2022 Tech Trends: Innovations that’ll Reshape Business in Kenya
KEY POINTS
The global crisis introduced the necessity to innovate, forcing many to rethink how they communicate with their customers and repackage product and service offerings for the new landscape – one that is defined by digital transformation.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- As more businesses engage with their clients in online and remote spaces, there is a need to streamline and improve communication channels.
- Strong customer experience principles, or taking the stance that the customer is always right, cannot come at the expense of employees’ wellbeing.
- With broadening connectivity comes the potential for wide-ranging commercial opportunities and the means to tap previously unreachable consumer pools.
As 2021 comes to a close, many businesses are still responding to technology changes in the business environment brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global crisis introduced the necessity to innovate, forcing many to rethink how they communicate with their customers and repackage product and service offerings for the new landscape – one that is defined by digital transformation.
The numbers illustrate this evolution. According to Statista, 97 percent of respondents to a digital transformation survey stated that the pandemic sped up digital transformation processes in their respective organizations.
Global spending on digital transformation is projected to reach USD 1.78 trillion in 2022. But in what ways will this transformation manifest?
The answer lies in technological trends that will shape the businesses of tomorrow.
- A Single Solution for Omni-Channel Communications
As more businesses engage with their clients in online and remote spaces, there is a need to streamline and improve communication channels.
A result is an omnichannel approach to the Customer Experience (CX), comprised of multiple platforms on which customers can engage with business operators and services.
It’s a process that’s kept as simple as possible, while also being accessible and cost-effective. You see this trend with the likes of Twitter and Instagram that, in addition to being social media products, now offer business-oriented features to facilitate B2C communication.
Similarly, the latest WhatsApp Business platform feature gives brands the opportunity to offer an eCommerce experience within the WhatsApp conversation, thus making online interactions instant, easy, and powerful.
But with so many channels comes the need to effectively and efficiently manage them. Many companies do not have the resources or manpower to handle client conversations across a broad digital landscape.
What’s needed is a single technological solution that has the capacity to manage all communication and serve as an end-to-end portal for the entire customer journey.
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By converging existing technologies, one platform could enable companies to track and collect crucial customer and CX data that can then be used to drive better business decisions and streamline issue solving. This is something businesses should investigate in the coming year.
- Automation and Humanity
Automation has been with us for centuries, but its application in the digital age is something entirely new.
We’re seeing it creep into almost every aspect of our lives, with far-reaching and never-before-seen results.
Take, for instance, at sporting events such as the 2021 Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix, where fans could order tickets, procure refreshments, secure purchases, and get all their questions answered through a chatbot that runs through WhatsApp.
With the help of data reporting and features such a suggested answers, internal collaboration, and skill-based routing, the Dutch Grand Prix could interact with fans efficiently and effectively.
This was made possible by deploying a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to manage event pre-registration data and using marketing cloud