Creating Connected Customer Experiences

Carmela Lim at Infobip describes how companies can create connected customer experiences.

The global lockdown has accelerated the switch for companies to adopt a cloud-native approach and invest in innovative technologies that support the next wave of scalable communication applications.

This switch has led businesses and people to look to technology to define how we stay connected to family, friends, colleagues, and our favourite brands.

But for businesses, staying connected isn’t just about devices, channels, and systems. It’s about having the right cloud-based infrastructure that allows you to stay connected from anywhere on the right channel, at the right time, and with the right message.

Opting for off-the-shelf solutions is no longer feasible. The need of the hour is an innovative communication solution built on a reliable, secure, and scalable platform that can provide connected customer experiences.

Customers can expect to be reached on their preferred channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, or Email, receive personalized support and service, along with all the real-time communication features, in an effortlessly connected way.

Building Connected Customer Experiences

Using siloed solutions that are not scalable has left customers feeling disconnected, creating a gap between communication technology and people. CX leaders need to invest in scalable and innovative communication solutions over reliable platforms to bridge that gap and ensure customers are continuously engaged.

To achieve this, omnichannel communication solutions take the best part of conversational channels, CX, chatbots, and marketing automation and unites them into a comprehensive platform for creating connected customer experiences.

How Does This Help?

A Data Platform and Customer Engagement hub helps businesses leverage end-to-end customer data to gain real-time insights into behaviour, product usage, and channel preferences – resulting in stronger customer profiles and hyper-personalization. This empowers businesses to provide proactive messaging such as:

• Product recommendations
• Reminders and notifications
• Targeted marketing campaigns over chat apps, Email, and SMS
• Loyalty and subscription-based messaging

Thereby allowing companies to go beyond transactional messaging by embedding connected experiences to help customers take action and achieve business goals.

Combining this with a cloud contact centre and chatbot building platform enables live and virtual agents to recognize customers’ intent and deliver personalized support to improve the sales or service experience, leading to:

• The ability to proactively support customers with intuitive chatbots
• Equipping agents with tools that connect them to customers on their preferred channels and provide them with profile, browsing / order history, and behaviour details
• Creating a secure work environment for agents that allows them to offer support from anywhere and at any time

Unlocking Connected Experiences With the Right Technology

Delivering connected customer experiences rests in businesses ensuring they have the right communication technology to provide one-to-one service and support, online and in-store through conversational channels, live agents, and on-demand chatbots.

For that, you need the right technology to:

• Combine real-time insights to create the 360-degree customer profiles needed to deliver personalized experiences at scale.
• Leverage behaviour and event-based triggers to anticipate customers’ needs and pre-emptively provide relevant solutions and recommendations.
• Adopt an anywhere commerce mentality to meet customers across all channels consistently.
• Streamline the in-store and online experience through digital tools that give customers more control over their experience, and help agents respond to inquiries in real-time.
• Build closer connections with consumers through one-to-one, always-on interactions.
• Provide the necessary tools for employees and agents to remotely access customer and product information to deliver optimal service levels.

Author: Guest Author