2022 was a landmark year for Indian manufacturers. The industry’s exports skyrocketed and revenues jumped to $422 billion, the highest ever. But this export trend may not sustain in 2023 as geopolitical instability and a global economic slowdown have led to recessionary concerns in several advanced economies. The continuous disruptions to global supply chains have also added to concerns of decrease in exports.
For an industry that relies heavily on its value chains it is mission critical to retain customers in turbulent times. This can only be done by building lasting relationships and herein lies the key, which has for long been a missing link in the list of priorities for manufacturers, immersive CX.
When we look at the state of tech adoption among Indian manufacturers, the progress is gradual and largely because 90% of Indian businesses in this sector are MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises). Investments into creating smart factories have only just begun in India with rapid tech adoption by several key sub-sectors like automotive, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, defence and textile. Collectively, these major sub-sectors invested $12 billion in Industry 4.0. , how can manufacturers ensure they’re making the right investments?
Immersive CX for lasting relationships
Almost every manufacturer is focused on producing high-quality goods on time and within budget. To do this, manufacturers need to build strong relationships with suppliers and distributors. But this may prove easier said than done, particularly in India due to the heavily fragmented value chain.
For most manufacturers, customer loyalty is a serious challenge given the increasingly competitive global market and rising customer expectations. Zendesk research shows that 85% of Indian customers will walk away after a single bad experience. Creating loyalty can be hard to achieve when manufacturers rely on legacy systems and siloed customer data without proper context. These businesses need a balanced human-automation strategy to get the job done.
And without this, it would be hard for manufacturers in the country to scale and grow. So how do manufacturers create immersive experiences with the power of AI?
#1 Improving post-purchase experience: Service quality tends to drop after the sale is made, but a sure-shot way of achieving loyalty is delivering consistently great post-purchase experiences with the power of personalisation. When manufacturers prioritise customer well-being, they can deepen loyalty. Achieving a deeper level of personalisation requires harnessing the power of AI that combines data from multiple systems like product usage, service history data, and key customer data to personalise all interactions handled by both humans and bots.
#2 Breaking down silos: Most manufacturers still rely on single point tools that serve one particular function. While these tools are great in delivering one specific function, the data generated resides in silos. Centralising regional, brand and support systems generates a unified, global brand experience that leverage customer information across the lifecycle. The right automated tools can easily identify where potential customers are in their journey, as well as the company size and industry, making it easier to route them to specific agents best suited to help them — resulting in an increase of qualified leads.
#3 High-quality content for self-service: To achieve more with less, manufacturers can increase customer self-service by providing high quality, accessible content that helps their customers get answers quickly, while also improving internal efficiencies and reducing costs. For instance, more repetitive and commonly raised queries can be addressed by chatbots or routed to knowledge centres. AI technologies can analyse incoming queries to provide content suggestions for support agents to add to the help centre.
#4 Proactively support customers by using Industry 4.0 data: With the adoption of smart manufacturing, businesses in the sector have a huge potential of using the massive amounts of data generated by Industry 4.0 technologies to proactively trigger automated workflows, actions and communications for troubleshooting, maintenance and issue resolution that can exceed customer expectations and drive loyalty.
For instance, with a unified solution, manufacturers can help support staff save time by providing them with access to important data like products owned and warranty details when it comes to order repair. But to take it a step further and create truly immersive experiences by enabling remote diagnostics. Rather than sending a technician or bringing the product to a store for repair, immersive solutions allow agents to troubleshoot problems during interactions with customers, achieving much needed speed.
Manufacturing high-quality products that are priced fairly will no longer cut it. Faced with managing an increasingly complex supply chain, retaining customer confidence and loyalty becomes even more critical. Manufacturers need the value immersive CX brings. Amid the global economic slowdown, leveraging AI is a great way for manufacturers to drive down operational costs and do more with less, while delivering top-notch customer experiences that create deep and lasting relationships.