Today, the digital customer experience is the customer experience. Due to social distancing and lockdowns, businesses of all sizes, and in all industries, have had to pivot to digital communication channels to continue engaging, serving, and supporting their customers. This has resulted in an explosion of digital touchpoints across the customer journey. In fact, 80% of customer interactions are expected to happen via digital channels by 2025.

The problem is that companies are generally responding to the need for digitalization by simply deploying new technology-enabled channels that are tacked on to existing operations. But, that isn’t enough—adding digital channels without addressing the digital customer journey will result in failure. The inconvenient truth is that technology alone will not solve the customer engagement conundrum.

Perhaps Viber, the first chat app to cater to the demand in business messaging, said it best: “Customer communication tools should be helping, and not replacing human agents.” That’s the mindset needed to truly transform the digital customer experience. Organizations need to go beyond the mere adoption of new technology and make building human connections the core purpose of their digital transformation services journey

What do you mean by human connections?

It's true that audio and visual media do help to humanize interactions, but human connection is not about simply hearing a voice or seeing a face—it’s about building a rapport or a relationship.

In other words, it’s not the technology itself that creates the connection, it's the people using that technology. We must remember that despite the ease of automation and AI, these are merely tools. The end game should always be to establish a strong customer-first culture that focuses on fostering long-term customer relationships through personalized service.

Case in point: when Bitkub, Thailand’s leading digital asset exchange platform, experienced a rapid growth of 1,000%, they understood that most of their new customers might be new to cryptocurrency. With that in mind, they established a plan to educate their customers and help them make informed decisions while using their platform.

Every company needs a game plan in place to meet key objectives regarding customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty.

Why it’s important to have human-like digital customer experiences

According to PwC, 82% of consumers want more human interactions from brands. But unfortunately, 59% of them also feel that when it comes to customer experience, companies have lost touch with the human element.

After all, there’s nothing more frustrating for a customer than receiving templated replies that don’t answer their questions or address their concerns. That’s why 40% of consumers actually prefer speaking to a real person on the phone. In particular, when it comes to more complex issues like complaints or disputes, 80% of consumers say that being able to get in touch with a live service agent over chat or voice call is extremely important.

Customers also have a need for speed—they want to be connected, fast! It’s been reported that the most frustrating aspects of a bad customer service experience include long holding times and an automated system that makes it hard to reach an agent. With a lack of human connection in digital interactions, customers can feel ignored or believe that their problems can’t be solved quickly and effectively. The consequences? Missed opportunities to build loyalty and trust.

How to deliver hyper-personalized, seamless human interactions

There is good news. The existing gap in digital customer experiences presents an opportunity for businesses to differentiate themselves in the market by delivering more human-centric interactions.

Here are three things that organizations can leverage to create that human touch.

Data-driven personalization

Think about it: if customers receive a generic promotional message that doesn’t take into account their personal purchasing history or browsing behavior, and isn’t relevant to their unique interests, then conversion rates are bound to suffer.

Personalizing engagement is key to making customers feel seen and heard, and it is therefore key to taking sales to the next level. Did you know that 75% of online shoppers want brands to deliver personalized offers and messages, and 74% of consumers get frustrated if the content being served to them isn’t relevant to their lives. On the other hand, effective personalization of digital experiences can improve conversion rates by up to 8%.

For next-level personalization, businesses can use data to drive proactive service, like alerting customers in advance that their loyalty points are about to expire, or sending a reminder that it’s time to refill their grocery order. This can be done with SMS notifications, which are commonly integrated into organizations’ scheduling applications, according to Michael Brandenburg, analyst from Frost & Sullivan. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of consumers say that proactive customer service improves their brand perception, thereby contributing to brand loyalty.

Real-time interactions

The convenience and accessibility of digital engagement channels have made customers more demanding than ever. They want timely support, 24/7. For businesses, this means real-time communications—including SMS, voice calling, live chat with agents on chat apps, and video calling—are now critical to improving digital customer experiences.

But remember, having a human interact with customers doesn’t automatically guarantee service excellence. Rather, businesses should look at using the right technologies, such as analytics, automation, and AI, to improve internal knowledge management and give agents the information they need, exactly when they need it, to deliver outstanding customer support.

Unified communications management

With modern consumers zig zagging between multiple digital touchpoints, the customer journey has become more complex than ever. Yet, 75% of consumers still expect seamless experiences. This means that regardless of which channel customers are using today, it’s important that companies are able to pick up exactly where the conversation left off. There’s nothing more annoying to a customer than having to repeat their problem, over and over again, with each new interaction. In fact, 32% of consumers globally cite that having to repeat information is the most frustrating aspect of the customer experience.

Rather than having sales, marketing, or service teams optimize in isolation, it's better bring them all together on a unified communications management platform, so that they can drive customer experiences in tandem. Only by breaking customer data out of silos will organizations be able to unlock the insights they need to create truly seamless, end-to-end, long-term customer connections.

Balancing digitalization and humanization for top-notch customer experience

The ways we engage may be evolving, but the desire to connect with each other has always stayed the same. Technology alone can’t ace customer experience—the other side of the equation needs to be human connection. By balancing both, organizations will be able to enable smarter, more innovative ways to deliver the personalized service that customers crave on their favorite channels.

Want to know the secret to delivering tailored, immediate, and authentic experiences that exceed the demands of today’s digital consumers?

Register now for our upcoming webinar to gain insights and tips that will win you brand loyalty now, and well into the future.

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