In early 2021, Multiplica forecasted the seven trends that will set the course for relevant digital experiences. In this article, we will analyze how those forecasts panned out and how they will change in 2022.
Trend #1: Intention, at the heart of the experience
During 2021, organizations made their efforts focused on customer needs. The capacity to obtain deep, granular insight into what drives each of their experiences, as well as a comprehensive view of the entire user journey, were the highlights of the previous year.
User experience strategies will remain at the forefront in 2022, with the goal of being holistic, predictive, accurate, and linked to business outcomes.
Designing exceptional consumer experiences is becoming easier thanks to the rise of predictive analytics. Customer intelligence that is predictive is indeed the future. As a result, it is reasonable to expect that this tendency will continue, progressing from “knowing the intention” to “predicting the intention.” It will also work in tandem with new First Party Data tactics, such as lead scoring and personalization, to enable proactive strategy activation.
Trend #2: Personalization throughout the journey
Personalization, it was suggested a year ago, should allow for the adaptation of customer dialogue throughout the entire journey, taking into account the maturity of the business and gradually beginning the journey. The data, in turn, became the DNA of any endeavor that aimed to make the experiences more relevant.
In the years 2020 and 2021, the digital transformation of organizations grew at an exponential rate, accelerating both the demand for and supply of products and services through digital channels.
Emerging markets, such as Latin America, are aggressively investing in long-term personalization strategies, recognizing that customers are more global than ever before, and that local will only remain appealing if it is more relevant to the rest of the world.
For 2022, a substantial shift in growth levels is expected, with the big winners being those brands who can solidify a degree of relationship based on that information and executed through personalized experiences.
Personalization will eventually stop being an experiment and become a crucial axis of digital strategies.
Trend #3: More circular omnichannel experiences
The term “omnichannel” refers to a relationship that is interwoven throughout all touchpoints. Vertical cooperation has succeeded in elevating automated services this year, bridging the gap between internal operations and points of contact. Checking the status of an order whose answer is built by combining online sales, inventory, or dispatch services is becoming increasingly prevalent.
This tendency has continued to evolve as a model of attribution and contribution in the service or sale processes as a result of the integration of services.
Social networks, for example, are progressing in their development as a simple sales channel for consumers who connect with related material. Instagram created a platform where “Shopping is a Pleasure” earlier this year, and it’s still progressing with “Shopping in Reels.”
This network will continue to build a digital experience that includes product search using all accessible channels, as well as product socialization, multiple transactions, and the benefits of an integrated service.
In 2022, we’ll see more alliances or integrations like TikTok and Shopify to help ecommerce services get to market faster. Services like Domino’s pizza autonomous vehicles will continue to appear, complementing the digital service with autonomous delivery and future options for new purchases at this point of sale. This delivery does not compete with the physical store or the online, but rather complements a one-of-a-kind service.
Trend #4: Smarter conversational experiences
In 2021, the adoption of conversational interfaces, which were already growing faster than the adoption of smartphones, continued to increase.
In this regard, Juniper Research estimates that the conversational sector would produce 290 billion dollars globally by 2025.
The conversational future is becoming a reality, and it’s becoming increasingly important to work on an omnipresent and multimodal experience (text and speech) to ensure that they’re not just relevant, but also capable of forming bonds with people.
In 2022, we anticipate increased consumer expectations in terms of what they want from a bot. Adopting good bots will encourage them to do more with them and solve more problems with them. And this will drive us to create better conversational products that bring more value to the whole experience, particularly in financial services, conversational commerce, and health.
According to Gartner, conversational interfaces will account for 72 percent of business-to-consumer interactions in the next year. In the health field, on the other hand, according to Juniper, the success rate of bot interactions will increase from 12% today to over 75% in 2022.
Tendencia #5: Hyperautomation
Hyperautomation is a method of rapidly finding, reviewing, and automating as many IT and business activities as possible using a disciplined, business-driven approach. It has risen to prominence in 2021 as a result of the maturation of digitization and data management tools.
Many firms have invested in digital skills development throughout the pandemic, which, when combined with technology tools like AI, Machine Learning, and RPA, offer the groundwork for hyper automation to take place in the right context.
However, this is simply the start of a lengthy journey. Businesses will need to devote a significant amount of time and effort to achieve long-term hyper automation adoption. Its worth will only begin to manifest for those who remain focused. Organizations must keep current in order to avoid reverting to outdated, stagnant processes driven by tactical operational objectives.
According to Gartner, hyperautomation is one of the top trends for 2022 since it allows for scalability, remote operation, and disruption of the business paradigm.
Signature verification tools, optical character recognition, document ingestion, conversational artificial intelligence, and natural language technology (NLT) will all be in high demand as content becomes more automated.
Trend #6: Touchless experiences
The popularity of QR codes is at an all-time high. Additionally, the use of digital wallets to make payments (e.g., Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.) and through wearables has grown in popularity.
Countries like the United States, where, according to Fit Small Business, about 45 percent of American consumers have Apple Pay, more than 30 percent have Starbucks Pay, 25 % have Google Pay, and more than 15 % have Samsung Pay.
According to the Mastercard New Payments Index, 93 percent of consumers are contemplating new payment methods such as biometrics, digital currencies, and QR codes. Also, nearly 90% of in-person purchases are performed in establishments that accept contactless payments, according to the same survey.
Looking ahead, these new payment methods will grow in popularity as people’s comfort levels rise and their reliance on cash decreases. In fact, 71 percent of people in Latin America said they expect to use less money in the future.
Trend #7: Most present immersive experiences
This has been a year of numerous firsts in the field of immersive experiences, allowing us to clearly perceive the three-ongoing dimensionality’s progress. Metaverses, Omniverses, and efforts like Virtual Land, which has seen a surge in virtual property purchases, all point to a growing interest in digital worlds.
The introduction of Facebook-Ray Ban stories has been set for 2021. E-sports, meanwhile, have a sizable market, outperforming many traditional sports in terms of income and popularity. Additionally, projects such as Niantic’s Omniverse have been observed, and we must remember that firms like Epic Games have had a lengthy journey in Virtual Reality in recent years.
Immersive experiences will expand and evolve in terms of hardware accessibility and convenience in 2022, as these are the two most significant barriers to adoption.
The race to position itself in the field of virtual worlds, also known as Metaverses, will, on the other hand, be heightened in 2022. To establish these new platforms, there will be collaborations between large technological corporations and newcomers. Facebook has already jumped on board, and Microsoft, Apple, and Google will undoubtedly have to adjust their strategies to avoid losing market share.
Companies must acknowledge that this is not a fad, but rather a progression of the digital world towards a three-dimensional reality. Other virtual spaces are being created where people are doing things, and you will have to see what you can do there. Your potential customers are spending time in the metaverse and buying from there.
We will also see significant advancements in the technology that enables this type of content; it is probable that a competition will begin to see who can provide the most interesting virtual universes to offer narrative and advertising spaces to businesses and clients.
The year 2021 is coming to a close, and the year 2022 will bring fresh and exciting challenges. So, if you’d like to learn more about these trends and how they might help your business thrive in the market, feel free to contact David Boronat, Multiplica’s Founder and President.