Businesses see 2022 as a transformative year. Although the global the economy still shows signs of volatility, the goal is to stabilize supply chains to ensure customers get what they need.
That means several digital marketing and customer experience trends require a close examination to see if the new approaches will bring competitive advantages and are worth adopting internally.
Four critical topics are part of this evaluation. · Customer Experiences · Digital Marketing · Business Agility · Business Intelligence
Customer Experience Trends in 2022
Many businesses have been in panic mode since March 2020. For the first few months after the pandemic started, the goal was to survive. That trend continued for many into 2021 and is still ongoing in many industries.
In 2022, businesses will start refining their strategies to power online customer service actions. That includes utilizing more customer data and for example, incorporating artificial intelligence to interact with people to improve customer dialogues, answer questions or solve fundamental problems. Amazon uses artificial intelligence to review orders, request refunds, and handle other customer service requests. Businesses of all sizes will look for ways to start using AI more adapted to their own needs in the coming year.
Customers buy products through non-traditional channels more frequently, including through apps like WhatsApp and Nextdoor. Most organizations will look for ways to get involved on new platforms, especially when they allow for instant connections and a better experience occurs for the consumer.
Today’s customer wants a response within five minutes – and preferably less. People know what they want, and they expect it immediately. A brand that delivers instant gratification will create substantial competitive advantages in 2022 and beyond.
Digital Marketing Trends in 2022
Meta is everywhere in 2022. Facebook even decided to change its name to it in the same way that Google became Alphabet.
If Mark Zuckerberg is betting big on the Metaverse, you can bet that digital marketers are doing the same. What does Meta mean? The goal is to have it entail virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality technologies to create an immersive online experience for everyone.
Games like Second Life were early adopters of this idea, but Zuckerberg looks ready to take things to the next level. That means new spaces will be available for influencers to explore and help brands grow. We’ll also continue to see more influencer marketing in 2022. Nearly $14 billion was spent in this area in 2021, including B2B opportunities. All businesses should look for opportunities to partner with influencers, including micro-influencers, in their industries. Even the people who are excited to try the Metaverse are also looking to stay grounded in the digital environment. Over 90% of shoppers expect a company to be environmentally and socially responsible. It’s not good enough to claim this status for businesses today – consumers want transparency and authenticity.
Allowing consumers to sort through products or services based on their impact on the environment or local communities allows everyone to have more control over what they use their money for.
Business Agility Trends in 2022
Businesses had to survive the various lockdown orders from the coronavirus pandemic. Then they had to find ways to navigate the ever- changing capacity rules, looking for curbside options, and partnering with local delivery agencies to stay in contact with the customers.
After all those challenges, the Great Resignation occurred.
The business agility trends in 2022 will look for ways to grant workers more flexibility in the employee-employer relationship. That could look like more remote work choices, a better work-life balance, or cloud-based tools that power digital collaboration opportunities.
That means 2022 will be the year when businesses re-evaluate their legacy systems and traditional protocols to focus on the workforce and employer experiences.
Over the past two years, business leaders have seen how quickly environmental and societal changes can impact a company overnight. COVID isn’t a one-off trend. Crises require fast thinking and the skill of finding empowering opportunities to build for the unexpected future. The supply chain issues from 2021 are an excellent example of these trends. Many manufacturers have turned to cloud-based tools to help manage commodity costs, labor shortages, and material availability problems. This solution offers real-time insights, along with end-to-end control, to make finances and business models work. Some cloud offerings are better than others, especially as providers saturate the market with competitive products. Businesses should use 2022 to find solutions and networks that integrate with their current systems for faster integration opportunities. Without that speed, the race could be over before a brand gets off the starting line.
Business Intelligence Trends in 2022
Automation is a carryover trend from 2021 that will see plenty of development throughout 2022. It’s more than process automation for data management needs that will receive attention during the year. Vendors will look for ways to include automated insight delivery capabilities to platforms to allow users to take real-time actions.
That means the primary trend in 2022 is that investments in customer information will become more important than advertising. Consumer dialogues based on artificial intelligence will lead organizations to find ways to approach data-driven transformations.
Employees don’t want to start hunting for the information they need from different programs and tools. They expect the data to be available to them immediately. Instead of having people spend the bulk of their customer relationship management systems, the goal of this trend is to put the data in front of the right person without them asking for it. Most organizations will be aiming for real data democratization.
Automation is not the only business intelligence trend that enables action. Natural language processing capabilities make platforms more accessible to users. That means more employees can use the information at their fingertips to make empowered choices instead of relying on instinct alone. Augmented tools can also help users who have barriers to using natural language processing features, allowing businesses to lean on artificial intelligence to improve data quality and discovery.
Summary
Businesses hope to recover or balance the momentum they’ve lost in previous years because of how impactful COVID-19 has been worldwide. Focusing on the trends in these four critical areas aims to turn customer experiences and digital marketing into flexible assets that can stick around through 2022 and many more years to come.
Author:
Helena Nordman Stålnacke
Strategic Advisor
Recoordinate
Connect with me: Linked In
Comments