Why customer experience is the new battleground

A Walker study states that by 2020, customer experience is expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. This is even more critical in the digital age where customers expect their companies to interact with them in real time. Today, customers are not satisfied with just a great product or service, they expect a great customer experience to follow.

In India, we have examples of several firms who have looked at their digital transformation journey by placing the customer at the center of their digital strategy. For example, Kotak Mahindra Bank found out that despite more than 70 per cent of customers being active on digital banking channels, a lot of customers were still calling up their customer contact number to seek banking assistance. To make it more simpler and effective for customers, the bank launched WhatsApp Banking. Today, more than 30 services are provided on WhatsApp.

Understanding that selfie clicking is highly popular among India’s youth, Federal Bank used this concept to automate account opening using just a selfie and an Aadhaar and PAN number. The account verifies the customer’s Aadhaar in real time and opens the account at the click of a button.

PNB MetLife Life Insurance Company, uses a virtual reality platform to deliver a differentiated and personalised experience to customers. Customers can wear a VR headset and interact with a virtual agent. The virtual agent not only answers the queries of a customer but also engages with the customer.

Mahindra & Mahindra has built a self-service platform that has been designed to help a customer who is currently in the pre-purchase phase. Besides providing important information about the vehicle, Mahindra also offers hyper-personalised recommendations based on the customer’s actions on the self-service platform. A ‘Talk to Expert’ feature helps customers get answers to their queries in real-time. The company has also enabled a collaborative exploration feature that allows users to invite their friends and collectively customise Mahindra cars.

HDFC Bank is another example of a firm that is constantly using technology to redefine customer experience. It has the ability to process loans in just ten seconds. It does this by using an algorithm which constantly and consistently scans the cash flow patterns of the borrower and matches it with the credit score. As most of the details are available with the bank, it can pre-populate data required in the form, and the loan requested can be sanctioned within ten seconds of filling the form. Another smart innovation is the ‘Missed Call Mobile Recharge’ that allows the bank to tap into a huge base of prepaid mobile customers. Customers of HDFC Bank can recharge their mobile by just giving a missed call on a predefined number, without the need to log onto a website or visit a shop.

To proactively track the performance of its products like air conditioners and chillers, Blue Star uses IoT. Today, thanks to IoT, the firm can not only solve a significant percentage of customer queries proactively, bIout also more importantly, the firm has a huge amount of data that it can use to refine its products under different environmental conditions.

As all the above examples show, it requires companies to place themselves in the shoes of the customer, and think about how they can simplify processes and amplify customer experience using the power of technology!

Srikanth RP
Editor, Express Computer
[email protected]