Keeping up with the latest immersive CX trends will be crucial to business success in the years ahead. Over the last couple of years, rapid digital transformation combined with various macroeconomic and social challenges have given rise to a new breed of customer.
Today’s consumers are more informed, more “digitally native,” and more demanding of exceptional, consistent, and “fluid” experiences. Their loyalty to companies is also far more fragile, with up to 80% of consumers saying they’d switch brands after just one poor experience.
Immersive CX strategies offer companies a way to deepen relationships with consumers, enhance the customer journey, and differentiate themselves from the competition. Today, we’re looking at the critical immersive CX trends worth watching if you want to stay on the cutting edge of customer experience.
1. Extended Reality Enters the Contact Center
For some time, companies have discovered the benefits of “extended reality” tools and the metaverse for various use cases. Virtual, mixed, and augmented reality solutions can drive creative collaboration between teams, boost product development, and enhance productivity.
They also power some of the most significant immersive CX trends influencing contact centers and their customers today. With extended reality technology, companies can train team members in immersive simulations, helping them develop sales skills and emotional intelligence.
Plus, companies can use extended reality to add new channels to the contact center experience. Agents can connect directly with customers in virtual reality environments instead of onboarding new customers with video and audio channels. Engineers can deliver remote support to customers through AR applications. There’s even the option to build entire shopping experiences in the metaverse.
Embracing XR and the metaverse could allow companies to engage their customers, increase sales, and improve the onboarding journey more effectively.
2. Evolving AI Powers Immersive CX Trends
A true “immersive CX” experience goes beyond serving customers on various channels, including metaverse-style environments and within XR apps. It also means leveraging tools that give customers a more fluid, convenient, and conversational experience wherever they interact with your brand. AI is one of the core tools enabling this transformation.
Artificial intelligence tools don’t just give companies the insights they need to map the customer journey or derive insights from conversations. They also empower businesses to provide customers with “immersive” self-service experiences on various channels. Generative AI bots and tools can now interact with customers in a conversational manner through voice and chat.
They can deliver personalized experiences through integrations with your business data and CRM and even assist clients in completing various tasks. Plus, generative AI tools will help companies build the virtual avatars, metaverse environments, and extended reality experiences required for a more futuristic level of immersion.
3. Hyper-personalization becomes the Norm
For a while, customers have shown an increased demand for “personalization” in the customer experience. Modern consumers want every aspect of their experience tailored to their needs. This means they want to not only communicate with you on the channels they prefer but also want you to understand their needs, goals, and pain points on a deeper level.
Immersive CX trends like the rise of sophisticated artificial intelligence and XR technologies should help companies meet these changing expectations. AI tools can make it easier to map customer journeys and detect their sentiment through every stage of the purchasing process. Plus, they can provide comprehensive training and coaching to team members.
Similarly, XR solutions will allow companies to build unique onboarding experiences for each customer, which adapt to their specific needs. There’s even the opportunity to work with businesses to develop digital twins for demos and training in the B2B world.
4. Immersive CX Trends Reshape Omnichannel
Omnichannel engagement isn’t a new concept for most contact center leads. Consumers have been embracing a wider range of channels and platforms to interact with their favorite brands for years. Countless organizations have attempted to adapt to changing preferences by introducing new communication methods like chat, messaging, and even video.
However, fewer than a third of contact centers today are genuinely omnichannel. Many companies are still relying on poorly constructed collections of tools to serve their customers, with no back-end integration between the platforms. This makes it harder to preserve context and data as customers move from one channel to another.
A proper omnichannel solution will be crucial to delivering a genuinely “immersive” experience. Aligning your systems and teams will mean you can provide customers with a more “fluid” interaction, which doesn’t require them to repeat themselves to different service reps constantly.
5. Data Security Will Be Crucial
Finally, one of the biggest immersive CX trends worth watching in 2024 will revolve around an updated approach to privacy, security, and compliance in the new age of customer service. Integrating new tools and platforms, from metaverse environments to generative AI bots, will create unknown business risks.
When traversing the metaverse, companies must carefully consider protecting their data, employees, and customers. They’ll need a comprehensive strategy for collecting and recording interactions across new channels, from AR apps to video conferencing tools.
Additionally, business leaders must ensure the generative AI tools and systems they use don’t hurt their data compliance strategies. To avoid losing the trust of their customers, every business will need to upgrade its approach to monitoring, collecting, and preserving data in the immersive world.
Looking to the Future of Immersive CX Trends
As the customer journey continues to evolve, businesses will need to adapt. Embracing the immersive CX trends mentioned above will allow companies to differentiate themselves from competitors. Plus, it should pave the way to greater customer loyalty and retention.
However, it’s important to remember that the future of immersive customer experience will also have its fair share of challenges. Make sure you’re prepared to implement new technologies and strategies to protect your customers, employees, and reputation.
