SPECIAL REPORT
SPECIAL REPORT
The future of customer experience
Gone are the days when“ customer experience” was just another buzzword, one line on a never-ending list of future trends that marketers were told to watch out for. Today, brands are increasingly prioritising the concept as a means of gaining competitive advantage and increasing revenue, yet there are still debates on the true meaning of the term, what it encompasses and who owns it.
More brands, more customers and more channels all make achieving competitive advantage in retail, both online and offline, more complex than ever. With so much choice comes a multitude of opportunities for those who invest in getting customer experience right. A report from Ve Global— A retailer’ s guide to digital customer experience— highlights the strategies that are picking up momentum.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence( AI) will be a mainstream customer experience investment in the next couple of years. Its use is already rising and many of us may have, knowingly or unknowingly, engaged with some form of AI in our recent retail experience, whether that be customer service chatbots or perhaps fraud-prevention algorithms.
However, despite the ongoing buzz surrounding this advancing technology, we need not panic just yet. The retail AI revolution still has not fully taken off as retailers look for the best opportunities and ways to apply AI.
Currently, AI is primarily used in relation to data and analyses. When we look to the future, the role of AI will become broader, thanks to data insights providing customers with enhanced experiences.
Focus on generation Z
Generation Z, those born after millennials from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, now have spending power. By 2020, 20 % of the workforce will be made up of this generational group, according to global employment website Monster, and retailers are starting to shift their focus to attract such customers. Gen Z have grown up in a digital world and therefore have high expectations from their retail experience.
Not only that, but they also spend 10.6 hours a day consuming digital content, according to research and advisory services provider Econsultancy, and are looking for authentic, relevant content that appeals to their personal needs and helps them to find exactly what they are looking for, with minimal effort involved.
This group of shoppers also want transparency( to know that they can afford the product), innovation( to receive frequent product upgrades and updates) and service( to receive the same level of service as older counterparts).
Hyper-personalisation
Hyper-personalisation is personalisation’ s big brother. Both involve delivering more tailored and personal communication and experiences, but hyper-personalisation is more advanced and also takes into account browsing behaviour and real-time analytics. By doing so, it allows retailers to deliver communication that is not only personal but perhaps more importantly,
Gen Z have grown up in a digital world and therefore have high expectations from their retail experience.
The report advised retailers looking to deliver outstanding customer experiences to focus on building loyal customers through personalised omni-channel journeys. also relevant in that exact moment. As the possibilities arising from data analytics continue to increase with technological developments, so can the extent to which retailers can deliver personalisation.
This level of hyper-personalisation will allow retailers to create a single view of their customers. Through this, it will become easier to anticipate a customer’ s next move and therefore provide a more seamless and personal customer experience.
Looking to the future, generational and technological advances will all demand even more from the customer experience— and real-time relevancy will be key.
Ve Global’ s number one piece of advice to retailers is to analyse your data now to truly understand who your customers are. From here, you can begin to deliver hyper-personalised experiences, prepare for technological advances and ultimately positively impact both your business and your customers. ra
14 Retail Asia August 2018