Technologies and products are constantly evolving, and so are customers’ expectations. What may have worked a few years ago may no longer be sufficient to deliver positive digital customer experiences in today’s world. This is why new digital customer experience trends emerge every year to improve and upgrade the digital landscape for customers.
In 2024, there are many exciting new technologies entering the market. The rise of VR, AI, and video content is making a significant impact on this year’s digital customer experience trends.
Let’s take a closer look at the top current trends and what to expect in terms of digital customer experience.
Top 7 Digital Customer Experience Trends of 2024
- Omnichannel Customer Experience
- The Rise of AI
- Voice and Conversational Interfaces
- Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Integration
- Real-time Customer Support
- Interactive and Shoppable Video Content
- Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
1. Omnichannel Customer Experience
Omnichannel customer experience implies that customers have a seamless and consistent interaction with the brand across multiple touchpoints. In order to master omnichannel CX your products need to deliver unified experiences, no matter where customers interact with them. In the world of digital customer experience, these channels could be websites, apps, social media, etc.
The key to ensuring a good omnichannel DCX is data synchronization and real-time analytics. They will help to provide a smooth user journey, integrate everything seamlessly, and make sure that each different channel perfectly complements the other.
Example:
Let’s take an online bookstore as an example of omnichannel customer experience. Imagine you’re browsing their website looking for your next read. You’ve found a couple of books by your favorite author that could potentially be a great choice. But you don’t have time to read all their descriptions now, you’re going to be late to work. So you just add them to the cart and head to work.
Later, while commuting, you open their mobile app and go to the cart. You see all the books you’ve saved earlier and you finally have time to choose the one you’re going to buy next.
This wouldn’t be possible without a unified omnichannel experience. The bookstore website was integrated with the app and had the same design, thanks to which you were able to successfully find your saved books!
2. The Rise of AI
AI took the world by storm and customer experience is not an exception. It’s completely transforming the way businesses interact with and understand their customers and it would be a shame to not use its power!
Through machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing, AI can enhance personalization, automate processes, and provide insights from large sets of data. Many UX and CX specialists already integrated AI into their processes by using it to automate feedback collection, help with UX research, and streamline data analysis.
AI is also quickly integrating into the world of customer support, giving brands an opportunity to use chatbots and make providing real-time support easier than ever! It helps to answer common questions quickly without the next for a professional customer service representative to be around.
Example:
A great example of how AI enhances digital customer experiences is their use in music streaming services. Companies use AI to analyze listening patterns, habits, and preferences of their users and build personalized playlists with music recommendations based on them.
3. Voice and Conversational Interfaces
Voice-activated devices and voice assistants like Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa, or Apple’s Siri are becoming more and more common and users often use them for searches online. Such technologies allow brands to engage users in a more conversational and familiar manner.
Utilizing this trend businesses can easily design a more intuitive interaction for their customers. Instead of users navigating through multiple screens or typing out long search queries, they can simply voice their requests, fostering a more efficient and frictionless experience.
Moreover, voice-activated interfaces, when integrated correctly, can anticipate user needs and provide personalized suggestions based on past interactions. For brands, this means an opportunity to deepen customer relationships, understand spoken nuances in queries, and present solutions or products in real time, mirroring the natural flow of human conversation.
Example:
Here’s a simple example of how this trend can enhance customer experience.
A leading home appliance company developed an application for a smart speaker that helps to easily find and follow cooking recipes. Users can ask the application for recipe suggestions, step-by-step guidance, or even the ideal oven settings without having to touch their phone once.
Imagine how helpful this could be for baking, for example! No more flour all over the phone every time you want to check the next step in making your delicious brownies!
4. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Integration
AR and VR are the next hot trend that already allows some companies to blend the virtual and real world. Using mobile devices and VR headsets users are able to bring a piece of a virtual world right into reality!
That’s an exceptional opportunity for changing the customer experience game as it will drastically change the way we buy things online. E-commerce stores are already implementing augmented reality in their interfaces and functionality, allowing users to get a real feel of the product even when buying from home.
Example:
A furniture retailer can create an AR app that allows customers to visualize how a piece of furniture would look in their own living space. On the other hand, a travel agency might use VR to get a sneak peek of the customer’s travel destination, allowing them to explore before booking.
5. Real-time Customer Support
High-quality customer support is one of the pillars of a positive digital customer experience. By being quick, responsive, and caring with customers’ inquiries you build better relationships, improve your reputation as a brand, and get an opportunity to upgrade your product by acting on customer feedback.
But how can you make customer support even more efficient? The answer is simple. By providing it in real-time and always being available to help.
This can be achieved by maximizing automation and setting up an AI chatbot in your website or app. Chatbots will help to resolve common inquiries and answer frequent questions right when users ask them. And if users are asking for something more complex, AI will just quickly direct them to a customer service representative.
Example:
An online tech store can implement an AI chatbot popup window on their website in order to help visitors with questions about their products, explain the differences between the models of certain devices, and provide product recommendations and information about warranty and shipping.
6. Interactive and Shoppable Video Content
Video content is evolving to the point that you can now engage with it directly and buy directly from the video interface. As you watch a video you can tap directly on the specific elements and be redirected to the product page! This is a quick and easy way to buy, without having to look for the product on the company’s website.
This new feature can help to greatly increase conversion rates, engage the customers better, and make their whole experience much more interactive. It also allows them to showcase products in their environment, for example, a piece of clothing directly on a model, or a couch in the living room interior.
Example:
A beauty brand can create tutorial videos where viewers can click on products used in the video to purchase them instantly. Hovering over the product might show its price, description, and a “Buy Now” button that will redirect a viewer to the product page.
7. Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
Predictive analytics is a new and effective way to analyze data and organize it into meaningful insights that enable predicting future trends and behaviors. Prescriptive analytics goes a step further by recommending specific actions to achieve desired outcomes. It is based on analyzing the history of customer’s behavior with your product, their previous purchases, etc.
By effectively leveraging the power of predictive analytics you’re able to provide a more personalized digital customer experience. This can include unique product recommendations, bundle deals tailored to that customer’s specific needs, and other strategies.
Example:
An online grocery store that a customer uses every day can use predictive analytics to determine which products they are likely to buy next based on their purchase history. Using prescriptive analytics, the platform can then offer tailored promotions or bundle deals to encourage that predicted purchase.
Ready to implement these digital CX trends on your website?
Digital customer experience is constantly evolving so it’s important now, more than ever, to stay on top of emerging trends! We hope that these 7 tips gave you a good overview of what’s going on in the CX industry at the moment and inspired you to take action!
The next step to take on the journey of improving your digital customer experience is creating an account at UXtweak.
Register for your UXtweak account, get to know your customers, collect their feedback, and optimize your digital customer experience!
