Handwritten ‘thank you’ notes, super-fast shipping, and assigning sales associates amount to a good customer experience provided by companies. But some companies go that extra mile to create never-before customer experiences. 

Disney, in 2016, filed for a patent to collect customer data by scanning guests’ shoes. The purpose was to collect information such as the typical pathways taken between rides – places where the guests seemed to spend the most time – and other logistical information to create a more tailored experience for the guests.

Influenced by companies like Amazon and Disney spending millions of dollars on customer experience, other players are also joining the bandwagon trying to create personalizations for users.  

According to an EY report, India’s consumer digital economy is expected to be an $800 billion market by 2030, with an estimated 10X growth from 2020. “Brands now understand the need to engage their customers through the right digital experiences. As a result, the way they interact and engage with customers is evolving unprecedentedly,” Vishal Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of Locobuzz told AIM. 

Locobuzz helps brands collate customer queries, complaints, feedback, and blogs generated across social media, App Store, Google Play store, WhatsApp, email and other mediums. It uses analytics to help brands understand the areas where the customer is facing the problem.

Agarwal added that his platform uses ML and AI to identify the sentiment machine and augment the data. “So, for example, by looking at your tweets, we can try to predict your profession, hobbies etc. An aggregated view of that becomes a very interesting data for a brand,” said Agarwal. 

CX market booming 

The global pandemic and changes in customer behaviour have had a significant impact on digital adoption during the past two years. When the epidemic struck, businesses rushed to develop digital capabilities. They changed to new models in order to survive, recover quicker, and grow in the post-pandemic economy.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global customer experience management market is expected to be worth USD 10.11 billion in 2021. Further, the market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 16.2%, from USD 11.34 billion in 2022 to USD 32.53 billion in the 2029 period.

According to a survey conducted by Zendesk, more Indian firms are now investing in customer experience (CX) to grow their business compared to other nations in the Asia Pacific area (ESG). For example, when compared to their counterparts in South Korea (67%), Australia (65%), Singapore (62%), and Japan (37%), the majority of Indian organisations (88%) have boosted their CX projects in recent years.

Companies in this area provide software solutions connected to contact centre technologies (for collecting customer feedback), customer data analysis (for processing and analysing consumer behaviour), and personalization (to provide a more diverse experience). Global players that provide customer experience management solutions include Zendesk, Salesforce, Genesys, and Freshworks. In addition, Sprinklr, Locobuzz, and Onedirects are major enablers of the unified digital consumer experience.

Experts say that consumers’ changing purchasing habits and fast digitisation have encouraged firms to implement omnichannel strategies for customer experience management. Businesses are now concentrating on advanced CX management systems that increase loyalty while decreasing customer churn. This dynamic consumer demand, combined with organisations’ increased emphasis on improving customer experience, is expected to propel the expansion of the customer experience management market.

AI will bring an era of hyper-personalisation

Imagine you just received a text message from your favourite brand of green tea that it might be time to reorder so you don’t run out. You realise you’re actually running low on it. You open the company website which takes you directly to your last order to save you the effort of searching for it. And within seconds, you’ve placed your order. 

This is the future of AI-driven hyper-personalised customer experience.

According to Agarwal, predictive analytics will become mainstream soon. It will be able to predict certain things, even come up with an automated marketing plan. It can suggest that brands should do a post of a particular kind to target these people. All of those things can get automated very easily.

Experts say there would be more unification of technology for brands. Having a one view of the customer and having a true omni-channel experience is where the whole ecosystem is heading.