The COVID-19 pandemic changed market trends, with digital and self-service now the norms. Meanwhile, companies are still implementing plans decided before the pandemic. Many of these plans include new retail store openings and using new marketing technology for retail stores to improve sales, customer experience, and operational efficiency. Suppose companies disregard the lower consumer spending power and the fact that consumers no longer want to visit stores as much as they used to before the pandemic. In this case, it can result in poor resource allocation and use.

Companies need to reassess their channel strategy to see if they must make adjustments to support the preferred channel better. While the retail store concept is undergoing redefinition, the online channel grows stronger by the day. Companies need to ask if the physical store remains the only place to offer a personalized experience and if they should divert some resources to developing solutions to provide a customized online experience. Constraints due to limited budgets are increasing, with some companies neglecting to update their websites while concentrating on mobile applications.

Digital customer experience is the way forward. The good news is that there is an intention to lead with a customer experience-first strategy in 2023. The wild card is how much companies are willing to spend to address it.

Although technology will be vital in enabling the necessary customer experience improvements, it often cannot recognize emotions, lack common sense, and fail to consider empathy in decision-making. Another challenge lies with controlling the experience at every touch point. Employing 5G can address these gaps by humanizing technology and monitoring across channels in real-time using artificial intelligence and automation. Not only can 5G enhance customer experience and business performance, but the resulting improvements in customer experience can also enable 5G monetization. However, the lack of personnel with the necessary skill sets means that 5G’s effect on customer experience and 5G monetization will likely remain limited over the next 3–5 years.

Frost & Sullivan believes the future of customer experience is an exciting space to watch, with rapid developments expected in the next 2–3 years. This offers market participants boundless opportunities to capitalize on customer experience in some way.

Author: Mei Lee Quah