It’s always exciting when we hear of new tech advancements. But, unfortunately, these innovations little affect our lives. Most end up just party stunts, while a few are of real vital advantages.
Augmented Reality(AR) has some critical real-world applications, one area where AR is currently being applied is enhancing the customer experience. For example, ground-breaking firms utilize AR applications throughout the customer excursion to produce more brilliant communications with their customers.
Here, we’ll discuss what exactly Augmented Reality is, how it works, and how it’s utilized to deliver better customer experiences.
What is Augmented Reality?
To understand the impact of AR on Customer Service, you first need to comprehend how it functions. AR innovations supplement reality with added computerized components. Content generated by the computer is superimposed onto the present reality, and the actual reality becomes ‘augmented.’
The recent and most well-known use of AR is in the game Pokémon Go. Game components like Pokémons (animated animals with special powers) and other related elements, with the help of Augmented Reality technology, are put in front of you. You will interact with those elements through the lens of your mobile.
Now that we’ve covered what AR is, how about we hop on what it can mean for Customer Experience (CX)?
How AR improves customer experience?
AR can help organizations, those who are online or not, by improving their connection with customers. AR enables customers to put their perspective in terms of pictures, videos and other relative data on the world through the lens of AR.
Following are the cases in which AR impacts the customer and today’s businesses by enhancing CX. They incorporate applications based on AR that you can give to customers, also as ways AR can assist your staff. They’re a long way from the primary ways you can utilize AR. However, they reflect procedures used by different organizations.
1. Training Customer Service Agents
The central part of customer support is human interaction. For instance, many customer care agents require training that includes an individual’s involvement. Therefore, many institutions cannot hire more workforce. So here comes the AR. The companies, at this point, take AR’s help in critical training of their customer service executives.
AR can make training speedier and more effective. For instance, in a business that sells many products, its customer care executives should be of exceptional knowledge that they can satisfy the customer skillfully. Having just a passing understanding of the article isn’t sufficient.
The primary way staff can arrive at that aptitude is through involved insight. AR applications can convey that experience without a staff part having to deal with each thing himself. In addition, AR models can recreate an actual physical product so you can prepare your staff more efficiently and quickly. There is no need for having an article in person for training purposes.
The organization utilizes the application not exclusively to prepare staff but also to make it accessible to customers who might need to test the features before the final run.
2. Removing Uncertainty From Purchase Decisions and making them better
The web-based business market’s assessed worth was more than $25 trillion in 2019. Notwithstanding that, there’s a disadvantage to shopping on the web. Customers can’t physically check and look at a product before buying it.
Interactive applications can utilize AR to give customers a superior adjusted impression of a product. For instance, with IKEA, customers can experience the placement of furniture products in the comfort of their rooms, and all this happens with the help of AR.
This AR further develops the customer experience of two kinds. One, it eliminates contention before purchase by showing the customer how the product will impact their routine life. Secondly, customers will be less inclined to return it as they have a better-passed judgment on a product at the beginning.
3. Enables customers to make better purchase decisions
AR’s effect on customer assistance is not restricted to the pre-sales process. The most exciting purpose of AR comes in the point of sale (POS). Creative packaging gives customers a captivating and essential experience through AR. Customers can point their telephone at any product and see compelling sights.
Other worldwide brands have adopted a happy-go-lucky approach. For example, Cereal manufacturers like Heinz offer interactiveness packaging with AR that engages more with the customer than anything else. It creates a sense of authority among the people, creating a more inclusive brand.
4. Provides self-service support
Many organizations involve AR for self-service support after a purchase. Using an AR application, customers can point their telephone at a product and get top-to-bottom self-service details, highlighting the customers’ requirements. Brands can utilize this data to make more customer-centric products and services, and that too, without the involvement of traditional approaches to customer care centers.
Customer self-service assets like FAQs, help center articles, and helpsheets can help customers solve their queries independently. As a result, they can find replies to regular inquiries, saving time and letting a significant number of your employees lose. As a result, organizations will have fewer customer questions, and consumer loyalty will increase as customers can autonomously resolve issues.
5. Boosts Customer Engagement
Some figure that online shopping can never genuinely replace the experience of shopping in actual stores. It falls short of the same dynamic and energizing air observed in physical shops. Instead, all things being equal, it subjects customers to look at their screens and snap at what they need to buy. This can get exhausting and drawn out over the long haul. Luckily, this is where expanded reality in retail and its effect on deals comes in.
Conclusion
AR is a significant advantage, changing how customers interact with businesses. Its effect across various fields will probably extend. The innovation develops and grows, particularly in the customer experience space, where AR applications and arrangements are becoming more boundless.
Global firms are very early in utilizing AR to serve customers better. Everything from virtual changing areas to intuitive bundling is being used to upgrade the customer experience.
AR innovation can improve your customers’ advanced shopping experience by providing additional ways to communicate with your products and stay with you for longer. For example, AR can add a choice, permitting your customers to “try” the thing before they get it. This will improve customer engagement and overall experience with the brands.