The average U.S. household currently contains 11 connected devices, and as that number grows in the coming years, driven largely by the rollout of 5G, the challenge for enterprises is twofold. On the one hand, they need to deliver the products and services consumers want in multiple formats. On the other, they have to find ways to tailor them to get the best out of each platform, without compromising on their messaging or brand values. For many organizations, the answer lies in an effective multiexperience strategy.
The buzz around the concept has been building over the past few months, as companies embrace the possibilities of offering unified experiences. These combine multisensory and multitouchpoint interfaces ranging from personal devices and wearables to smart home devices. In the near term, these experiences will often be centered around immersive technologies such as AR, which has evolved beyond the entertainment space into a powerful customer service tool.
For the ultimate CX, enterprises are actively seeking to implement technologies that create truly seamless and unified digital experiences for their customers.
Why Omnichannel Strategy is Out
Omnichannel – an approach that provides an integrated user experience across multiple customer touchpoints – was once thought to be the be-all and end-all of customer interactions. The race for omnichannel saw companies striving to align their messaging, goals and design across each channel and device, including web, voice, chat, messaging, social media, video and email.
However, the omnichannel approach has proven to be challenging to implement successfully, and ultimately many companies have not been able to deliver on its promise. Some difficulties include:
- Out-of-box solutions can be ineffective: While there are plenty of solutions on the market, businesses face complexities with their integration, both within their own legacy systems and between each new channel. Synchronizing all the data across multiple channels without losing any information is difficult to achieve, often resulting in conflicts between channels.
- Users not mindful of channels: Customers no longer make clear distinctions between e-commerce, stores, mobile, and catalogs. The traditional lines between digital and physical channels have become blurred.
- UX lost in the quest: Too often, an enterprise’s efforts to create a multi-channel user experience with as many channels as possible came at the expense of quality. Providing users with an effortless experience should be first and foremost.
Adopting Multiexperience Strategy for Customer Journey
The multiexperience strategy is replacing omnichannel as the customer experience of choice. Instead of developing a seamless experience across all channels, multiexperience strategy is about developing effortless, multi-sensory customer experiences across a range of voice, video and text modalities, apps, and other digital touchpoints, regardless of the channel.
MX gives customers more choice and allows them greater control over how they want to be served. Applications now need to run on different platforms and adapt easily, while providing a consistent experience. Multiexperience strategy focuses on the unique experience offered by each device, stream or channel. It’s about providing the customer with a smooth, native experience, whether they are engaging from a smartphone or laptop, wearables, or audio-controlled devices.
For example, if a customer engages with a brand via a physical device such as a TV, phone, tablet or smartwatch, the customer may experience a number of different digital modalities – like video, audio or chat – enabling them to choose their preferred method of engagement.
The MX philosophy is making its presence felt. Gartner has placed the development of the MX customer journey amongst the top technology trends of 2020, and has predicted that by 2023, “more than 25% of the mobile apps, progressive web apps and conversational apps at large enterprises will be built and/or run through an MX development platform.”
