Customer experience is going through a “trickle down revolution” with respect to expectation. This means that while there may not have been targeted revolutions specifically in the way customers experience certain brands, their expectations have been dramatically changed with the inflow of new and faster technology.
Thanks to the rise of “mobile age” and instant solutions, the world is getting closer and customers too want to feel closer to their brands. It is no longer feasible for a business to expect customer loyalty without doing everything in their power to get their brands closer to their customers.
Here are the defining customer experience and feedback trends that will go beyond this calendar year of 2016:
1.) Customers are more informed and experienced
Your customers are constantly evaluating your product with not just immediate competitors, but much beyond that. They have a much better idea of how much a certain solution should cost them and if it’s worth the price. No longer can a new product set new rules for pricing, experience and marketing with the expectation that consumers will not know enough, no matter how innovative it might be.
For instance, the curved OLED mobile screens completely failed to touch down on customers. While trying to present it as something new, they kept the prices way too high and the end user value way too low. It barely offered any better clarity in terms of viewing The result was the discontinuation of that momentary model and resumption to the previous flat screen mobile displays.
2.) Rise in mobile driven survey data capture
This is a direct trickle-down effect of the mobile revolution. Now that we have more consumers using mobile devices, they all expect digital data to be mobile compatible. This is even more so when businesses expect consumers to “give” information about their experience. Online surveys now need to be mobile-friendly in order to facilitate easier and faster capture of responses from consumers.
3.) More demand for integrated survey analytics
Expectations have also changed on the side of businesses who want to analyse customer experience and feedback on the basis of the data collected. Not so long ago it was almost customary for businesses to hire and recruit data analysts to deliver easily understandable reports and visualizations of the survey data. But with the emergence of DIY surveys, more and more businesses expect integrated analytics packaged with their survey software.
4.) Increase in offline survey data capture
The purview of digital data itself has seen dramatic strides. It would have been acceptable at some point to conduct surveys using pen-and-paper in areas with unstable or no internet and electricity. But now that we have tablets and mobile devices that can last for longer hours, no one really wants to do double work, where they have to digitize the manual information collected using traditional means. Instead, offline data capture mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular among businesses and non-profit organizations who want to get insights about consumer or human behaviour in remote locations.
5.) Targeted advertising based on customer data
Advertising professionals and agencies have enjoyed a near free rein on creativity. Their ideas and final work was not constrained by much except for perhaps nationality, language and industry type. However, with more and more specific information arising out of online surveys and polls, businesses now expect advertisers to develop content that particularly appeals to special groups. For instance, in YouTube Google gives deep insights into the type of users that are online and also gives control over which type of users can see an advertisement, thereby allowing more targeted marketing of products and services.
