#8 | DCX - Perspectives and insights on digital customer experience
DCX Podcast #3 - Healthcare, Retirement and the DCX; Is the Metaverse the future of retail customer experience?; 4 Hours a day in the Metaverse?; DCX Thought Leader Linkedin Profile of the week
DCX Podcast #3 - Healthcare, Retirement, and the Digital Customer Experience
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Matt Benjamin, former partner customer engagement and automation and transformation lead at Mercer. He has over 20 years of experience constantly evolving Omni channel digital experiences, contact center operations, and enablement and has led teams as large as 1,000. As transformation and automation strategy leader he led the global strategy focused on artificial intelligence and digital customer engagement.
7 Key takeaways from the conversation:
Senior Leadership alignment is an absolute must if you're really going to move the needle forward within the organization.
Crafting a CX vision can be easier said than done.
In the health and retirement space, one thing that matters above all else is to make sure that your CX is making a difference in people's lives and making that experience as easy as possible.
A challenge with CX-related investments is managing the impact on other parts of the organization and actually realizing the benefits of the gain
Make chatbot investments in increments
Partner early with the call center on all digital initiatives
Move infrastructure to the cloud in order to move and scale faster
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Is the Metaverse the future of retail customer experience?
For a long time, the customer experience was limited to what happened in the physical world. Today, with the rapid growth of digital solutions and technologies, the CX has moved into the virtual world as well. The digital world has become an integral part of our lives, whether we're using it for business or personal purposes.
The Metaverse is a digital environment that's designed to be similar to our own reality — but it's not quite as tangible as our physical world. It's like a parallel universe where anything can happen.
This world has been created by people who have invested their time and resources into creating virtual experiences that are fun and engaging. In this world, users can explore different planets and galaxies, interact with each other and even play games. They are able to do this through the use of avatars — virtual representations of themselves that they can control.
The Metaverse is not only a place where people can be anything they want to be; It's also a place where people can connect with one another and explore their own self-expression. The Metaverse is an environment where we can learn more about ourselves and our world through the interactive experiences that are available to us.
It's also a space where brands can connect with their customers in new ways. One of these experiences is shopping. Shopping in the Metaverse is a whole new experience. Traditional retailers and brands can create stores that can be visited by users, and these stores can have any design or layout that they want.
Brands like Nike have already started to experiment with this idea, creating an immersive store where people can virtually try on sneakers before they buy them and even walk around in them. Imagine trying on a pair of shoes that’s a perfect fit, and then walking around in them in your own home! (Nearly 7 Million People Have Visited Nike’s Metaverse Store | The Drum)
That’s not all though, as the possibilities for what can be created are endless. Brands can create stores that make shopping more interactive or interesting than ever before. This type of e-commerce experience is only just beginning to be explored, and we’re certain that many brands will soon begin to experiment with this idea.
It’s clear that online shopping is no longer just a way to sell products, but it can also be used as an opportunity for brands to build stronger relationships with their customers.
And that’s what it’s all about: creating a more immersive and engaging experience for your customers. Although future trends are always hard to predict, we can be sure of one thing: brands will continue to explore new ways to engage with their customers online.
4 Hours a day in the Metaverse?
To read the article, see “Probing reality and myth in the metaverse,” June 13, 2022.
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Links to Industry news, thought leaders, and ideas of interest
The 4 Biggest Threats to Your Organization’s Customer Experience Initiative
This research outlines the four high-stakes threats to a CX initiative. Executive leaders supporting CX initiatives should leverage this research to create action plans and adopt preventative measures to reduce the severity of these threats.
Digital health: An opportunity to advance health equity | McKinsey
Digital health solutions have the potential to make healthcare more equitable. Here’s how innovators can deliver on that promise.
The insurance industry has typically been slow to understand the digital customer experience, but that is quickly changing as agents adopt digital tools such as interactive advisory services, live simulations, and digital AI health assessments to provide personalized product recommendations that help customers understand their unique life situations and achieve their financial goals.
DCX Thought Leader Linkedin Profile of the week
Each week, I share the profile of someone I am connected to on Linkedin that I think will bring value to your life and career.
I met Annette this past week and had a great time sharing each of our career journeys. She is a genuine, generous, and super smart CX leader. I highly recommend that you follow her postings and get her books. (Her second book - Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture that Drives Value for Your Business is available now at Amazon)
Annette Franz, CCXP has 30 years of experience (both client-side and vendor side) helping companies understand their employees and customers, identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience, and designing customer experience strategies to deliver a better experience for all constituents.
Annette was named one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider and is regularly recognized as a top thought leader in Customer Experience.
She serves as an Advisory Board Member for CX@UCI, mentors other professionals in this field to help them advance their careers, and is an international speaker and an avid writer; you can find her thought leadership on her own blog and in Forbes, Business2Community, CustomerThink, TechTarget, Quality Digest, APICS Magazine, and more. She is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP).
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