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73% of consumers rank customer experience as a highly important factor when they make purchases — and only price and product quality rank higher.
It's no secret that customer experience (CX) is becoming more and more important for building meaningful and lasting relationships with customers. In fact, it has become the top priority for technology spending in 2023.
So what are the top customer experience trends in 2023? We'll break them down in this article.
Keep reading to learn more.
Automated Chat Will Become Even More Mainstream
By 2023, automation is hardly a new concept. Over the past few years, customers and businesses have become used to it in customer support. In 2022, 23% of customer service companies are utilizing AI chatbots.
Customers of any digital business are expecting faster responses to their service issues and queries — usually even faster than your customer service reps can deliver.
In the next year, you can expect more and more brands to embrace the concept of using AI chatbots to interact with their customers so that their needs can be met quickly.
Automating this support not only makes customers happier by giving them service quickly, but it significantly eases the burden on customer service reps and businesses as a whole.
If your business hasn't begun the migration to automated support, it's time to explore it now.
Increasingly Proactive Customer Service
As the world continues to move at a faster pace, customers are expecting faster service. This is no different for customer service. When they reach out to a business, they usually have something that they need taken care of.
Moving forward, customers will expect businesses to reach out even before such issues arise. They will want brands to reach out to them proactively to:
- See if they are having any issues
- Inform them of the latest deals
- Get feedback from customers
This proactive, personalized customer service can take many different forms, including:
- WhatsApp message
- Social media message
- Automated chats
The best way to tackle this will be with AI-powered chatbots. New technology in AI will allow them to predict customer behavior and problems and offer the right solutions accordingly.
Salesforce says that proactive customer support technology will be so important, that up to 50% of customers could switch brands if businesses aren't anticipating their needs.
Personalization Is No Longer An Option
Personalization in customer support has skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years. In 2023, it will no longer be an option — it will be the new normal.
Although customers love quick support from chatbots, they'll expect personalization at some level. This can include product recommendations based on past shopping experiences, automated checkout experiences, and more.
AI-powered chatbots will be a big part of this. They can understand questions coming from customers, analyze emotions, and tell them what they want (and need) to hear.
Authenticity and Transparency
Brands and businesses will focus on authenticity in 2023 because they know that the most valuable customer experience comes from trust. This means that they will provide transparent, honest answers to important questions on the customer journey. They won't just be saying what people want to hear — they'll be sticking to their values.
Being able to integrate authenticity into a business's customer experience means being able to show its human qualities. There are several ways a brand can do this.
It can be a simple admission that their customer service makes mistakes while fixing issues quickly. This can mean having a transparent report on how customer data security is handled. This should be easy to find and easy to read.
If a business is mostly driven by technology (think Netflix or Playstation), it can provide an authentic CX by clearly explaining how the technology is used. If algorithms are used by a business, being open to how they work and letting customers know how important it is will be key.
Authenticity and transparency aren't new concepts but look to them becoming increasingly important in 2023.
Immersive Experiences and the Metaverse
The metaverse took the world by storm over the past year and predictably quieted down near the end of 2022. However, nobody knows exactly what the future holds for this revolutionary technology.
Many businesses are already using basic concepts of the metaverse to connect with their audience in new innovative ways.
Brands like Spotify, Gucci, and Clarks have already publically staked their claim in popular platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. Other platforms like Meta Horizons, The Sandbox, and Decentraland are making waves as well.
Although the technology behind the metaverse might be hard to understand, the CX concept is much easier: build immersive experiences to create better relationships with customers.
By using new, memorable, and experiential moments for people on customer journeys, they can stay top of mind online. But it even applies to offline experiences as well.
For example, brands will try to make real-life experiences that people will want to share with their friends and family. For people who can't be there in person, virtual tours can be provided.
Related Article: Video Conversational AI: The Frist Step Towards the Metaverse
Further Data Protection Extending Into the Metaverse
As more and more customer data is being used by businesses to create better experiences for their customers, there is always a need for more data protection as well.
With an entirely new "universe" being built and utilized, both hardware and software solutions will be quickly built to translate offerings into versions that will work in virtual spaces. This will bring monumental changes to how we experience things and sell them.
Expect to see a growth in spatial data. This includes things like a person's movement style and appearance. Companies will need to find new and innovative ways to protect these innovative data assets.
Outside of the metaverse, customer data protection will be just as important as ever. With more data being acquired than ever, businesses will need to make honesty the number one policy. Just a single breach in data or trust can make customers disappear forever.
Always ask for consent to share data and make sure you address their concerns upfront. Data protection will be crucial to prevent people's personal data from being sold and distributed illegally.
Improved Self-Service
Customers love being able to solve issues on their own. A whopping 81% of consumers say they want more self-service options on their customer journeys.
Giving customers more options to fix issues on their own will be even more popular in 2023. This can start with automating support with chatbots.
For example, if someone has a simple question, an AI bot can lead them directly to helpful articles or FAQs. If the customer still can't find the answer to the problem, they can be led to a human agent as a last resort option.
Allowing customers to fix issues on their own will improve customer satisfaction. It will also boost the efficiency of agents while allowing them to collect better customer insights along the way.
Expansion of Omnichannel Services
Last year, omnichannel services became increasingly important. In 2023, it is absolutely crucial to make sure your omnichannel support is ready.
Today, customers have access to every communication channel available. If your business is on more than one channel, you need to look for professional omnichannel support. This means connecting all of the channels into one, centralized platform so that your customer support team can manage queries from one place.
Customers expect customer service to already know and understand the problems they've been dealing with, even if they have been communicating on a completely different platform. They don't want to repeat themselves over and over again.
Not only do they want their conversations to cross over on platforms, but they expect a consistent look and feel on every platform that they reach your business at. This includes your:
- Brick-and-mortar store
- Website
- Social feeds
- App
- Chatbots
If it's not consistent, eyebrows will raise.
This isn't just helpful for customers. It's more efficient for your company if your channels all connect from a single hub. This can in turn lead to huge savings for your business. It is a great strategy for improving customer support.
Get a Headstart on Customer Experience Trends in 2023
Now that you have a general idea of the customer experience trends that are coming in 2023, it's time to start preparing your business for what's to come.
Whether it's adding new conscious options to your CX, adding automated chatbots, providing personalized customer service, or allowing your customers to fix issues on their own, Aivo understands what you need.
Aivo's Conversational AI-powered suite can help connect your tech stack by understanding natural conversations from your customers so that they get exactly what they're looking for.
Book a demo today!
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