Customer Experience Trends for 2021
Predicting the future isn’t easy, but with consumers flocking to online stores during the global pandemic, it’s clear that customer experience is going to be a key competitive differentiator among customers as we move forward into 2021.
Now that 62% of U.S shoppers say they shop more online now than they did before the pandemic, enterprises need to make sure they deliver a compelling online experience to stand out among the competition.
See this infographic to learn more about the importance of customer experience in retail >
For CX leaders, that means that 2021 will be a year of consolidation, an opportunity to take stock of the changes that took place over the past 12 months, and to evaluate how to use media assets to provide an engaging digital experience for customers.
There are five main trends we’ll see companies embrace during 2021:
- Execute the basics better
- Use more rich media
- Dig into the archives
- Increase the use of 3D
- Say hello!
CX Trend #1: Execute the Basics Better
Companies are beginning to realize that the digital experience is the prime interface between them and their customers and are beginning to take a more holistic approach toward enhancing the customer experience.
In practice, that means optimizing every interaction a company has with a customer in the customer journey. Over the next 12 months, we can expect that CX leads will start to focus more on connecting product, customer, and account data together as part of one system to ensure that product information and creative assets flow freely.
Read this brief about “How Cloud-Based Collaboration Powers Creative Solutions” >
The popularity of platforms like TikTok and YouTube has shown that video drives more engagement than any other type of content. As more companies recognize that consumers are hungry for video content, they will start to develop a rich media environment where they can display product information alongside rich images on brand websites and apps.
At the same time, forward-thinking brands will start to focus on building a complete omnichannel interaction to engage customers wherever they interact with a brand, ensuring that the delivery of rich media assets is consistent across all channels.
Read our guide about omnichannel best practices >
CX Trend #3: Digging into the Archives
With social distancing restrictions still ongoing, many companies have been unable to complete photoshoots and promotional materials for new products, forcing marketers to find new ways to use old archive materials or to create content from home.
As a consequence, many companies are starting to experiment with solutions like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to find old content to repurpose. AI and ML are popular because they’re cost-efficient tools and provide companies with a way to tag and catalog large archives of rich media content at scale.
Think repurposed footage is boring? Have a look at Wieden + Kennedy Portland’s stunning new Nike commercial, stitched together completely from archival video.
Read our guide about Artificial Intelligence & Digital Asset Management >
CX Trend #4: Increase Use of 3D
With consumers unable to spend much time in-store, many brands are looking to use 3D content to recreate the traditional high street experience. Some of the 3D content marketers are using to create an immersive online experience include 360-item views, virtual promotional boxes, virtual tours, and augmented reality apps.
The main value of 3D content is its ability to give customers a better view of the product as if they able to touch it in person. While it’s not possible to fully recreate the experience of inspecting an item in-store, it provides an accurate recreation to give the customer a general feel for the product.
CX Trend #5: Say Hello!
With 20% of mobile queries completed via voice search, many companies have recognized that audio is slowly becoming the new user interface and developing an audio content strategy to cater to voice-first consumers.
As more customers use voice interfaces to start the customer journey, CX leaders will need to ensure they can store and access the right metadata to kickstart conversations with their content as audio interfaces become more popular.
The Nuxeo DAM Approach
Our digital asset management (DAM) system helps enterprises keep up with the latest customer experience trends by placing rich media assets at the center of the digital supply chain. Nuxeo’s state-of-the-art platform combines content and media assets in one place so that marketing teams can easily find creative assets to use in new campaigns.
This approach makes it easier for employees to find media assets and get content to market faster, as they don’t have to waste time searching for creative assets in siloed solutions.
DAM: A Great Place to Start to Improve Customer Experience
With so many customer experience trends to keep track of, it can be difficult to know where to begin to improve your digital experience, which is why keeping things simple and investing in a Digital Asset Management software is a great place to start for most companies.
Deploying a centralized DAM solution helps develop a holistic view of the customer experience you can use to see what assets customers engage with when interacting with your brand online. A reliable DAM tool will not only help you to manage rich media assets and 3D content, but will also help you find past assets to reuse in upcoming promotions.
Originally published at https://www.nuxeo.com on February 25, 2021.
