Cultural shifts, human innovation, and communications seem to act as a harmonious trio. And the way we communicate is often reflected by the sentiment of its creators, including the innovative liberties taken when developing customer-centric experiences.
In 2019, brands took notice of the uptick in consumers who now expect more tailored communications experiences and designed new ones with this in mind, a natural progression when you consider the dynamic nature of communications. Shifts in customer expectations led MasterCard to announce it had hired its first Customer Experience Officer last year.
Facebook even got in on the action, beefing up private communications features with a redesign of its 'groups feature' for one-on-one chats with brands. Twilio is another mega brand that took on customer engagement in 2019, and recently released its 'State of Customer Engagement Report.'
Twilio supported engagement in a major way, with the CPaaS pioneer boasting it enabled 750 billion human interactions and 170,000 customer engagements in 2019.
Diving into the Report
Some of Twilio's findings were obvious. The kind you'd expect from such a report. 'Customers Want Real Conversations,' a conclusion reached by Twilio. But a deeper dive found, 94 percent of customers said they're 'annoyed' by communications they receive from companies.
Eighty-three percent said they prefer email to communicate unless it is urgent. When the matter is urgent, most customers said they preferred SMS. Fifty-four percent said they think it's important that businesses make the option of opting-out less complex.
Fifty-two percent said they want the option to choose how they receive their communications, with 41 percent stating they were 'annoyed' because they didn't remember opting-in in the first place. According to Statista, AI-powered voice assistants should reach eight billion by 2023, meaning nearly every human on planet earth could conceivably interact with artificial intelligence.
