If you do a quick google search for ‘How to improve your Customer Experience?’, the advice is geared towards digital and technology solutions. An omnichannel experience utilising AI and Chatbots is presented as a universal solution to all CX problems. However, there is a very thin line between enhancing your CX strategy with digital solutions and turning your brand into the most frustrating robot in the world.
Digitising your Customer Experience
The role of technology in customer experience is constantly changing and expanding. It doesn’t only help us deliver a great experience but also understand the customers. Through data analytics and customer surveys you can discover their needs, habits and emotions. Customer experience and expectations are some of the key drivers in digital innovation.
One of the greatest benefits of utilising digital solutions is data collection. Collecting data and using it in the right way can give your company an insight into the needs of your customers. The data you collect can be used to create a more personalised experience and to improve your products and services.
As your business grows, the amount of data you collect will start to rise exponentially. You can use Artificial Intelligence to help you organise, analyse and manage it.
Which brings us to the next benefit: easier scalability. Automation can do the time consuming tasks for your employees. This way, they can focus on the customer needs and provide a more valuable experience for them. Similarly technology will speed up the process for your customers to get in touch with your business, if they require assistance.
However, the technology itself doesn’t create or define customer experience, it enables it.
The Pitfall
Technology is great but it lacks the one thing that makes humans so special.
Emotion.
Customer Experience is all about emotions. It is how we feel when interacting with a product or a service. It encompasses tools, processes and management styles that tangibly put the customer at the heart of a company. Investment into technology and digital solutions won’t bring any benefits if you lose the human touch in your CX strategy.
Human touch accounts for the edge case scenarios that AI is not able to understand nor deal with. By designing your strategy geared towards the digital side of the business, you may be missing the needs of your customers.
Creating a bond without any human interaction is impossible and it is through the bond you create with your customers that you build trust and loyalty. Artificial Intelligence lacks empathy and if a customer is in a difficult situation it will not be able to respond appropriately. By design, AI’s main goal is to be efficient. While this may sound good on paper, customers require to be listened to and empathised with when something goes wrong.
Finding the balance
When designing your CX strategy you should always have the customer at the centre of all decisions. Put yourself in the customer shoes and use technology to strengthen the bond with your customers at every touch point in the customer journey. By leaving space for direct human interaction, you are accounting for edge case customer journeys that technology isn’t able to deal with.
Invest in technology suited for your business. Choose software that is easy to use and reduces training time of your employees, letting them focus on the customer. Provide articles that help your staff answer the more difficult questions, and use automation processes to deal with simple queries.
Ensure you are testing your UX design thoroughly. UX design is a huge part of digital design and if it isn’t designed correctly it will only cause issues. Ensure forms are optimised for specific devices and CTA brings the user to a desired location. Remember to provide ample white space and breathing room in your designs for clarity and ease of navigation.
While customers like to see technology improvements and omnichannel solutions, 75% desire more human interaction when interacting with different brands. The challenge for all businesses is to create the best of both worlds. The warm experience of interacting with a known local shop owner all done while resting and drinking wine on your sofa!
If you want to find out more about how to utilise technology and digital solutions in the right way, sign up for one of our courses today at: https://thecxacademy.org/courses/.
