Role of Augmented Reality in Enhancing Customer Experience
Today, several technological advancements are taking over eCommerce to keep up with the ever-changing customers’ expectations and offer quality interaction. Consequently, businesses must invest in digital transformation, like implementing customer contact center software to enhance their marketing strategies.
Among the top technological advancements is Augmented Reality (AR). But what’s the role of augmented reality in enhancing customer experience?
Augmented Reality offers customers a fresh, customizable way to view products or services. Realising the products in the way and where they want boosts the buyer’s confidence in buying and enhances customer experience and satisfaction.
The concept of AR plays several roles in a business to positively affect the customer’s sales journey. Keep reading to find out.
What is Augmented Reality?
Augmented Reality is a technology that enables you to join your present-time environment with a computer-generated reality. By producing 3D visuals and sound effects in business, a customer can view the AR markers using a mobile device camera or an application.
So, why do you need to integrate AR into your business processes? Find several roles of AR, particularly in enhancing customer experience, below.
- Creating Immersive Retail Experiences
During a purchase, customers may struggle to search for and find helpful information about a product. Because of this, most stores have implemented remote call centers to provide quick solutions to customers. The virtual call centers allow your enterprise to decentralize all your contact center operations. Hence, it offers a solution to save your organization from additional costs.
Most importantly, the remote call center solution allows your customer support representatives to deliver top notch service. And, your virtual call center enables you to recruit customer service agents from anywhere around the world.
As a result, the flexible call center solution enables you to have a geographically-dispersed workforce instead of having your customer support team located in one single site. They can work remotely from their home’s comfort, and still still deliver effective work solutions.
Even better is when a business uses online call center software to make the online customer experience flawless. The best thing about a contact center solution is that it provides several approaches for the customer to find assistance.
Some popular contact center approaches include web chats, email sequences, live chat, video calls, SMS, chatbots, and AI support. But all these are available only in the best call center software from a wide selection.
Nonetheless, Augmented Reality improves and makes the customer experience process convenient and more fun. An AR application connected to a camera makes it easier for business owners to display helpful information about their products.
AR helps customers find reviews, tutorials, user manuals, and how-to guides effortlessly without wandering about the website wasting time.
- Customer Service Executive Training
You can use AR to train your contact center employees to become more accessible, faster, and more efficient. Augmented Reality improves communication and interactivity in passing information among team members.
Better still, AR ensures the training doesn’t seem complex because it provides easy-to-understand information acquisition for learning new skills. This is hard to achieve with conventional teaching methods that only rely on explicit images and films.
Now, customer care executives can learn more about items in greater depth. Furthermore, AR training is much faster and more resourceful.
- Eliminating the Uncertainty of Online Purchases
A common disadvantage of shopping online is that customers cannot physically assess a product before buying it. Even with pictures and videos of the product, there’s a great chance of making mistakes in your purchase. In the end, businesses record high return sales after shoppers shop online.
So, what to do? Augmented Reality is your best rescue option. Besides, customers who’ve used AR in the past say they prefer shopping from a store with a website that has AR.
With Augmented Reality, customers have better visuals of the products and a chance to try them virtually before purchasing. This way, a customer gains a better impression of the product.
- Assist Customers in Making Decisions
In most cases, clients resist buying things not because they don’t want them, but rather because they are unsure if they are the best fit for them. Thanks to an AR app, a customer can now view and feel all the product’s valuable details to help decide.
You need to access the AR app on your mobile device, click on the product, and scan over the product using your camera to capture all the essential information. This also benefits the sellers because they sell their products quickly without requiring intensive advertisements.
- Providing Self-Service and Post-Sale Support
Self-service is when a customer helps themselves to find the answer to their query. It’s also part of a contact center solution, only that you don’t have to call and talk to a customer executive. Self-service like FAQ sections and helpsheets saves time and frees up your customer support agents. This way, companies will get fewer customer queries and still empower consumers by allowing them to be in control of their experience.
Conversely, post-sale support refers to the activities that occur after selling a product or service. This includes installation, upgrades, repairs, and troubleshooting. When a business provides 360° support, it solidifies the seller-buyer relationship, improving customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Today, augmented reality solutions are helping businesses to provide a collaborative post-sales support system that resolves customer issues within the shortest time.
- Intelligent Maintenance Advice and User Manuals
Post-sale customer support isn’t just about solving issues; regular product maintenance improves brand identity and positioning. This way, more customers are likely to come back for more after the excellent additional support.
A while back, companies used user manuals to support proper product use and maintenance. Thanks to AR, companies like Hyundai are offering AR-based user manuals. This way, drivers and car owners don’t have to peruse bulky booklets to search for help with car maintenance.
When in need of routine car servicing, car owners need to point their smartphone camera at the problematic part of the car. Then, the AR manual pops up with the correct information and instructions on what to do.
AR is also beneficial in the medical sector. Doctors can quickly identify an issue with a patient’s body using an AR app over scans and x-rays.
- Advice and Added Value through Interactive Packaging
Aside from pre-sale support, AR is beneficial at the point of sale. A good example is using AR for interactive packaging.
You don’t have to open the package to see what’s inside. AR allows customers to engage with the product’s packaging and see more of what’s inside.
Key Takeaways
Augmented Reality is reshaping the nature of businesses in a digital world. The enterprise sector, for instance, is witnessing better and more convenient processes due to the adoption of AR technology.
Businesses are using augmented reality to update and structure workflow, minimize the cost of logistics and operations, and enhance the productivity of several departments, like customer service, production, marketing, and sales.
Undeniably, AR is the future of all businesses, enabling consumers and merchants to grow and enjoy better experiences quickly. So, regardless of the size of your company, AR can help you gain more traction and income.
