Each year, thousands of new businesses are established. In 2019, for instance, there were about 30.7 million small businesses in the US alone. There have been over 1.5 million new companies established between 2015 and 2018. That said, many startups don’t live to see the light of day up to 90% of them die down.
1. Understanding Customer Experience
A poor customer experience, among things like failing to embrace, or keeping up with the latest technology, is the primary cause of business failure. Customer experience is not only about interactions. It is about availability, the touchpoints. It is how and where consumers come into contact with your brand, either through a brand message and more. Customer experience also entails engagement. This is the depth of interaction, as well as the impression. It involves the nature of the communication process between your employees and the customer.
2. Digital Transformation and Customer Experience
To start with, digital transformation involves integrating digital technologies across all areas of the business. This results in fundamental changes in the way the business operates and the values it delivers to consumers. Any company that embarks in digital transformation and does it well created a highly engaged and satisfied customer. A type of digital transformation is Contract Lifecycle Management Solutions, this fundamentally changes how companies unlock contract value, optimize processes, reduce risks and costs, while delivering quality outcomes.
Today, we see a myriad of advances in businesses, like online communication channels, personalization, eCommerce shopping, and more. These advancements are there mostly to benefit the customer even more than the business itself. In a study, most respondents named customer experience their top priority each time they are shopping online.
Therefore there is a need to adopt digital transformation in your business if you are to take customer experience to higher heights. This is how you can use digital transformation to enhance the customer experience.
3. Automation in all business operations
Automation has been there for far too long now. Automation is now being used to improve many areas of a business. Computer applications such as chatbots, unlike humans, are available 24/7 to interact with customers around the clock. They are faster to engage, and according to a survey, they communicate more politely than humans. You can use automation on even simple works such as ticket prioritization, following up emails, and reduce the amount of time your staff spends on basic processes.
Tailor content to specific users
If your offers are more appealing to a specific group of consumers, the more likely they will take advantage of them. Today, companies are using customer data when coming up with specialized content and recommendations. This strategy is commonly used by eCommerce websites whereby when you shop there, next time, they will show a custom listing that is tailored to you. This information is gotten from your previous browsing history. Therefore when y ou tailor your content to individual users, you will get them to take action when required.
Avail information to your users online
Today, it is much easier for companies to store data online other than saving it locally, thanks to advances in online storage and security. Through this, consumers can easily find the information they want online; thus, they don’t need to speak with an employee. Some companies today allow customers to access their records of all the products they have purchased previously from their websites. This helps the customer to track their purchase, return and order or equally cancel it on their own. This is beneficial to both the customer and your customer support team as it is convenient and eases them time.
4. Focus on providing value
While searching and implementing new technologies to your business is vital, it also ensures you provide value. Be on the lookout on the areas where the experience you provide your customers could be improved. Bring in technology to help solve the issues. If the business’s digital transformation is based on helping the business engage with its customers, it will also help you reach your customer experience goal.
5. Learn about your customers
Thanks to the digital transformation, today’s business owners and marketers alike have access to more customer data than it was before, and can make use of tools like this free survey maker in order to collect data from a targeted group of people when they feel the need to. This information can be quite overwhelming if you don’t know how to use it for your advantage. Nonetheless, it can be used to find new insights into your consumer’s habits and purchasing preferences. You can analyze the information and improve your products and services. You can also use the information to develop better marketing campaigns.
A business owner, therefore, needs to be transparent about the customer information they collect. A vast number of consumers know their information is being collected by businesses each time they shop. Therefore whenever you embrace digital transformation and start collecting this data, never hide this process from your consumers.
Best Tech Advances For Enhanced Customer Experience
The following are some best tech advances that smart businesses use them to influence customer experience. You could also try them in your business model, and you are sure to get more satisfied customers. You also may experience an upsurge in the number of returning customers.
Virtual Reality
These days, virtual reality (VR) is making a center stage in many industries. Most brands are adopting it to engage with their customers, and it has worked. The technology offers the customer an immersive experience making them experience things they could not interact with physically. VR is used for hands-on experience demo, virtual eLearning, etc.
Location-based computing
Today, location service technology has been integrated into smartphones. Businesses can take advantage of location-based technology to offer tailored services to consumers. The technique can be used by companies to push location-based promos as well as navigate services. Through this technology, you can help your users to find/locate products faster and easier in your warehouse.
Social-Powered WiFi refers to physical locations using a guest WiFi landing page to allow customers to login to their guest WiFi with social media credentials. Customer data is then collected such as names, emails, and demographics. This data is then aggregated into customer profiles to be used for re-marketing.
3D printing
Earlier on, 3D printing was viewed as stuff of fiction. Today, however, this technology has taken customer experience to another level. 3D printing adds efficiency as well as transformation in the manufacturing and the goods distribution businesses. With the help of a good 3D printer, virtual objects can easily and instantly be transformed into physical objects.
Chatbots
This technology, as discussed earlier, makes life easier for not only the customer but customer agents. Almost all business websites today are embracing chatbots.
Conclusion
It is not yet too late to adopt digital transformation in your business if you have one. Also, if you are planning to start one, ensure you get it right the first time by implementing these and more technologies such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and more. This will not only enhance customer experience but incline you to level ground to compete with your competitors.
