The most disruptive force in marketing today is the next-generation consumer. And next-generation consumers demand next-generation brands. Make sure you’re leveraging AI-powered solutions to meet their needs.
The most disruptive force in marketing today isn’t what you think. It’s not a machine. It’s not a device. It’s not an AI interface or a machine learning model or a conversational assistant. It’s the consumer. More specifically, it’s what consumers have come to expect from their brands. And if you can’t meet the needs and preferences of the next-generation consumer, your brand won’t stay relevant for long.
So, what are the demands of the modern, next-generation consumer? And how can brands keep up? Let’s break it down.
1) Personalization
In today’s world, consumers don’t just want personalization, they demand it. Personalization is the most vital ingredient to acquire a next-generation consumer. Not only that, but it’s a gift that keeps on giving, as it triggers a vital emotional connection that creates brand loyalists who may become your vital word-of-mouth promoters, touting your brand for free across all of their social touchpoints.
Examples of personalization include timely messages, insightful recommendations and comparisons, differentiated loyalty programs, and interactive visual interfaces that are specifically tailored to each person. As technology capabilities grow, each touch point to customers becomes more dynamic and optimized content continually evolves based on the customer’s changing preferences and needs.
In order to meet this demand, next generation CMOs need to be hyper-focused on two things: data and artificial intelligence.
Because of the connectivity of modern life, data is quite literally everywhere. It has never been easier to discover the most minute details about your consumer base. And with this rise in highly segmented meta-data, brands have the unique potential to hyperpersonalize the entire consumer journey.
2) Immediacy
Next-generation consumers don’t only demand extreme personalization and an evolving, intimate, data-driven interface, they demand it fast and on their schedule
This is especially true of the service environment. Your entire customer support interface, at every touchpoint, needs to be optimized to meet the rapidfire demands of the modern consumer who require personal, authentic interactions. Historical phone trees and traditional banking hours are evolving to meet the always on, immediate needs of consumers. Self-service, which used to be a viewed as negative customer service, is now a preferred method of service as long as consumers are able to complete transactions quickly and easily.
Virtual assistants, chatbots, and conversational agents are providing automated, proactive and personal assistance 24/7 so that a company’s customer service is available on the customer’s schedule, not on the company’s schedule. Natural language AI programs have evolved beyond basic questions about weather to include contextual, holistic and real time data to better engage with consumers. Additionally, AI can predict and solve problems proactively, providing the personalized, immediate attention consumers demand.
3) Unification
Applications and sales channels can no longer be developed and managed in silos. As consumers seamlessly cross from one digital platform to the other, or even merge their online and offline experiences, brands must create a unified, holistic strategy that engages with the consumer across their journey. Brands must create aggregated data stores and contextually relevant recommendations that enable the consumer to have unique, but consistent experiences through each channel.
AI helps your brand transcend its individual interactive channels to build a holistic, interconnected picture of each customer. Every layer of your user experience will be working together to learn about your customers, their individual needs, and their unique journeys.
All in all
Brands have a significant challenge ahead to stay relevant and connected to consumers who are demanding more personalized, better customer service, on their individual schedules. There’s no way around it: we’ve entered the age of the next-generation consumer and next-generation consumers demand nothing less than next-generation brands. If you’re interested in a free consultation on how to implement personal, immediate, and unified AI across your business channels, get in touch today!
About the Author: Lyn Nguyen is the CEO of Liquid Analytics. She is a passionate advocate for innovation through AI and drives transformational change for enterprise clients.