As we start a brand new year, we expect new trends, updates, and changes that will affect our customer’s behaviors. And since we all know that having a mapped out customer journey is vital to keeping loyal customers and creating new ones, it is essential to know customer journey trends to keep us updated on how to keep our customers and future customers happy. Here are some customer journey trends to watch in 2023.
Increased focus on personalization
In 2023, businesses will be focusing more on creating personalized customer journeys that cater to each customer’s specific needs and preferences. This will involve using data and analytics to gain a deeper understanding of customers and tailoring interactions and experiences accordingly.
There is a greater emphasis on creating emotional connections. Businesses will need to focus on creating emotional connections with their customers to build loyalty and drive repeat business. This may involve things like creating personalized and emotional marketing campaigns, providing exceptional customer service, or offering unique and memorable experiences that customers will want to tell others about.
Greater integration of digital and physical touchpoints:
As customers continue to shift their shopping and purchasing behaviors online, businesses will need to find ways to seamlessly integrate digital and physical touchpoints in order to provide a cohesive and consistent customer journey. This could be using mobile apps to enhance in-store experiences or augmented reality to improve online shopping for example. There are simpler ways to do this such as text messaging immediately after a service to seek feedback or a rating.
Rise in Chatbot usage
Having said that customers are now using online more for their purchases and other purposes, chatbots would be a good use in terms of integrating digital and physical touchpoints. This comment from Sep Niakan explains it well:
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into the commercial world. Many businesses currently employ bots to automate sales and marketing operations, and chatbots are having an even greater impact on the digital consumer experience. AI chatbots allow brands to scale their service on up to 70% of their most commonly asked queries, allowing them to respond and resolve issues faster. For brands that choose to follow this trend, AI for customer experience will be a game-changer.”
Sep Niakan, Managing Broker, Condoblackbook
We’ll be seeing more of chatbots and variations of this type of artificial intelligence as it’s one of the best way to address digital and physical touchpoints in the customer journey.
Don’t forget to stay human!
One thing to remember in this conversation is that ultimately all sales are done through a relationship with your customer, and the best way to create that sale is through authentic human behaviours and interactions. Using AI and digital technology in the customer journey can enhance, expedite and create efficiencies: however there are times when we can’t replace the need for a human. Nor should we want to.
If there’s one thing that we strive for every day here at Journey Point, it’s to be human and bring more authenticity to our businesses and not less.
