Last two years have been a time of reckoning for organisations in India. From a dull period after demonetisation, GST implementation along with newer challenges spurring in each and every sector, 2018 saw growth enhancing for the organisations to cheer. This is also creating a momentum for customer experience management where organisations have been working to find out what does it mean for their individual journeys when they have customers with more expectations, shorter attention spans who are intrinsically connected all the time and thus communicating more about their experiences.

In this blog, we are summarising some of the Trends for organisations in India which we have accrued over the year while working & interacting with some of the Customer Experience (CX) experts in leading organisations including Start-ups in India. This blog also is summarising the takeaways from a small study entitled “Customer Experience Trends and Practices for 2018” under whose aegis we also shared some insights on our social media pages(https://www.linkedin.com/company/pink-guava-consulting-services/) on trends/practices that have worked for customer experience management in India.

We found that for most of the organisations in India,

Digital Experience is creating more engagement

Digital Experience doesn’t mean only an interactive website but an omni-channel presence along with processes, systems that enhances Customer Experience through personalised offerings with easy availability and thus reduced effort. Typically, a customer approaches many sources including offline channels before deciding “when and how to buy”. Thus, digital experiences enhance customer engagement through greater communication, personalised value additions and reach. More so, having more customers, serving them and getting feedback are becoming easier through a digital engagement.

 Precisely, customer is not changing and it’s time of convergence where online is meeting offline and offline is meeting online. Customers demand products across omni-channel and organisations are creating differentiation through relevant products/services and communication which is relevant, real time and is accessible through the channel of their choice. Even for Build vs Buy Decision to implement CX improvement programs in organisations, client perspective is taken into consideration while creating an understanding of solution in offer. Putting an unbiased view of off the shelf product has to offer vs an in-house solution is helping drive organisations towards an informed decision.

Customer Engagement through Organisation Purpose

Organisation Purpose can be defined as the unique reason on why an organisation is working and will establish how it can further grow in its journey to add value to its customers. Customer Engagement through Organisation Purpose is done through aligning the organisational resources, policies, processes around customers to create value.

Thus, putting a process in place and then measuring performance to create business results is differentiating CX leaders from laggards.

 You will agree that more competition, social media and economy are aiding the customer awareness. To add to this, greater competition and technological changes like AI is making the whole industry change across sectors and thus customer engagement through organisational purpose is creating an Experience that differentiates. It creates relevance and trust which is important to understand and deliver value as per the customer expectations.

For instance, in E-commerce business models customers seek- Ease, Relevance and Trust for the transactions and the commerce they are having. And the organisational purpose around it can enhance experience.

Using AI for predictive analysis and personalisation of journeys

AI supports to collect information on customer behaviour and predict future actions to create personalised journeys which understands and reduces customer cognitive load and effort. In India, we found that Inclination towards AI functionality and engagement tools is also too enhance personalised journeys along with offering of cross promotion that is not driven by discounts or offer. AI is supporting to create functionality that engage and capture data in non intrusive way to offer value to the customer.

 AI is definitely easing experiences through simplification of processes, pre-empting needs but a customer do needs human element when he/she hits a wall. Customer Experience is a major differentiation and not customer service through AI.

 Digital Experience, Customer Engagement through Organisation Purpose and Using AI for predictive analysis and personalisation of journeys has seen lots of work in organisations and will also create a major differentiation that will drive growth to yield business results in the coming year of 2019 as well.

You can be a Start-up, a working and growing enterprise, a manufacturing or an ecommerce organisation, to engage more with your customers in the coming year 2019 we suggest you to have a

• Create/Improve stellar customer experience through customer experience transformation program (More details at : https://www.pinkguava.org/blogs-1/eatzmzscl7e7d3ml92afw99ryrh6x2)

• Lower the costs and enhance engagement by reducing customer confusion or Customer efforts. The effort can be physical, time effort (time to customer) or the cognitive effort ( easing the complexity to do things)

• Customer loyalty through memorable customer interactions which creates trust and efficiency. Dealing with customers from the place of honesty and helping them meet their needs does lead to an engaging and happy customer.

• Building agile and flexible teams while learning from the mistakes of self and others.