How to Enhance Customer Experience in 2022

Let’s take a look at some predicted CX trends for 2022, along with the strategies businesses can use to keep up with these trends: 

• Trend: Increase in Ecommerce and Increased Use of Whatsapp

Recent trends show that there has been a boom in e-commerce that is likely to continue to increase in the following years. This increase has also been influenced by the pandemic as there were periods of time when people could not leave their houses to make purchases. Additionally, Whatsapp’s new features that facilitate improved B2C interactions has resulted in an increase in the use of the app as an e-commerce platform. 

Strategy: Organizations should provide a range of channels through which customers can interact with them, including through apps like WhatsApp and Instagram. Additionally, brands should facilitate an omnichannel experience where customers can switch from one channel to another with ease. 

• Trend: Increased Awareness of Environmental Impacts

There is an increasing amount of evidence that reflects that most consumers have expectations of brands to be socially and environmentally responsible. Additionally, customers also want brands to be transparent about their sustainability claims as customers may not believe them otherwise. 

Strategy: Brands must employ sustainable processes and practices. and must also be transparent about their efforts to back any claims made regarding sustainability. 

• Trend: Increased Focus on Services

Nowadays customers care more about the experience than the product alone. Brands are constantly finding new and innovative ways to enhance the overall experience of interacting with their brand rather than only improving their product(s). Therefore, we’re seeing an overall increase in the importance placed on services and experiences. 

Strategy: Brands must strategise new and innovative ways in which they can enrich the customer experience to make them stand out among their competitors and achieve an advantage. 

• Trend: Increased Automation

Although this trend comes as no surprise, it is still an important one that must be taken note of. Due to the pandemic, most businesses around the world experience staffing shortages that resulted in dire supply chain issues. Businesses had to resort to technology, particularly robotic technology, to cope with this lack of staff. We saw an increased amount of businesses employing technology such as AI-powered chatbots and AI-powered drive-thru voice systems. 

Strategy: To cope with the exceptionally volatile business environment due to the pandemic, organizations must increase the integration of automation within customer-brand interactions so as to avoid any supply chain issues caused by potential staffing shortages. 

• Trend: Integration of the Human Touch with Technology

Although automation has many different advantages, it also comes with a few drawbacks. Organizations have learnt that a lack of human interaction may cause customers to feel like their experience was impersonal and unsatisfying. Businesses are therefore strategizing new ways in which automation can be integrated with a human touch so as to provide more personalised and fulfilling interactions. 

Strategy: Integrate human touch into automated customer-brand interactions to provide customers with a more fulfilling experience.