Last year wasn’t easy for communications and media companies, as many struggled to embrace digital transformation and improve customer experience (CX) even as a tight labor market worked against them. Now, as 2023 begins, brands are contending with a new set of challenges – and opportunities.
This year, make sure your CX strategy is focused on your customers’ top intents – the reasons they’re interacting with your brand. The top 10 communications and media customer intents, according to a TTEC analysis of more than 1 billion conversations, are:
- Account management
- Troubleshooting
- Subscriptions and offers
- In-app questions
- Billing
- Connectivity
- Cancellation
- Device compatibility
Delivering seamless interactions will be key to retaining customers, especially in industries like telecommunications where customers tend to have shorter relationships with brands: 40% of customers have been with their telecom provider for only one to five years, and 53% of customers will switch operators due to bad CX, according to Infobip.
Once you have a firm grasp on customer intent, the right mix of people and technology can help you improve your customer journey, retain top employees, and keep costs in line.
Messaging becomes the go-to CX channel
Shoppers want to interact with retailers on their own terms and their own time, which is why messaging is becoming the fastest-growing channel of choice. Messaging gives customers more control over interactions, even letting them pause a conversation if they need to and come back to it when it’s convenient for them.
Messaging delivers speed, efficiency and results other channels just can’t match when it comes to handling customer inquiries – and it’s well-equipped to handle telecom and media top intents. It enables quicker and better customer experiences, lets associates service multiple customers concurrently, reduces wait times, and drives more conversions – all while reducing costs.
Adding messaging to your CX mix (or improving how you’re using it) will lead to happier customers who are more likely to stay with you. Most consumers (72%) say they’re more likely to shop from a company that communicates with them about their products in real time, with a real employee, via messaging, according to Avochado. Companies that don’t have a strong messaging strategy will lose out to those that do.
Help customers help themselves with self-service
Customers increasingly want to find the information and answers they need themselves, so make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for. Intelligent automation lets users handle simple, transactional tasks on their own, freeing your associates up to focus on more complex interactions that need a human touch.
Along with traditional self-service solutions, augmented reality is poised to become a become a bigger component of self-service options in 2023 and beyond as consumers seek more immersive ways to interact with brands. This is bringing many opportunities for companies to get creative.
These are just a couple of the trends we’re predicting for communications and media firms. For more on what to expect in 2023, the insights driving these trends, and what it means for your business, check out our strategy guide, “CX Trends 2023: 10 predictions shaping the evolution of customer and employee experience.”
