India is witnessing a large manufacturing revolution with the ball rolling on Industry 4.0. Large-scale manufacturers are adopting intelligent technologies aided by the Make in India and Samarth Udyog Bharat initiatives and are projected to acquire greater global market shares by 2030. Most often, Industry 4.0 is equated to automation in operational excellence that would help scale globally, but the truth goes beyond that. What Indian manufacturers need to factor in is ever-evolving customer preferences, making it critical to find new ways to deliver experiences that excite and inspire. A majority of Indian businesses (88%) see a direct link between customer service and business performance, with nearly half of them viewing CX as a revenue driver, according to CX Trends Report 2022. Manufacturers in India need to shift their value proposition from products to ongoing, data-driven services if they want to scale quickly. And this can be achieved with a greater focus on customer experience. Which brings us to the question: How can Indian manufacturers scale operations at a global level by investing in CX?
Automation for better customer experience
A key characteristic of Industry 4.0 is automation. While it can help scale operations, automation can also be used to change the way manufacturers communicate with customers in the ever-increasing supply chain. Most Indian customers (87%) expect a majority of customer service interactions to be automated and, at the same time, increase the quality of service.
As smart factories are bound to use data from connected, smart tools to understand a product’s performance and customers’ interactions with it, investing in the right CX tech can help take this relationship one step further. AI and ML can enable manufacturers to use customer data such as previous purchases and interactions with the brand to deliver faster and better experiences tailor-made for each customer.
Companies will be better positioned to deliver value to end-users with every digital interaction, from simple product performance alerts to services throughout the customer life cycle like product exploration, education, buying, service, and maintenance. Manufacturers can make the process more seamless with full customer history so customers feel valued and understood. At the same time, manufacturers can use the valuable customer insights to their benefit and use them to further product innovation.
Conversational experiences to help scale globally
Manufacturers realize that more granular customer information captured through AI and ML technologies can help them better understand the risk of attrition or service defection within their existing customer base—and potentially address it preemptively. This is where conversational experience comes into play. In the fast-paced digital-first world, customers look for quick and easy ways to resolve their issues. When customers are provided with the option of maintaining a conversation with companies and picking up where they left off, it adds to accountability and builds loyalty.Â
Conversational experiences delivered with the right CX tech can streamline customer inquiries into a unified platform, where multiple agents can coordinate actions on each request. For instance, agents tackling customer queries related to product inventory or maintenance can easily coordinate with different departments. Agents don’t have to keep track of six or seven emails related to a single order when they can have a unified view of the customer with the right CX tech. This is a huge time-saver for manufacturers as it reduces the margin of errors significantly, enabling them to become more agile and improve revenue generation.
A 360-degree view of the customer allows teams to identify trends in tickets, where workflows can be adjusted accordingly, as teams will be better equipped to compare and analyze areas of operational improvement. Let’s take the case of SMC, a market-leading manufacturer in the industry-automation space. In 2020, SMC centralized customer support into a global solution. Within four months of its implementation in 10 different languages, SMC could scale globally by delivering conversational experiences. The right CX tech-enabled SMC to positively impact 130,000 end-users and increase operational efficiency.
Investing in CX enables smart manufacturers with product innovation
Smart factories require smarter solutions that allow them to unify processes of managing orders and customer and sales requests in a reliable, streamlined manner. But there is also pressure for continuous innovation. Investing in CX can go a long way in enabling innovation. The vast amounts of customer data will enable manufacturers to tailor products that are in demand.
Internally, teams can improve workflows and identify areas of improvement based on customer feedback, which empowers them to innovate constantly. Product innovation, product quality and attractiveness can be enhanced with customer insights, and when customers know that their insights are valued, it builds loyalty. Data from interconnected devices and smart tools enable manufacturers to understand a product’s performance and customers’ interactions with it. With these insights, the value shifts from product feature to the data-driven insights derived from the physical product operation, enabling manufacturers to develop custom-designed products that suit their customers. Constant data-driven innovation is a key element that helps manufacturers scale globally and remain competitive.
For smart manufacturers, CX is surely good for business, not just in terms of increasing operational efficiency but also in becoming product innovators based on the knowledge they gain from superior conversational interactions with customers. In the age of Industry 4.0, manufacturers need to ensure that processes are consistent and match up to global standards, and CX will provide this competitive edge. By investing in CX, smart manufacturers can give customers the help they need and introduce operational excellence in the industry.