Confronting the new reality of connected customer experience

The channels for customers to interact with brands seem narrow and wide today. The world is moving from physical to digital every moment, and emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have enriched this transformation. Today's excellent customer experience is no longer achieved by just a mobile app, a stable website or a strong service product. Only companies that reach customers through various channels and provide excellent experience in all channels are likely to become winners. VR and AR application development is the key to future customer experience.

Virtual and augmented reality have been around for a while, but their impact on customer experience will grow in the coming years. The widespread adoption of devices like the Oculus Quest has made the barrier to entry lower than ever before. Open any tech blog and you’ll see articles about the metaverse, the connected universe, and B2B experiences like on-site assessments.

In short, using AR and VR technology can create a superior customer experience that is difficult to achieve otherwise. Imagine the importance of providing a real experience in a virtual space. For example, in the retail industry, an AR experience provided by IKEA allows users to place furniture in their home space to judge whether it fits and looks good. Although the size accuracy is not as good as going to a physical store to measure, it is much better than looking at the approximate effect online.

For companies that have long been rooted in traditional fields, the integration of VR and AR applications seems very far away and difficult. But in fact, it is not, and it is very necessary for the increasingly demanding customer experience. According to Gartner research, "By 2023, 50% of major business applications will include at least one or more types of zero-touch experience."

To be able to deliver these exceptional customer experiences in the future of business, you need to consider integrating VR and AR into reality.

The Unified Need for Multiple Experiences

Gartner defines multiexperience as “the combination of modes, devices and apps across which users interact across a variety of touchpoints in their digital journey.” Today’s typical customer experience is still a responsive website with a great mobile app, but it can also be AI chatbots, voice apps, wearables, and AR and VR.

Enterprises must consider how to make AR and VR technologies play a role in their digitalization process. In order to provide multiple experiences, applications need to be created that work in all modes, provide a personalized experience for each customer, and integrate back-end consistency into the core ecosystem without being affected by any interaction.

The reality is that creating a personalized customer experience across all touchpoints and platforms is daunting in itself, but it’s the right thing to do in today’s customer-centric environment.

The good news is that there are tools that can help, and even make things more efficient.

Focus on key links

Having a tightly focused use case is critical when integrating any new technology. Without proper planning and connectivity to core systems, such expansions will most likely fail. Therefore, one of the challenges facing enterprises is: what benefits can VR and AR technologies truly bring to the customer experience without affecting the customer experience currently provided?

Imagine you are now buying a new bike online, you can view a 3D model of the bike and test ride it through AR technology, this sounds interesting, right? But you need to consider what value this augmented reality customer experience can bring to the customer? What kind of maintenance is required? If the maintenance cost is high or it cannot be integrated into the rest of the enterprise ecosystem, then even the most creative solution will not succeed in the end.

Currently, many business applications are B2C, but needs in the B2B and EX fields should also be considered. According to a Gartner report, by 2023, "40% of professional staff will build their business application experience and functions like creating a music playlist."

Processes and training are key experiences that can shape the way a business operates. Not only customers, but employees also expect consumer-grade experiences at work, and these experiences are great places to experiment with adding VR and AR to your business.

Visualizing Innovation

In the manufacturing industry, VR and AR are already very common. According to PwC data, nearly two-thirds of manufacturing companies have used or plan to use VR. In addition, in Gartner's 2020 Smart Manufacturing Strategy and Implementation Trends Survey, 74% of respondents said that their companies have smart factory plans.

VR can reduce potential risks in training (such as the handling of chemicals) or visualize the layout of a new factory floor to highlight areas of inefficiency. Because VR technology is driven by real data, companies can use VR to step into areas such as predictive maintenance to make better and more informed decisions.

In the insurance industry, many insurance companies have allowed users to upload photos when making claims, and have embedded VR and AR technologies into the claims process, so that underwriters can get a 360-degree view of the accident space without having to go to the scene in person. When customers apply for claims through apps or calls, underwriters have basically grasped the scene of the accident, and the claims process has already started from the background. This process has greatly improved the work efficiency of underwriters and made the accident scene handling procedures simple and efficient. Only by combining various links to achieve multiple experiences can the customer experience be truly improved.

Driving customer experience with the Multiexperience Development Platform (MXDP)

By reviewing all the weak links in all the ways of business interaction with customers, consider whether the information is presented synchronously throughout the process. If there is a disconnect, the customer experience will be greatly reduced. Therefore, comprehensive consideration of "multiple experiences" during the development stage will help integrate all touchpoints.

There are already several multi-experience development platforms on the market that are developing rapidly. For example, the MXDP (Multi-Experience Development Platform) Magic Quadrant released by Gartner can help companies understand the optional partners.

MXDP encompasses all customer experience and employee experience models, including VR and AR. Gartner recently predicted that “by 2024, one in three enterprises will use MXDP to accelerate the delivery of digital products by IT and business convergence teams.”

Siemens Low Code is a leader in the MXDP Magic Quadrant, and is good at helping enterprises integrate existing capabilities into the multi-experience solution framework and combine the enterprise's own data. Low code enables enterprises to seamlessly add workflows, data and automation around existing systems and processes.

By integrating MXDP, companies can create multimodal touchpoints on a unified innovation platform and framework to engage with customers on all platforms they use. Furthermore, by combining all touchpoints using a single visual, model-driven language, they can provide an all-encompassing experience without having to create a variety of different technology combinations and multiple different teams.

In other words, Siemens Low Code allows enterprises to simplify the complexity brought about by combining all these technologies so that they can better expand, add and adjust.

The road ahead is long and arduous

Try to think about this: How much of the experience you currently provide to your customers is integrated with your core systems? Where does your company lag behind other companies that provide quality customer experiences? When should your company install a new technology (such as AR or VR) to keep up with market trends?

The modern customer journey isn’t a straight line from awareness to purchase. VR and AR are just two of the new technologies that innovative companies can use to enrich the customer experience. By shifting to a multi-experience development mindset, you can add emerging technologies to your products in the coming years. Or start today?