings with it an outpouring
of organizational benefits, including
internal brand equity, external customer
satisfaction, disparate decision making,
and the ability to view things from
different lenses.
The questions customers are increasingly
asking, and which top leadership needs
to address are - Does the brand in its
bid to position itself as an employer of
choice, have provision for team members
with special needs? Do the facilities and
activities for both staff and customers take
into consideration special needs?
Although locally the National Council
for Persons With Disabilities champions
the rights of those with special needs as
per the Persons with Disabilities Act, the
reservation of five percent of all casual,
emergency, and contractual positions in
employment in the public and private
sectors for persons with disabilities is still
a pipe dream.
Things have changed and brands need to
move with this change, with regards to
creating diversity, and more so, how to
make working environments inclusive in
a way that the values of mutual respect
and access to opportunities – including
physical access including ramps, counters,
lowered facilities, hand rails and other
customer comfort aids - is at the fore.
The interesting thing about customer
inclusion, is that the richness of ideas
and feedback that comes from different
people from different places and in
different spaces, is an asset that needs
to be harnessed for customer and user
experience design, and to ensure that
organizational outputs carries everyone.
Tom
Champion, Senior
Analyst,
Forrester, aptly puts it that - “Leading
organizations are devoting significant
resources to truly understanding the needs
of diverse customers and translating their
findings into insights that anyone in the
organization can act on to improve the
customer experience,”
Customers will stand up and take notice
of brands that are seen to be planning,
different, wanting different and doing
different. Because different is the glue
that attracts customer stickiness
Customer Convenience
The fact that customers have shifted
from product and service focus points to
the fact that - Convenience is King, and
needs to be embedded in the brand and
customer experience strategy for 2019.
Convenience takes center stage and every
other play actor in the game needs to bow
before this tenet.
Now more than ever before, in this era of
digital mavericks has convenience taken
on significant importance. The more
the customer can access products and
services with ease and grace, the more
attractive the brand, no matter what price
perception is attached to it.
Competition nowadays is not measured
by who is offering a similar product or
service, but who can get the product or
service to the customer, who wants their
stuff anytime, anywhere and using any
device.
The ceilings are being pushed globally
with the mad dash to create innovative
products and services that have customers
define their lives as “easier”“, simpler”,
“and comfortable”. Noteworthy is that
it is not only the product or service that
needs to be recreated, but the convenience
with which the customer will get to it.
Products and services can be ‘right in