Customers are more connected thanks to technology, pursuing stronger relationships, seeking to influence and be influenced by other users. In addition, they employ new ways of working and thinking, have high expectations of brands, and expect a company to change the way they meet their needs.
Thanks to this new type of consumers, the concept of Customer Experience 4.0 was born, which is the practice of designing and responding to customer interactions to meet or exceed their expectations and, consequently, increase their satisfaction, loyalty and support. In practical words, we have to know the client very well to know what and how they want it, as well as to be able to analyze how effective we have been in generating their satisfaction.
“Customer experience will be the value that defines the competitive advantage of companies, compared to other more traditional parameters such as price, product or service quality or brand reputation,” explains Fabricio Habib De Freitas, Head of Digital Marketing & Analytics LATAM at Stefanini, a digital transformation company.
A hyperconnected world: solutions for a new reality
In this hyperconnected world, customers expect interactions with companies to be increasingly intuitive, more personalized, and through different communication channels, both physically and digitally. Companies must work in omnichannel: be present at all micro-moments and respond to customer requests as immediately as possible.
These interactions with the customer are the differential factor between companies. The key is to optimize the customer journey in order to provide a more connected experience. Every action counts: the message, the products, the sales process, the marketing strategy, the experience after the purchase, customer service, among others. By capturing insights from all these points, companies can identify new opportunities that add value to the end customer.
To help improve engagement, the relationship with users and generate new benefits, Big Data and advanced analytics can be used to understand the data received from various systems that monitor customer management. All this information can be analyzed, using machine learning, which allows obtaining insights for better decision making.
The role of Artificial Intelligence
On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) can help organizations accelerate this understanding.
“In the sales area, AI can help with analysis and can recommend immediate actions on opportunities. In marketing, these same solutions allow companies to generate personalized messages on a scale that could not have been achieved before using humans alone. Virtual customer assistants powered by artificial intelligence can be used to improve the customer experience by reducing response time, which influences a better experience and leads to better satisfaction and loyalty,” Habib concludes.