While most sectors are still grappling with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology industry has largely withstood the ravages of the outbreak and, in many ways, is flourishing. For example, Amazon continues to hire warehouse workers to cater to the growing demand. And, earlier this year, Microsoft reported a 40% week-over-week jump in the number of people using its software for online collaboration.
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The combination of lockdowns and remote work have increased the dependence on technology (for example, the rise in online shopping and video calling), accelerating permanent shifts in consumer behavior and compelling tech companies to understand new customer needs and emerging trends.
Understanding how these trends impact your industry will help you build competitive strategies, convert new customers, offer a seamless customer experience (CX), and make your technology brand stand apart.
3 competitive benchmarking strategies for technology brands
The rise of modern digital and social channels has transformed the way consumers research products, share information, and make purchases. More and more technology brands recognize the significance of CX data as a competitive advantage, and are increasingly adopting a unified approach to create interactive, immediate, and personalized customer journeys. You might not have started acclimatizing to this new reality yet, but others have. According to a study by Forrester that surveyed more than 300 decision-makers responsible for their organizations’ CX strategy, 86% agreed that they would like to implement a unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform to provide a smooth brand experience and meet their business goals.
Every day, about 2.5 quintillion bytes of unstructured consumer data are generated. A unified platform with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can help you understand and turn that CX data into actionable insights. In fact, 84% of companies are embracing AI to deliver more personalized experiences across the customer journey.
From listening to your customers on modern channels to understanding their needs to reducing response times, here are three simple yet effective ways your technology brand can better engage with customers.
1. Use social listening to its full strategic capacity
From sharing concerns to appreciation, today’s customers talk about companies on multiple platforms, including social media, blogs, and review sites. According to the research, technology brands are sophisticated in listening, but their focus remains on established networks such as Facebook (99%), Twitter (88%), and LinkedIn (79%).
Which channels does your technology brand use to monitor your customers’ social activities and track their sentiments? These organic, real-time exchanges can surface powerful insights critical to informing and driving successful strategic initiatives.
Technology giants, including Samsung and Phillips, leverage advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to discover upcoming trends. These capabilities can track the themes of the conversation wherever your brand is mentioned, as well as where it should be, enabling you to recalibrate your listening efforts accordingly and drive insights across your business. Equipped with features like sentiment analysis and intention detection, AI-powered social publishing and engagement solutions can help you prioritize and engage more effectively with customers at scale and in real-time.
Learn more about Social Listening.
2. Improve your brand’s response rate
Forty-four percent of technology companies have more than 20 employees dedicated to responding to consumer comments online. In contrast, more than half of the technology brands respond within five hours, and 23% respond within an hour. Uber’s average response time is 45 minutes.
In order to grow and retain your customer base, tech brands increasingly require a platform that can address and triage large volumes of inbound messages at scale. This enables you to decrease your brand’s response time and increase its response rate at the same time.
In addition, 51% of technology companies reply to positive customer comments to drive customer loyalty. Engaging with positive sentiment can yield new user-generated content (UGC), increased reach, and opportunities to surprise and delight your existing and potential customers.
3. Calibrate your publishing efforts
Nearly half of the brands (49%) in the research spend $300k or more to promote and amplify their content across digital channels. As a technology brand, you should evaluate key performance metrics, identify what resonates with consumers and what doesn’t — and revise your content marketing strategy accordingly to maximize the return on investment.
In addition, modern consumers are engaging on dozens of platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, and forums. Assess where your audience is and reevaluate the channels you are publishing on. Invest in the right technology and human resources to effectively execute your content publishing strategy.
Sprinklr’s Digital Unified-CXM Benchmarking Report for the Technology Industry shines a light on tactics used by best-in-class technology brands to engage with their customers and build brand loyalty. It helps you compare your performance against your competitors, your own brand(s), and previous campaigns — and use that data to navigate threats and identify strategic opportunities.
This report can be used to evaluate a brand’s Digital Unified-CXM maturity level with respect to the industry and to compare strategies implemented by leading technology brands.
Download the full report to see how your brand compares to your competitors in the industry.
