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Digital Solutions to Improve Customer Experience

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedJan 20232 min read

As an increasing number of Australian consumers shop online, customer service has also shifted from in-person to digital spaces. It’s important for businesses to evolve along with ecommerce technology, finding ways to improve the digital customer experience at each touchpoint. In this article, we’ll cover several digital solutions designed to improve your customer experience.

How to improve the customer experience

The customer experience describes every interaction that a customer has with a brand. While this used to solely take place in physical stores or over the phone, the customer experience has shifted online. It now includes messaging apps, social media interactions, web chats, and email communications.

Why should your business enhance its customer experience with digital technology? Simply put, it improves your bottom line. Satisfied customers are more likely to revisit your website for repeat business. They’ll leave good reviews, improving your brand reputation. They’ll like and subscribe to your social media accounts, boosting your followers. All this leads to an increase in revenue.

1. Video-based customer service

Many customers still want the personal touch of face-to-face service, which is where video chats come into play. A video chat function on your website allows the customer to interact in real time, with someone they can see is a real, live human. This digital technology lends a more personal touch to the customer service experience, with faster problem solving. It’s particularly useful for businesses that sell more technical products and services that might require complex explanations.

2. Chatbots

They don’t give the same face-to-face contact as video chats, but chatbots also provide immediate access to customer service. They improve the digital customer experience by quickly answering simple questions. This is often enough to inspire the customer to make a purchase. Chatbots also gather basic data about the customer for further analysis and response if needed. You’ll be able to analyse data to identify common trouble points and FAQs that need answering on your site.

3. AI-driven content strategy

AI and machine learning have transformed the digital customer experience. While businesses have long been collecting data for analysis, today’s AI learns from it in real-time to anticipate buyer behaviour. This lets businesses provide higher quality, more relevant content to their customers with predictive analytics.

4. Intelligent payments

Digital solutions are also transforming the payments process to reduce friction and optimise revenue. An intelligent payments solution can help prevent failed payments due to expired account credentials or insufficient balances. The problem with these failed payments is that you not only lose the individual sale, but also the customer’s trust. Account updater tools automatically keep information current to assist with recurring payments. Another example is Success+ from GoCardless, an intelligent retries solution that recovers 70% of failed payments by optimising the retry pattern.

5. Geo-targeted marketing

While brick-and-mortar stores cater primarily to a local client base, online businesses serve customers in far-flung locations. Location-based computing can enhance the customer experience using geo-targeted marketing for personalised support. It automatically tracks where a user is located. This information can boost engagement by offering location-based special offers, recommendations, and pricing in the correct currency.

6. Real-time data analysis

Finally, AI and digital tools help you improve the customer experience by extracting customer behaviour patterns in real time. Create buyer personas, display relevant content, and match each customer with the products that he or she is most likely searching for. With the use of AI-driven technology, you can go through location data, customer communications, past buying behaviour, and website interaction to make highly accurate predictions.

Digital solutions like the ones mentioned above have transformed the customer experience both online and off. Businesses now have more detailed insights than ever before, to create a highly customised buying experience for each customer.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.