What Will the Customer Experience Be Like in 2020 and Beyond?

March 31, 2017 – Guest blogger, Susan Finch, has once more provided readers with a posting for your reading enjoyment. Susan likes to write about small businesses finding an online voice through content marketing, blogging, and social media. She and her family love to travel and she uses these trips to help her in authoring guidebooks, and articles. You can reach her website at BySusanFinch.com. 

According to a recent study by Gartner, Inc., smart agents will facilitate 40% of mobile interactions and usher in a post-app era by 2020. Virtual personal assistants and agents will analyze available data and consumer behavior to predict what you will need.

Do customers want artificially-driven engagement? The trends all point to a resounding “yes.” Consumers increasingly want omnichannel service experiences that allow them to pick up and continue a customer service interaction from social media and chat, to text and talk, without missing a beat. In order to meet this consumer demand, technology is continuing to develop more personalized interactive experiences.

The Gartner study doesn’t make any customer service predictions beyond 2020, but it is easy to see that industry will focus on three key ingredients to make the interactive experience ubiquitous:

• Self-service
• The Internet of Things
• The Interactive Experience

Self-Service

Today’s consumers already use self-service options. They withdraw money from ATMs, use automated checkouts at grocery stores, and go online to get support questions answered. According to Fast Company, an American technology and business magazine, 70% of consumers expect company’s websites to include self-service where they can shop by browsing through product displays and get instant help without waiting around for a reply.

Tools like interactive voice response are enhancing the online experience. Aspect’s IVR solutions using advanced speech recognition can gather customer information and match it with data from customer relationship management tools. Once the information and data get collected, the technology is capable of delivering a highly personalized service.

The Internet of Things

Reuters, the newswire service reports that Europe’s biggest software firm, SAP, and German car parts maker, Robert Bosch, have teamed up to connect products, ranging from screwdrivers to cars, directly to the Internet. The partnership plans to harness a real-time database for Bosch customers to monitor the production process of orders and request customizations.

After customizing their order, customers will also use online self-service tools to reorder products or track shipments and delivery. Meanwhile, there are already services on the market to help companies reorder supplies or report technical issues. For example, a new connected Brita smart pitcher can reorder its own filters from Amazon without any human involvement.

The Interactive Experience

Self-service and the Internet of Things open a door to highly personalized, interactive experiences. Recently Bloomingdale’s Manhattan flagship store created an app that lets customers shop through an interactive window display. Customers stop, preview, and tap on the window. The interactive display allows them to place and customize orders without even entering the store.

And customers looking for an interactive fitting room experience to “blow your mind,” can step into Ralph Lauren’s flagship store in New York City where they can try on items, and browse through store inventory using the fitting room’s interactive mirror. Using the interactive display will summon a sales associate to complete the customer experience.

Regardless of how hyper-connectivity changes consumer behavior, customers will always demand quality and reliable customer service. Today’s companies are racing to leverage technology to create instant service and answers, while still producing a quality interactive customer experience. Will it dehumanize shopping, or will it enhance it? The jury is still out.