#userexperiencemonitoring

Enterprises, in order to stay ahead of the competitive curve, are looking to offer digital customer experience assurance while adopting new technologies. 5G, or Fifth Generation Wireless, happens to be one such technology that is poised to alter the digital customer experience in a significant way. Touted to be way faster than 4G LTE, with the capability to manage more connected devices, 5G can provide the following:

Download a huge file in a matter of seconds

A capacity of more than 1000 times vis-a-vis 4G LTE

Reduction in latency thanks to its expected upload rate of 10 Gbps and a download rate of 20 Gbps

As per GSMA, the industry trade group, 5G connections are going to touch 1.4 billion by 2025, which shall account for around 15 percent of the global figure. With the advent of 5G, the global revenue for IoT is expected to touch $1.1 trillion and IoT connections will reach 25 billion. The capacity augmentation to be derived through 5G implementation will help enterprises to enable new deployment models, deliver novel or innovative services, and achieve next-gen customer experience assurance. The mobile ecosystem, too, will branch into new realms with high reliability, superior speeds, and minuscule latency as its hallmarks.

The other downstream benefits that 5G will bring to the table include creating digitalized supply chains and logistics, driving benign transportation, and remote healthcare, among others. It goes without saying that with 5G wireless technology, the customer experience will undergo a significant transformation. With better immersive and personalized experiences, 5G is expected to bring a sea change in customer engagement, customer behavior, customer journey, customer service, customer patterns, customer expectations, and customer loyalty.

How will the customer experience be impacted by 5G?

Even though the industry can leverage the superior reliability and enhanced capacity, efficiency, and performance of the 5G wireless network, customer expectations are going to hit the roof. With 5G making inroads, the industry could see a greater proliferation of technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, and Big Data, among others. These technologies can be used by enterprises across segments as customer experience assurance tools to maintain their competitive edge.

5G promises a radical transformation in customer experiences, whereas the present 4G networks leave a lot to be desired. As per a PwC survey, 4 out of 10 customers have doubts about the reliability of the internet services on their mobile phones. This is expected to change with 5G becoming the enabler of digital transformation around the world. The segments where 5G can impact the customer experience in a major way are:

Big Data: Currently, retail and other industry segments are leveraging AI and big data analytics to identify customer behavior patterns to personalize and enhance CX. With 5G, the capability for customer sentiment analysis is going to increase with more volumes of data being collected and analyzed at faster speeds. In fact, businesses are likely to rely more on mobile networks while streamlining their core operations. Also, since latency in 5G wireless networks is going to be minuscule or faster than human visual processing, it will be easier for people to control devices remotely as if in real-time.

AV/VR capabilities: The augmented capability of 5G can result in the processing power of digital systems being moved to the cloud, thereby enabling more widespread usage of AR/VR. Presently, AR/VR are used very selectively in virtual stores to allow customers to “experience” products that are available at the stores in their homes. This concept can receive a boost from the high-speed and low latency of 5G, especially in virtual stores or while applying makeup to one’s face, among others. AR/VR in gaming can be a game-changer too, with 5G making its presence felt. However, it is difficult to predict the growth of AR/VR since it will ultimately depend on the pace of brand adoption by customers.

Video consumption: According to IHS Markit’s report, video consumption is expected to account for 70 percent of mobile traffic, which is a major jump from a mere 47 percent in 2015. 5G will boost the promotion and consumption of general live video across industries. Even live video support will facilitate customer service, especially for customer-facing companies. Again, an Oracle survey comprising 5000 people found that around 75 percent of the respondents understood the value of voice and video chat. They harped on the critical importance of first-call resolutions in achieving digital customer experience assurance. For customer service agents given to using emails, a video explaining the steps to address an issue is far better than a series of emails describing the step-by-step process.

Healthcare: One significant disadvantage of using 4G to conduct remote patient monitoring is the slow speeds in receiving, reporting, and transmitting vital health parameters of patients from remote locations. However, this is expected to change with the advent of 5G, wherein health professionals can collect, analyze, report, and transmit patient information from remote centers on a continuous basis. This can be a godsend for people living in rural areas where access to quality medical care is still a pipe dream. 5G can give a boost to remote home monitoring systems and telehealth services, with doctors located several miles away able to make video calls to connect to the patients, make diagnoses and offer prescriptions.

Conclusion

The transformational impact of 5G wireless network service in terms of bandwidth and speed can give customers across industry segments a never-before experience. Business enterprises can leverage technologies such as AI, IoT, and Cloud Computing, among others, to derive key customer experience insights and stay competitive. Also, through user experience monitoring using 5G in real time, businesses can understand any issues with their software products or services and fix them quickly.

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James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.

A customer may display varied emotions (positive or negative) while engaging with a brand. These emotions determine if the customer is likely to revisit the brand or junk it altogether. According to a McKinsey study, more than 85 percent of customers are likely to purchase from a brand again after having a positive customer experience. A negative customer experience, on the other hand, can reduce the number of customers by 70%. So, how do businesses know whether their customers are happy while engaging with their brand? Instead of merely depending on assumptions, the answer lies in analyzing customer sentiment.

Customer sentiment analysis can let businesses know about the different emotions customers go through while dealing with a particular brand, product, or service. Customer experience insights can help brands offer more of the elements that make customers happy. Moreover, it can improve the customer satisfaction index, customer lifetime value, and customer loyalty, thereby maximizing profits. So, let us discuss this important metric in detail.

What is customer sentiment analysis? 

Customer sentiment analysis helps detect customers’ emotions when the latter interact with a brand, product(s), and service(s). The process leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) and algorithms to identify whether the emotions are neutral, positive, or negative. Here, “neutral” means the customers are happy with the brand but expect more. The algorithms evaluating customer sentiment use two parameters to categorize:

Polarity: Shows whether the emotions are positive or negative.

Magnitude: Shows the intensity of the emotions.

Further, the sentiments driving customer experience assurance can be analyzed from customer responses in the form of comments, tweets, or feedback. This process is used by businesses to understand how their customers feel about their brand, products, or services and to improve them. This helps them drive sales and stay competitive.  

What are the benefits of customer sentiment analysis?

The process of customer sentiment analysis is leveraged by various businesses for real-time user monitoring, improving customer experiences, and driving profits. The benefits of the process are as follows:

Deliver better customer service: Since bad customer service can make the customer feel unwanted and uncared for, the chances of him or her rejecting the brand or its products and services are fairly high. However, by analyzing the sentiments of customers while using specific products or services, businesses can gauge the issues (if any), and work towards mitigating them. The process offers insights into the negative emotions experienced by customers and the factors responsible for them. Thereafter, businesses can eliminate the factors that contribute to the negative sentiments.

Enhance the quality of products and services: Sentiment analysis can not only capture complaints from customers but alert businesses about the inherent vulnerabilities/issues/glitches plaguing the products and/or services. These can then be fixed by businesses, thereby improving the quality of products and services. Customer responses analyzed through the process can act as a guideline for quality improvement, better product development and service delivery, minimizing customer churn, and enhancing product marketing and presentation.

Develop better marketing strategies: With more insights gained from using the customer experience assurance tools, business enterprises can develop an effective marketing strategy. Further, specific marketing campaigns can be created for the target audience by observing customer conversations related to the brand.  

Increase sales revenue: With sentiment analysis capturing the impressions of customers towards a brand, products, and/or services, businesses can work towards optimizing the quality of the product/service. This can make the customers feel good when they come to know that the organization is all ears to their problems. This “feel good” sentiment can enhance their trust in the company and drive them to buy more, thereby increasing the company's sales revenue. 

Improve crisis management: Customer complaints can quickly turn into a crisis situation unless they are promptly addressed by taking cues from sentiment analysis. By taking timely preventive actions, businesses can nip any crisis in the bud and save themselves from inviting a chain of negative comments in the public domain.

Use cases scenarios

Some of the use cases to enhance user experience monitoring are:

Identify your key promoters and detractors: Customers are wont to comment on various aspects of a business, and it may not be advisable to get worked up with every comment of theirs. Businesses need to identify the areas/aspects that may affect their NPS score using data science. It is only by correlating such aspects with both promoters and detractors that businesses can understand the ones influencing the NPS score more.

Target detractors: It is said that negative comments travel fast and their impact can be more debilitating for the business. Think about the scathing remarks made by such detractors on social media and the impact they can have on people’s perceptions of a brand. So, how about targeting such people spewing venom about the brand on a priority basis? This can be done by approaching them, understanding their pique, and working towards defusing the situation. For instance, if an apparel company identifies people who are not happy with the return process and works towards mitigating their issues, they can even be turned around to become promoters of the brand.

Track customers’ sentiments: Mere tracking of the NPS may not always yield the right results. What is needed is to track customers’ sentiments related to the specific areas of a business. For example, customers buying merchandise from an eCommerce portal may not be happy with the latter’s return policy and customer service. It is only by tracking their sentiments over time that the portal can improve these segments and address the issues plaguing customers.

Conclusion

After understanding the nitty-gritty of customer sentiment analysis, businesses need to apply the same, especially to customer feedback. Starting with collecting data using marketing surveys, the next step is to analyze the data and assign scores. This can either be done manually or by using specific software applications. Finally, the outcomes of this analysis need to be implemented to garner great results.  

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James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.