First off – what the heck is multiexperience? Is it just another fad? A new buzzword in tech land or is it a future trend? Let’s take a look. Multiexperience is a concept that addresses a fundamental shift in how companies should design their digital strategies to engage with customers. In simple terms, it is about enhancing the “digital experience”. Instead of an application on a singular device using touch and type – it is an journey across a platform or ecosystem which knows customers, habits and how they interact….or even act on a their behalf . This concept was established by Gartner in late 2019 and is being talked about as one of the top tech developments of 2020. So what does that really mean for consumers?
The Specifics
Based on GlobalWebIndex research on average a person has 3.2 connected devices. Across each device there are applications that are equipped to provide a better experience unbeknownst to users. The goal should almost always be to offer you a better product and/or service at the consumer decision point. Most of you are familiar with having a single point of interaction but by including multi-sensory (touch, voice, vision, gesture, etc) and multi-touchpoint interfaces (in-app, in-store, social media, etc) companies can enhance the digital experience. Those who understand that there are multiple touchpoints and channels can take advantage of these unique opportunities. Marty Resnick, Sr. Director Analyst from Gartner, suggests looking at where customers are (physically), what they’re doing (contextually), and what they’re experiencing at the time (experientially) which he has illustrated in the image below.
In addition his colleague Jason Wong, Research VP at Gartner, proposed the best approach for applying a multiexperience to a digital user journey.
- Sync me – “You store my information and I can find it,”
- See me – “You understand my context, my location, my situation, my historical preferences maybe and you give me better information and better interaction”
- Know me – Use predictive analytics to make suggestions to me
- Be me – “Act on my behalf, I give you permission,” Wong said. “Make the best decision for me – what’s the next best action I should take?”
Is It Already Happening?
In theory this all sounds great but in practice it is proving difficult to implement. Designing these experiences to be seamless and consistent across both devices and touchpoints requires a lot of investment ($) and feedback from users. but there are some, other than Google and Amazon, who have found success.
- Domino’s:
- “Domino’s Anywhere” Order pizza through: Google Home, Alexa, Slack, Messenger, Text, Tweet, Ford in-car system, smart TV, smart watch, voice! (drove stock up 90x)
- Real time pizza tracking (cooking and delivery)
- No Touch / Low Touch Pizza delivery cars
- Drives results for the company as well including:
- Increased user engagement
- Better order allocation
- Faster delivery times
- Improved labor efficiencies
- Greater visibility into drivers
- Reduced insurance costs with use of telematic data
- Netflix:
- Predictive Analytics
- Seamless switching between touchpoints/devices: If you are watching Murder Mystery on your smart TV and have to head to your doctors appointment you can pick up where you left off in the waiting room.
The good news is the multiexperience concept is still in its infancy so it will be exciting to see how things progress. Converging this concept with growing new technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Conversational UI (chatbot) and image recognition gives us customers a lot to look forward to.
Moving Forward
It is 2020 and consumers are seeking immediate gratification with convenient and seamless experiences. As companies continue to invest in their digital transformation it is important they keep this concept at the forefront of their mind. Carving out budget for IT infrastructures that can support real-time interactions between people, applications, data and clouds at the edge will be critical. Improving on these digital experiences to be faster, trusted and more personalized will allow them establish a much needed competitive differentiation.
For those who want to dig deeper on how multiexperience differs from multichannel and omnichannel below is a chart from the OutSystems blog who breaks it down.