Customer satisfaction always ranks as a top business priority. However, as the pandemic disrupted supply chains and exacerbated staffing issues, many businesses struggled to deliver the experience their customers were accustomed to, let alone the optimized omnichannel experiences that modern consumers actually want.
The Qualtrics global consumers trends in 2022 report shows that 80% of consumers believe organizations need to improve their customer experience. Moreover, failure to do so comes at an almighty cost in terms of revenue, trust, and reputation.
As we begin 2022, businesses should take heed of four key customer experiences trends as they seek to retain a competitive advantage.
The importance of omnichannel
Over the last decade, digitization has been at the forefront of customer experience trends, but the pandemic has accelerated that transformation. COVID-19, according to a McKinsey survey, supply chain and customer communication digitization has gone through up to four years of acceleration in just a few months.
However, in a rush to open new communication channels, many businesses adopted solutions that fail to provide the secure, seamless omnichannel experience that customers expect. According to Vonage research, video was the fastest-growing communication channel during the pandemic, with 55% of worldwide consumers engaging with businesses via video — an increase of 11% from the first few months of 2020.
Despite this, many companies implemented stand-alone video conferencing solutions that did not integrate with the rest of their communications infrastructure.
Forward-thinking tech executives will invest in communications solutions that incorporate all of their communication channels and customer data into a single platform in 2022. This will allow them to provide a consistent customer experience across channels while also seamlessly switching from one channel to the next.
Digitization of customer interactions and mobile-first growth
If you take a look around when out in public, you will see people focused on their little handheld glowing screens. Having a mobile-first web presence is no longer optional if you want to remain competitive and relevant.
According to research, 57% of customers do not recommend businesses with a poorly designed mobile website. Mobile visitors want to find what they need seamlessly, and any brand that compromises navigation, page speed, load times, or functionality with their offering will suffer.
Forecasts suggest that e-commerce will account for 23.6% of all retail sales by 2025, compared to 11% in 2019. WhatsApp, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube are all rolling out features to make it easier for customers to shop digitally. How do customers browse these sites? On mobile.
Given the inevitable ongoing evolution of the smartphone’s role in our lives, customers’ reliance on this channel, and the medium’s significant utility, today’s businesses must adopt a mobile-first strategy.
Instant gratification
The success of services like Amazon Prime tells us that customers want what they want now. During a time of lockdowns and isolations, speed and convenience have come to matter just as much as the price to consumers, and brands that can deliver instant gratification have a competitive advantage.
According to Forrester, customers expect a company to respond to their query within five minutes or less without sacrificing quality. Companies must strive to create an organizational structure and knowledge base that meets customer demand in 2022.
The generation of instant gratification will not change. Consumers are motivated to obtain what they desire when they desire it. At the same time, this generation values great experiences and prefer to spend money on them rather than on things.
Balancing humanity and automation
Even as customers become more comfortable interacting with robots and receiving automated messaging, they want to know that a human is on standby, ready to step in if necessary. As companies continue to automate communications, they will need to be strategic about where and how they use technology, ensuring that AI augments rather than replaces human interaction.
For example, chatbots are an excellent way to reduce costs as they drive down queries to customer service teams. However, there are still segments of customers who would still rather speak to a human. Companies need to find a way to balance technology and the consumer’s emotional needs.
According to Forrester Research, technology executives in 2022 will use emerging technology to help unlock employee creativity and foster innovation, focusing on outcomes and not only financial results. Digital transformation objectives look set to be replaced by people objectives in 2022 as firms try to meet the expectations of their customers.
Consumers have far higher expectations that digital experiences will work well following the pandemic, and businesses must be ready to meet the demand.
Following the pandemic, customer experience and technology leaders need to take time to assess their strategy and future proof the business. Although many how to innovate at pace just to survive in 2021, now is the time to put solutions in place that meet the ongoing demand of modern customers and help the organization to flourish.
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