In this day and age, technology gives us unprecedented purchasing power to buy goods and services when we want, how we want, and with whom we want. Winning the market is no longer about simply offering the lowest price – consumers want their experience to be easy, seamless, and personalized. They want to feel valued and that their business matters to the organization they are working with. In today's ultra-competitive environment, a customer experience that sets you apart from your competitors is the key to long-term success. So how do you achieve a differentiated customer experience?

Engage the Way Your Customers Want

In today's business landscape, there is a multitude of ways to engage with your customers. Traditional methods like call centers and email are still very much a preferred channel for some customers. However, a growing group of consumers now prefer more digital-first methods like text message, social platforms or live chat. Whatever the channels, it’s important to engage with your customers in ways that make them feel comfortable. If they live their lives on Facebook, it makes sense to integrate your customer engagement technologies with Facebook messenger, for example. Identify the channels most popular amongst your customer base and develop engagement strategies to best suit those channels.

“Identify the channels most popular amongst your customer base and develop engagement strategies to best suit those channels”

Embrace Artificial Intelligence

If manning a plethora of engagement channels feels like an overwhelming task, there is a solution. Many companies are increasingly adopting AIpowered technologies like chatbots to help deliver consistent and excellent service across channels. When we think about this type of automated self-service, a common perception is that the bot is good for very specific, scripted questions. Today’s AI, however, is much different. Modern bots are more intelligent and contextual than their predecessors, making them much more effective for customer engagement than ever before. As the frontlines of many CX strategies, chatbots are taking the heavy lifting from the agents and opening them up to handle more high-value interactions that require a human touch.

Get Personal

Today personalization isn’t just a matter of offering suggested items or targeting customers with ads based on previous searches or interactions. Customers expect brands to know who they are, the goods and services they’ve employed, their history with the brand from the first touch. It may seem like a tall order, but technologies like next-generation customer engagement platforms are helping businesses create rich-profiles of customers so that agents and bots alike know exactly who they are talking to and can provide them tailored service based on that information.

Today's companies have the immense opportunity to not only provide differentiated customer experience to the customers who interact with them but also to start becoming a benchmark in the industry. The proliferation of smart devices is anticipated to grow exponentially in next three years and technologies like artificial intelligence and IoT are making these devices smarter by the day. Brands who are looking to differentiate on customer experience, need to pay attention to these trends and ensure they are not only supporting these new devices and channels but are also making those interactions seamless and customers move through various channels. If a customer is interacting through social, moves to text and then to live chat, the context of each of those interactions needs to follow the customer. How you deliver a seamless customer experience today, may change tomorrow – so employing processes and technologies that are agile and can grow with future needs will make all the difference.