In service industry, customer experience is now more important theme than ever before, and it keep developing constantly. Feefo’s article tells about customer experience trends 2021. How are those trends changed and developed after year 2020? Where are trends going in this age of pandemic?
I choose this article, because this theme really interests me and I am working with customers every day. And of course this subject is also relevant for my studies, because it is important to notice, where are we going in this industry.
Article says that customer expectations has been changed from ”what customer want” to ”what customer absolutely need”. During Covid-19 companies really has to compete for their customers. It is clients’ market today, and that is why the companies has to stand out from all others. Customers want to be heard and services need to be more personalised. And that is why companies has to customize their services and make those more personal.
Key messages
There was some strong trends which came up from the text.
- Transform and digitalism. There has been great acceleration in innovation, both in business and science (CX trends 2021). Companies has to figure out new ways to develope their customer service. Digital customer services are developed and videos get more value, because those gives customers information about company, no matter where the customers are. Chatbots helps with customer service in web, so clients are able to get service quickly, dependless of time.
- Safety and trust. During Covid-19, people might value safety more than ever before. Safety can mean a good level of hygiene during the time of pandemic, or trust that you can feel safe and get true information in your own language. I go along with a thought that customers really appreciates that they can feel safe for example during their journey. Also authenticity has increased its value. Nowadays there is so many fake news and scams, that customers really wants to get authentic services.
- Sustainability. Sustainability and responsibility have been real megatrends already years. So it was also in 2021. Nowadays more and more consumers are aware of making sustainable choices, and that means they are pushing companies to act more responsibly.
- Hyper-personalisation. In the article, Robert Beadle tells about term “hyper-personalisation”, which means that businesses can use their data to personalise and improve the experience of their clients. This creates more long-term value for their products and services.That was one of biggest trends in 2021, and in a very good reason, in my opinion.
In 2021 was travel industry focused on increasing customer confidence, while retail had to create new standards. So there was differences between industries (CX trends 2021).
My learning
My opinion is that digitalism was the main theme which really came up in this article. It says that digital services and mobile apps has to develope constantly. And that is true; people are using their laptops and phones now more than ever. Article tells that more than 40% UK consumers were purchasing more online than they did in 2019. Working life has changed, and people will make travel reservations even in very short-term. And that is why clients wants to get their affairs to be done quickly.
Ian Golding says that companies really has to be aware how should technology can be used (CX trends 2021). I really agree with him, because digitalism and technology allows companies to serve their customers better than ever before.
As we have seen during Covid-19, customer service need to be agile and adaptable. Situations are changing very quickly and no one of us know what is it going to happen next. That can be a bit frightening, but also very interesting to figure out how can we create succeed customer experiences in these changing situations.
References
Feefo. Customer experience trends 2021.