All Things Tech – How Businesses Can Innovate to Better Customer Experience

The customer experience (CX), throughout history, has changed a lot, but its importance remains unmatched. Today, much of it is driven by technology and digital services, especially now that companies are shifting their business models to adapt to the new market reality.

What’s intriguing about this, is that it isn’t the companies driving the change, but the customer.

The contemporary customer has some expectations in terms of goods and services relevant to their needs. In their dynamism, they expect these needs to be met regardless of what they are doing, where they are, and in a format and a device of their choosing.

Echo Kenya, a subsidiary of the Global ICT solutions company Echo International, delves into detail how customer experience has changed over the years and why it matters in today’s world.

Through a series of videos dubbed All Things Tech, Echo Kenya aims to help clients seize new opportunities through selection and implementation of the relevant technology, optimize their workforces and other resources in the now-changing world of work.

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The first episode featured Walter Kotze, the Commercial Lead at hi.guru, and Sammy Mutai, Head of Customer Service, Echo Kenya. Hi.guru is a South African business conversation hub linking organizations to their clients.

Here is the first episode of All Things Tech, All Things Business by Echo Kenya.

Echo Kenya believes that every business should want to innovate its customer experience. This will make the business unique and allow it to offer something that competitors can’t.

“Thanks to technology, businesses have moved to a space where they can rapidly understand what it is that the customer needs and how they can be assisted as well as gauge their level of satisfaction,” says Walter.

He also adds that convenience has become a massive factor in customer experience and managing it can be done effectively by understanding the consumer needs, and meeting them, whether it is in terms of speed or responsiveness.

Luckily, prioritizing customer needs is already at the center of many organizations’ strategies.

To keep up with this new kind of “always-connected” customer, businesses must embrace technology to deliver an unparalleled customer experience.

“Today, it is not about what product you are selling but more of the experience you are giving […] The current business environment is no longer a product economy but an experience economy, and when businesses finally get to the point of understanding that aspect of the experience, that will be the only way the consumer obligations will be met,” says Mutai.

Because of the opportunities that arise from using modern technology, customers often rate organizations on their digital customer experience first. This has called customer experience innovation, something that calls for adding more value to the consumer’s relationship with the business.

There are many ways to innovating customer experience, but above all, efforts should generally foster a stronger connection with the customer base by offering products, rewards, and services that competitors can’t.

“There is no one fit that cut through everything. Every business must come up with a customer journey utilizing different available touchpoints within their business to ensure that the strategy works,” says Mr. Mutai.

Kotze adds that innovating a product with the customer in mind. He argues that understanding consumer behavior and how your product will give customers what they want should take the central stage.

Among the many innovations businesses can adopt, it is worth remembering that speed is crucial when it comes to customer service and having plenty of channels for people to communicate with you makes it easier for them to obtain information quickly. And the better your support is, the better their overall experience will be.

Of course, adding a chatbot is one way of easily reaching out to the consumer, but their overreliance could make a business lose the human interaction they deserve. Still, chatbots create a balanced support system that appeals to both customers who are in a hurry and those who are looking for a more detailed explanation from your support team.

There is more to what customer experience means in business today, and with digital technology transforming their habits, maintaining a customer-first strategy should be the aim of every business.

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This can easily be done by ensuring that the management keeps the customer experience at the forefront of their decision-making. Regardless of what the executive is considering, they need to think about how each change will impact the customer’s perspective of your brand.

To learn more about how customer experience is evolving and how businesses can match their strategies to meet their needs, watch the above-embedded video of All Things Tech, All Things Business by Echo Kenya.