By Andrew Egan, Africa Regional Sales Director at Infobip

With brands recognising the power of conversations, AI-driven solutions, and phygital experiences, consumers can anticipate more personalised, seamless, and satisfying engagements with businesses this year. As technological innovations continue to shape the business landscape, 2024 is poised to be a transformative year for customer experience. However, businesses must keep an eye on the emerging trends shaping the landscape as they realign their strategies to prioritise customer satisfaction.

Balancing customer experience trends against business process optimisation

Increasingly, the emphasis on Customer Experience (CX) is prompting organisations to adopt creative ways to use customers to start, and sometimes complete, the processing journey against an item of work. As businesses look to grow customer acquisition or reduce processing costs, it is becoming evident that Generative AI and Interactive AI are critical tools for improving cost-of-service ratios or Life Time Value: Customer Acquisition Costs (LTV: CAC) ratios for improved x-selling and upselling outcomes. In line with this, identifying work types for automation is key to quantifying how much effort organisations can remove from their support centres and what Capex or Opex costs can be optimised. Additionally, businesses must understand their customers’ behaviour and their choice of when, how, and if to engage with a brand.

CX is not merely about providing a channel to customers or a five-star rating at the end of a call. It is about ensuring that customers return to the brand, measuring and appreciating customer behaviour across your digital ecosystem, and knowing when to support them or when to sell to them. In many environments, improving business processes with tools such as Generative AI or Interactive AI results in a downstream impact of improved CX. Hence, organisations should look at the business challenge to be solved before attempting to resolve the issue of CX in isolation.

End-to-end conversational journeys with businesses and brands

As consumers seek an enhanced customer experience, they will increasingly demand two-way conversational interactions with a business or brand through the same channels and chat apps they use with their families or friends. They will also desire a seamless experience rather than switching between devices and channels.

Until now, brands have been reimagining this journey through a conversational lens, where much of the user journey is directed through a single chat app or digital channel like WhatsApp. The focus now shifts from merely adopting these channels to perfecting the end-to-end conversational experience.

Thus, we can expect to see the emergence of truly end-to-end platforms, where customers can click through an advert on Instagram, educate themselves about a product, click to purchase, pay, receive delivery notifications, and complete a satisfaction survey within a single conversational thread on WhatsApp.

META, with WhatsApp, is leading this revolution, with new features such as Flows and Payments facilitating users to transition smoothly from viewing an Instagram ad to making a purchase, all within the platform. Leading brands like Google and Apple are also making waves in this space, and more platforms are likely to follow.

The move from generative AI to interactive AI

Generative AI, or Gen-AI, has made remarkable progress, especially in customer support. This technology has been instrumental in auto-generating content for messages and emails and AI-driven bots that can handle basic queries.

However, the future lies in interactive AI, where, according to British AI researcher and entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, “bots that can carry out tasks you set for them by calling on other software and other people to get stuff done.” In line with this, analysts predict the emergence of a federation of different bots and AI algorithms being used to trigger different actions across the customer journey.

These advanced tools will be central to marketing and sales automation, answering product-related questions, scheduling deliveries, and managing payments. Integrations will span from generating campaign content to providing AI-driven chatbot interactions, ensuring fluid, human-like conversations with the customers, all within a customer’s favourite channel.

The rise of the super app

The ‘super app’ concept has gained significant attention in recent years, with platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and various others. These platforms, boasting billions of subscribers, present a golden opportunity for brands to integrate and offer their products and services. Tech billionaire Elon Musk described WeChat as “Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of other things, and all rolled into one with actually a great interface.”

Telegram appears to be moving towards this model, announcing in September last year that “developers can (now) use JavaScript to create infinitely flexible interfaces that can be launched right inside Telegram — and can completely replace any website.”

Envisioned as multi-purpose hubs, these apps will evolve into platforms where users can seamlessly interact with multiple brands.

The rebirth of virtual reality and augmented reality

However, things are also heating up in the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) space. META recently launched its new generation of Ray-Ban META smart glasses. Among other updated features, these will integrate META’s AI-powered, advanced conversational assistant. By saying “Hey META,” users can engage with META AI to spark creativity, get information, and control features. Apple has also unveiled its much-anticipated Vision Pro headset, a mixed-reality device capable of both VR and AR experiences.

These products signify a step change in the world of AR and VR, which has, until now, been seen by many as somewhat gimmicky. It is expected that VR and AR will transition from merely PR stunts to real-world use cases. Using these tools, businesses and brands can create exceptional, awe-inspiring experiences on a scale that has never been possible in the physical realm.

Phygital experiences

Against this backdrop, it is anticipated that further convergence of the physical and digital realms will occur, with businesses and brands crafting captivating ‘phygital’ experiences tailored to customer preferences in real-time. Retailers will further weave technology into their brick-and-mortar stores, leveraging data to personalise what customers hear, smell, and see. Simultaneously, e-commerce platforms will explore the potential of virtual and augmented reality, pioneering a new age of digital retail.

Numerous examples already demonstrate this concept in action, like retail brand Marks & Spencer’s AR shopping app, which allows customers to walk around a store with the app using an AR filter to direct them to the location of specific items. As this technology develops, it will help customers experience products as if they were already in their possession, allowing them to make informed decisions about what they buy.

More to come

This year promises to be an exciting year for customer experience. With brands recognising the power of conversational interfaces, AI-driven solutions, and phygital experiences, consumers can anticipate more tailored, seamless, and delightful interactions.

Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has assured that the agency will work to promote SLTV, indigenous satellite television, in the country.

Ali gave the assurance when Dr John Nwafor, managing director, Metro Digital Limited, the operator of SLTV paid him a working visit on Friday in Abuja.

The managing director said that promoting indigenous brands would ensure an inclusive development of the country and encourage consumers to buy-in to local products.

“We identify with your goal, which is why we will always tell stories that promote indigenous initiatives.

“NAN is very reliable and trusted brand, and will always be on the side of the underdog, we will always be on the side of the truth.

“Rest assured that this is home and the agency is open to any kind of partnership,’’ he assured.

He further said that the agency was also working on rebranding its local and international offices across the globe, to tell Nigerians and Africans stories inclusively.

According to him, presently we are working on repositioning the agency to compete more favourably with other global brands and work smart.

“We are already positioning to face the impending challenge of Artificial Intelligence and we are looking at having a good automated news content.’’

Earlier, Nwafor, commended the efforts of the Federal Government for encouraging indigenous satellite television companies as SLTV in the network industry.

He explained the process began from former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, with the modification of the National Broadcasting Corporation’s (NBC) Codes and Act to accommodate local players.

“The government tried to open up the industry and encourage local players to be part of the satellite television ecosystem, and the government effected some changes in the NBC code and Act.

“The Copyright Act was also modified to encourage Nigerians to participate in the industry, because we believe that when the industry is opened up, the consumers will win.

“Then, former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed invited us to look at the framework and see how we can participate.

“It was in that process we applied for licence for our Direct-to-Home transmission paid television, which is SLTV,’’ he said.

He further said the action was followed with a mandatory court order to ensure that the reviewed NBC code was adhered to and implemented.

Nwafor said that the intervention by the government was to end exclusivity of content by few giant satellite television companies.

The SLTV boss appreciated the management of NAN for telling the story of the emergence of SLTV, adding that indigenous satellite television networks would thrive with the support of Nigerians.

Highlight of the visit was the presentation of three SLTV decoders and dishes to the management of NAN.

Cloud Network Foundation (CNF) and the Lagos State Government (LASG) are soon to hold a strategic capacity-building workshop for the operators in the media industry.

The initiative, the first in a series of other noble plans is designed to engender massive engagements and collaboration with the stakeholders in the media industry to help plug the hole in the missing links between a healthy and more productive media industry and the professional challenges facing the media operators.

The 2-day event that will be declared open by the Lagos State Governor, His Excellence, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, will feature talks on various topics such as Digital Media and Social Journalism, Data Journalism and Visualization and unpack the latest trends in YouTube, Radio, TV and documentary production.

It will proffer solutions to the nuts and bolts of investigative journalism, and Journalism in the era of Artificial Intelligence ( AI) amongst others.

Mr. Abimbola Tooki, Chairman of CNF, in a Statement released in Lagos, said that in this era of Social Media, Digital Publishing and the abuse and misuse of other opportunities in the technology space, knowledge development and applications of appropriate tools are critical in maximizing the potentials in the media space for national growth and development.

Speaking on the plan to forge collaborative engagements between the CNF and LASG, Tooki said that the partnership is designed to scale up professionals in the public and private media sectors.

Noting that this is intended to build a robust set of skills for operatives easily vulnerable to the pitfalls of the digital publishing space, he said that the delivery of professional competencies is imperative within the media ecosystem.

He stressed that the rise of the internet and digital technologies has revolutionised the way we consume media.

Traditional forms of media, such as newspapers and magazines, have given way to the online news portal, blogs, and social media platforms.

According to him, the convenience of accessing news and entertainment content anytime anywhere has made digital media increasingly popular.

The CNF leader acknowledged that the digital age has also presented media organizations with opportunities and challenges that need to be adequately grasped and mastered.

“On one hand, the Internet has expanded its reach, allowing us to connect with global audiences and experiment in new storytelling formats.

” On the other hand, the fragmentation of audiences, the dominance of social media platforms, and the decline in traditional advertising revenues pose significant challenges.

“Media organizations need to adapt by embracing digital technologies, exploring new business models, and fostering meaningful engagement with their audiences”.

He said in a fast-changing industry and the world there is a need to recognize the importance of equipping and constantly engaging journalists and other news actors with emerging and advanced digital skills, tools and knowledge.

According to him, these and more are the focus of the 2-day capacity building digital workshop being planned for the media professionals by the NCF in collaboration with the Lagos State Government.

According to him, the main objectives of the workshop include enhancing professional competence by providing journalists with up-to-date skills in reporting, storytelling, and digital media to adapt to the changing industry demands.

More so, the workshop will focus on ethical reporting and standards. This is to ensure that practitioners reinforce ethical journalism practices, ensuring accuracy, fairness, and accountability in reporting.

The workshop will ensure that professionals are reined in on the recurring challenges in the New Media space, and emerging technologies.

The workshop will also integrate digital transformation for the media operators.

It is designed to equip journalists with the tools and techniques necessary to leverage digital platforms effectively for storytelling and engagements.

Above all, Tooki said, the workshop will reinforce the synergy between the government and the media, as well as the government and its public.

To make the programme all-inclusive, he said that the training will accommodate government House Reporters, young reporters, middle to senior levels career journalists, bloggers, online news writers and social media influencers.