New age of consumers demand hybrid customer experience

OVER the years, ‘self service’ has gained traction across Asia. Consumers are increasingly becoming more comfortable with the automated support options companies offer to help them with their queries and accessing services. It’s convenient and mostly fairly reliable. However, some consumers consciously still depend on live agent support, where phone and online live chat interactions are among the top most preferred touchpoints across all support scenarios in some Asia Pacific countries. This is where hybrid preferences come in, which present opportunities for businesses to optimise digital channels while ensuring accessibility of human agent engagement.

There are a few points business decision-makers should note when designing their next hybrid customer experience map.

Human touch is still pivotal

We have seen how remarkably businesses transformed their operations digitally and created new virtual experiences for their customers at the height of the pandemic. Now with most places operating almost back to normal, businesses that have adopted virtual practices are slowly shifting towards a hybrid model, which leads to a whole new set of expectations from customers.