One of the pinnacles of luxury shopping has always been the customer experience, with great service and an easy, user-friendly buying process often just as important as the product or service being purchased and in many cases, even more so. Selling luxury isn’t just about what’s on offer, but how it’s offered – and an affluent, high-net-worth customer base is discerning enough to know the difference.
In recent years, luxury brands have found themselves under increasing pressure to up the ante, and as we move further into the digital age, against the backdrop of the Metaverse’s development, the tools they need to do so are now more readily available to them than ever before.
With technologies emerging and evolving at a rapid rate, the brands that have been quick to act and fastest to capitalise on what is now possible, when it comes to elevating the customer experience, are now streets ahead of the competition – while for those that have made the mistake of resting on their laurels and taking too long to react to the changing landscape, regaining lost ground could prove tricky later on. Now is the time to act, and many of the most forward-thinking brands and businesses are doing just that.
Here are three of the biggest tech innovations the most on-the-ball luxury brands are leveraging to provide a superior customer experience now.
Omnichannel customer services
A cohesive approach to marketing and communications is vital for brands that want to create a strong brand identity, and become instantly recognisable and perceived as reliable and consistent by their target customer base. Today, marketing funnels have had to become increasingly more sophisticated, following potential customers across a variety of different touchpoints – both online and off – to meet them where they are, and to guide them through a seamless process towards conversion.
Odigo omnichannel solutions take a data-driven approach to operationalise customer data across multiple contact channels. This provides personal, tailored experiences to each individual customer, using automated technology to optimise the sales process. In doing so, it serves to make customers feel known and understood by the brands and business they consume from – and more importantly, feel valued. For many luxury brands, this makes the difference when it comes to converting them and building loyalty long-term, and tech like this is an investment that they can’t afford not to make.
Productivity software
Luxury brands and businesses need to ensure that their operations are optimised for productivity, which can have a positive impact on both their customers and their bottom line. One way to achieve this is through the use of productivity software, which simplifies day-to-day tasks and allows for more time-efficient ways to achieve them.
By enhancing communication and collaboration, this type of software can boost productivity not only for individual staff members, but for the team as a whole. It’s worth noting that some contact centre solutions, such as Odigo, also provide analytics and workforce management features that can further improve customer service productivity and increase the value of the investment.
Artificial intelligence
On the subject of efficiency, the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) software into luxury brand operations and in particular, customer service, has dramatically overhauled the customer experience. Whilst it’s fair to say that the jury is still out in many ways on whether this has been for the better. It has certainly allowed luxury brands and businesses to respond to queries and requests, as well as handle purchase transactions, on a much larger scale. Which means customers are rarely kept waiting when engaging with a brand online.
There are still some elements of AI that need work, and a cookie-cutter approach to customer queries can prove frustrating, and even downright infuriating for consumers looking to get a specific and highly tailored response. Yet, not all AI customer service technologies are created equally. Brands and businesses using the right strategies and the very best solutions can find that customers still get the standard of care to make them feel valued even when their query is being handled by a bot. Modern contact centre software often includes AI-driven features as a key component for increasing customer satisfaction in day-to-day operations.
In the modern world, AI and automation make for a potent pairing that has become nothing short of indispensable and is an essential secret weapon in providing an elevated experience for high-end customers. By getting to know customers inside and out and making predictions about their wants and needs – based on a carefully curated online persona, AI and automation, make for a powerful pairing. When you compare the online shopping experience of 2023 to that of ten years ago, the difference immense. With the development of the metaverse now afoot, it could be set to transform even more dramatically with the help of the latest tech innovations.
