Until recently the secret of commercial success on the Internet seemed to be related to the quality of the product and service, although quality is a facilitator of success, it is not the big secret that makes business achieve success, right now the secret is the former (CX) period.
Today, the consumer experience has become so important for companies that those that do not take care of it can suffer the mass abandonment of their customers.
Companies vying for consumer attention and loyalty can not only focus on offering unique products, but must take care of their customers as if they were unique. An example of how these CX strategies work is that raised by multinationals like Amazon, which is so customer-centric that they will literally send a replacement for a lost package immediately without blaming the customer at any time.
“Those companies that implement a customer experience strategy increase the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty by 60%.”
José María Machuca, director of the Customer Experience Management Area of WAM (We Are Marketing) and director of the Customer Experience IE Club, points out.
Among the best experienced customers only the 3% is willing to change company versus 46% of those with the worst experience.
Trends to improve the CX
Talking about digitization means talking about innovation and disruption. Motivating customers through reward programs or encouraging communication through mobile apps will be some of the actions that will be taken to improve the experience, however, they are not the only ones, technologically the appearance of certain elements or devices is critical to improving customer-business interaction.
To achieve that level of success, it is essential that companies invest in technologies that offer personalized services to customers and also enable companies to better serve how, when and where these customers choose to participate. In addition, it’s important to recognize individual consumers for who they are and how they want to interact.
A perfect example of how to carry out this investment is the success obtained by the Brazilian company Wavy which offers messaging and customer service services for Mexican companies. Through its Chatclub platform, companies can schedule SMS and chats using bots and improving communication with their customers. Thanks to this social communication tool they have helped more than 400 companies achieve more than 100 million active users.
Biometrics and smartphones
Although there are many technologies that improve the CX, this year’s biometry stands out, since, throughout 2019, it will look like companies will start leveraging smartphone biometrics to speed up interactions with consumers. When combined with artificial intelligence (AI), biometrics allows agents to access an immediate context about where a user is on the customer service journey through instant verification of information.
This includes general identification information, such as date of birth, full name, reward numbers, frequently used payment options, etc. Cutting the chase to get this data eliminates the need for numerous security interactions between q&A, resulting in faster transactions and happier customers.
According to the latest studies, nearly half (48%) consumers would like organizations to use AI to improve their products and services, and 71 would like to use voice analysis or biometric data as a means of secure authentication.
Following these requests HSBC Uruguay is implementing the Selphi and SelphID products of the Spanish company FacePhi so that customers of the banks can authenticate their identity and access their accounts through mobile and the web with just a selfie. Thanks to this new agreement, FacePhi is expected to reach 6 million users and perform more than 500 million authentications through its biometric systems.
Call centers can use this technology similarly when making a customer service consultation to, for example, cancel a credit card or report an order issue, eliminating the hassle of repeating personal information aloud.
There are different uses of biometrics, for example, eye tracking helps you see what people are actually looking at, and for how long, as a means to measure attention. Online marketers can use eye tracking to understand people’s reactions to the different colors of banner ads, as a means to select a color that appeals more effectively and delivers a more enjoyable experience.
Another of the most commonly used uses for this technology is that of payments, at the moment 53% consumers say they would rely on the use of their fingerprints to authenticate payments ahead of the traditional PIN.
Recently, CaixaBank has put into operation the first ATM that allows to get money out through facial recognition, without the need to enter the PIN. To do this, the cashier is equipped with biometric technology which, validates up to 16,000 points of the image of the person’s face, which guarantees a totally secure identification with a virtually non-existent margin of error.
Within the financial area, Caixabank has not been the only one to implement this technology, as other banks and card issuers are largely exploring the adoption of fingerprint recognition for contactless card payments instead of numbers Pin. Last year, Italian bank Intesa San Paolo and Mastercard announced a 16-week biometric card pilot covering users in Turin, Milan and Rome. The pilot features Fingerprints AB’s ultra-low power biometric fingerprint sensor from Sweden-based Prints AB.
By employing biometric verification in customer service centers, they can expect to receive a more efficient and personalized service, while agents will have an optimized workload. Companies that can leverage customer service centers with these capabilities will have a lot to gain in terms of customer satisfaction and retention, as every experience is important, and a bad one can have much more weight than a positive one.
The benefits are incalculable for many areas, which is why banks, telecommunications companies and the world’s largest retailers prevent fraud and improve the customer experience through intelligence-based biometric technology which, despite its high price, can offer a return on investment well above 300%.
On the other hand, these benefits do not fall only to companies, since among users the main advantages that stand out are the sense of security it provides (66%), comfort (19%) and speed of operation (15%).
Conclusions
In this digital age, where if a customer has a bad experience, all their contacts on social networks could discover it very quickly, a bad review can be the end of a company.
It can take more than 30 years to build a brand and only a handful of bad customer experiences to destroy it; a company is as good as its customer service, and you have to remember that the customer is always right.
With the ability to fully understand customer behavior, brands are best placed to apply AI-based technologies to their strategy to improve the consumer experience.
In a short time, most companies are expected to harness the power of AI to deliver better experiences to their customers, all with lower costs, lower risks and higher revenues.
Therefore, brands should pay attention to technological advances within the AI landscape and plan ahead for the implementation of new tools and systems, such as biometrics that delivers the return of 300% of invested capital.
What can be recognized as “amazing” today will be a common place in the near future, so it is important that diverse businesses remain relevant in the market of technologies that improve the customer experience, as is the case with biometrics.
