Creatio identifies five key trends that will define CX in 2021.
While 2020 witnessed dramatic changes in the way customers and businesses interact, 2021 is set to be the year of customer experience (CX), according to Creatio’s latest study. The pandemic changed the way people work, rest, shop, and interact with each other, and brands had to either react respectively or be left behind.
According to Corinium Intelligence research, up to 90% of businesses have taken urgent measures to adapt their CX strategy to the new normal in 2020. One in four of them claims they completely revamped their approach to customer experience.
The Rise of CX in 2021: 5 Trends Marketers Must Look Out For
CX is gaining an increasing amount of attention and will continue to do so in the nearest future. Forrester analysts predict that the number of businesses that will improve their CX quality will double compared with the previous year. It means an even more accelerated business transformation, higher customer experience expectations, and the adoption of new well-suited technology to support improvements in customer-facing and operational processes.
Creatio’s data identifies five emerging trends in CX in 2021:
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Trend #1: Businesses Will Embrace Hybrid Engagement Models and Multiexperience
Digitalization is expected to keep redefining the future landscape of customer experience in 2021. As leaders have already started reimagining the post-pandemic world, many believe that the future of customer experience is predominantly digital.
Forrester predicts that digital customer service interactions will increase by 40% in 2021 and that businesses are seemingly catching up to this trend. These days, many companies focus their efforts on extending their online presence. They also focus on digitalizing customer experience with various tools such as messaging platforms, apps, or automated chatbots.
Creatio found that to adapt to the new normal, nearly 80% of consumers claimed to have increased the volume of digital interactions with the brands in the wake of COVID-19. However, a staggering increase in virtual interactions due to the pandemic does not necessarily imply that the customers are willing to opt for the absolute digital immersion.
These findings mean that consumers expect a balanced combination of real-life human interactions and varied digital experience options from which to choose. To fulfill the latest customer needs, organizations need to consider designing an ecosystem of channels and solutions that support customer multiexperience and deliver communication across multiple channels in a unified way.
Trend #2: Customer Journeys Will Undergo a Massive Shift
Creatio predicts that the disruption in customer journeys will continue into 2021. While some of the newly acquired consumer behaviors will stay, customer experience pathways will be in flux in the upcoming months as businesses will keep testing new touchpoints and approaches to customer interactions.
Having nimble IT solutions may greatly assist businesses in achieving just that. In fact, the companies that had an existing easily customizable technology already in place in 2020 were able to gain a competitive edge in times of uncertainty and even thrive through the crisis.
With the agility at the heart of both IT and CX strategy for 2021, those companies will have the opportunity to quickly respond to even the slightest changes in customer behaviors or preferences.
Trend #3: Emotion and Empathy Will Drive CX Strategies in 2021
Customer experience has always been about building consumer-brand relationships that are trustful, customer-centric, and value-based. Nowadays, these principles are more important than ever.
The times of uncertainty and self-isolation compelled people to seek feelings of connection, trust, safety, and security. This is precisely why empathy and customer intimacy will be the determining elements of customer experience in 2021. Respectively, the companies that can resonate with consumers will be on the winning side.
Creating the right strategy to address these primary customer needs and concerns with the highest precision is one of the most challenging tasks for business leaders in 2021. To effectively address this challenge, businesses will require extra effort into hyper-personalization, making it the core element of CX strategy.
With the help of intelligent analytics, data-driven insights, and deep customer segmentation, the companies will have the ability to pave the path to understanding their customers better and create tailored customer experiences that anticipate or trigger specific emotions and reactions.
Also read: Fulfillment Is the Biggest Barrier To Exceptional Customer Experiences in 2020: New Data Reveals
Trend #4: Digitized Self-Service Will Dominate Brand-Customer Interactions
An increased workload on call centers in times of the pandemic forced businesses to look for solutions to automate their customer service processes further. During the COVID-19 times, both businesses and customers changed their perspective on customer self-service, finding it an effective way to solve issues and interact.
Now, self-service is becoming a far more likable option among customers, and businesses aim to further self-service technology improvement. According to Statista’s research conducted in 2020, 89% of U.S. customers expect companies to have an online self-service support portal in place. It means self-service solutions are quickly becoming a new necessity rather than a temporary alternative to traditional customer service.
Creatio expects that 88% of organizations will have self-service solutions adopted by 2023 to serve various purposes, including request management, issue resolutions, troubleshooting, customer accounts management, shipment tracking, products or service data management, and others.
Ranging from fully-fledged customer portals, apps, website solutions, automated chatbots to community forums, self-service technologies are a fit for businesses of any size across all industries.
Customer self-service technologies are a win-win for both customers and organizations. By providing a self-service option, the organizations can respect the customers’ time while reducing their own operating costs.
If designed and deployed properly, self-service tools serve as a convenient, user-friendly, instant support solution that the customers gladly use regularly.
In the meantime, to meet usability standards for the app, the companies need to make sure that their existing solution’s user experience (UX) is optimized continuously.
Trend #5: Touchless User Interface To Remain Popular in 2021
Due to human safety reasons, touchless technology became a far more common use case for customers in 2020. Accelerated during the coronavirus crisis, this trend is expected to stay in the post-pandemic world.
As customers are turning to screenless, zero-touch interactions as a more secure option, businesses that are first to adopt this technology have a chance to gain a competitive edge. They also take a leap towards a more consistent and interactive way of having customers engage with their brand.
Aimed at providing seamless interactions with technology, Zero user interface (UI) solutions will be reshaping customer experience in the upcoming years.
Also known as Zero UI, voice-based and gesture-driven interactions with devices is a novelty that gains momentum at an accelerated pace. From retailers to financial service providers to healthcare institutions, these innovations are being implemented across multiple industries to redesign and give a fresh look to customer experience.
However, the rise of Zero UI does not mean that it will fully substitute screen-based technologies. Instead, it will supplement them with ambient intelligence and allow for a more varied yet coherent customer experience.
Also read: How Can Retailers Define and Deliver Incredible Customer Experience?
Conclusion
The year 2020 disrupted many CX strategies and accelerated emerging trends that will keep reshaping the customer experience landscape in the coming years. In 2021, CX business and digital leaders will be given the space to experiment, the opportunity to embrace the uncertainty further, and the chance to reinvent consumer-brand relationships with the latest innovations in customer experience. By keeping this in mind, while designing the CX strategy, companies will be able to prepare themselves for the challenges of 2021.
Undoubtedly, along with a comprehensive strategy, technology will play a dominant role in driving a successful customer experience. Forrester predicts that the upcoming year will be defined by a sharp increase in CX technology adoption, with every company doubling down on IT investments to enhance customer experience and optimize customer-facing operations. Therefore, identifying the right technology investments for 2021 will be the top priority for businesses.
Based on the latest CX trends and the changing customer behaviors, the technologies that CX leaders may consider adopting among the variety of CX tools include multichannel CX platform integrations and agile systems that allow quick and easy customer-facing workflow adjustments. They may also consider adopting multiexperience solutions, zero UI technology, robust data analytics, and solutions that support deep customer segmentation and hyper-personalization.