What does efficient customer communication mean for UAE businesses?

The UAE is a diverse country with people of different ages, professions, races and nationalities. This group of working professionals is digitally native, always on and highly receptive towards adopting emerging technologies.

Communicating effectively with today’s modern workforce would mean taking into consideration factors such as the customer’s cultural norms, socio-economic background, technology usage patterns and communication preferences to name a few, to personalise and tailor customer journeys.

Customers in the UAE were found to be most focused on a brand’s integrity and personalisation in a study conducted by KPMG on customer perceptions of brand loyalty and advocacy.

Maintaining brand integrity and gaining customer trust has become more critical than ever in the UAE, especially post-pandemic. A survey by Gartner found that customers in the country have higher expectations of trustworthiness from businesses than the global average.

Bridging the customer trust gap

Trust is a crucial component of a successful business-customer relationship. A survey by KPMG shows that 60% of consumers feel they’re uncomfortable with how companies use their personal information.

When customers trust a business, they are more likely to make repeat purchases, recommend the business to others, and remain loyal even when faced with challenges or competition.

Building and maintaining customer trust requires a concerted effort on the part of the business as customer trust is earned or lost with every experience. This includes providing exceptional customer service, delivering products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations and being present for the customer at all times.

Customer experience is a delicate gold mine

Winning back customers' trust once lost is daunting but not impossible to any extent. As little as one good experience can turn the tables around in the business’s favour.

Identifying and mapping out customer journeys to provide connected and personalised customer experiences at every touchpoint, are defining competitive advantage in today’s scenario with rising customer expectations.

A Gartner survey of 362 global CX practitioners found that 83% of executives reported their organisation struggles to use customer journey maps to identify and prioritise CX efforts.

Exotel, an AI-powered full-stack cloud customer engagement suite, recently launched its operations in the UAE partnering up with du and Etisalat to help companies win happy and loyal customers by mapping customer journeys and providing engaging, customised and on-demand customer experiences on voice, messaging and video channels.

Shivakumar Ganesan, the CEO of Exotel, speaking about customer experience, says, “We see customer experience as a holistic experience that includes a customer’s cognitive, emotional and sensory perceptions, which they experience through their entire journey with a brand. Right from mulling a potential product or service to post-purchase service."

Winning brands realise the power of personalized and connected customer experience

A connected customer experience is achieved through communication channels working harmoniously together to present a holistic view of data, leading to highly contextual and personalised experiences.

Leading internet-first companies across industries like cab aggregators, e-commerce, online retail, travel, ed-tech, healthcare and more, partner with Exotel to do just this.

An interesting customer journey Exotel powers would be in e-commerce wherein the moment an order is placed, a bot notifies the customer over their preferred channel with confirmation and shipping details.

On the day of the delivery, a voice bot checks up on the customer's availability and automatically reschedules if needed based on the customer's input. And before delivering the package, the delivery partner contacts the customer over a secure call with both parties’ phone numbers anonymised to prevent callbacks.

All this data is at the company’s disposal to be used to further personalize the customer’s experience in the future.

Cab Aggregators are now streamlining ride experiences for their customers with Exotel by enabling customers and drivers to call each other over the app or mobile network securely, without revealing each other's personal mobile numbers. Complete transaction data is stored in the Cab Aggregators systems.

Similarly, Exotel helps facility management firms save time, manpower and operational costs with efficient, end-to-end booking management using only voice bots and no human intervention. The voice bot helps customers book handymen on the app as well as reschedule for another timeslot, all at the customer's convenience.

Future-proofing CX

If connecting customer journeys is the game, then a delightful customer experience is the prize to be won.

Businesses are moving away from multi-vendor setups which cost them countless hours and money to integrate multiple channels, sort out scattered data and deal with multiple vendor agreements and SLAs.

Smart businesses are future-proofing their CX with single provider systems that offer unified communication stacks where humans, bots and apps work harmoniously to enrich customer journeys and satiate their need for instant gratification, omnichannel experiences and self-service options.

• Business
• UAE