Gain insight into the most exciting technology conversations influencing your customers now and in the future
In 2022, technology’s most transformative business impact is on customer behaviors, experiences, and expectations. With the kinds of technology previously only available to enterprise businesses — cloud storage, open-source code and development, accessible eCommerce tools — now at their fingertips, consumers are empowered in ways that have dramatic implications for the way they interact with your brand.
Your customers experience brands through multiple devices simultaneously, across a growing number of digital channels, and even pay for goods with various digital currencies. Technology is also where they turn for advice on which companies they should trust and identify with, and where they go to voice their happiness (or unhappiness) with your brand.
They expect your brand to provide a consistent experience that gives them access when and how they choose, incorporates their feedback in real-time, and supports their individuality with personalized offerings. They have more options and more outlets to amplify their voices, so the stakes for brand leaders have never been higher: if you can’t listen and respond to those voices in real-time, your brand will fall behind.
Understanding the technology trends that guide consumer actions and expectations will be critical for synthesizing all these inputs into a unified brand strategy. Sprinklr, the only unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform, has partnered with Twitter on a deep dive into the three biggest technology trends influencing and empowering your customers. Tap into these important conversations to grow your brand and make your customers happier.
Trend 1: Digital Ethics
Key Statistic: In the last year, the number of Twitter conversations related to digital ethics grew by 32%
Technology has removed national and physical boundaries and put us all in closer contact with diverse cultures, backgrounds, and points of view. This has opened minds and broadened perspectives, but it’s also illuminated the enormous challenges we all face: inequality, environmental destruction, social injustice, and political polarization.
But technology can also be a potent force for overcoming these challenges, and it starts by taking back power and holding institutions — and brands — accountable. Customers now expect your brand to take a stand on their most important issues, and social media affords them a platform for voicing those demands and mobilizing when they aren’t met. And if technology is a means to overcoming inequality, then customers expect technology brands to provide better access and bridge the digital divide.
Trend 2: Cyber individuality
Key Statistic: Twitter conversations related to Web3 — the internet paradigm fueling digital autonomy — grew by 1,869% in the last year
The internet itself, like all technologies, has evolved over time in three distinct phases. Web1 gave users a trove of information at their fingertips, while Web2 ushered in platforms that controlled and profited from personal consumer data. Now, Web3 has given rise to a new age of cyber individualism.
With advances in technology like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrency, and mobile app design, consumers are shaking off the restrictions imposed by old gatekeepers. This has unlocked a surge of creative and commercial opportunity in everything from film, music, and art to finance and healthcare. Decentralized data and content in the hands of creators means that customers no longer rely on brands to mediate their digital existence. Instead, they can fund, control, sell, or share their own creations among communities that reflect their own unique values and tastes.
For the new cyber individual, your brand isn’t an intermediary for traditional business services. Instead, customers are looking for a partner to provide digital foundations, help them achieve scale, and facilitate connections across distinct communities.
Trend 3: Rise of the metaverse
Key Statistic: Twitter conversations related to the metaverse increased by 19,425% in the last year
Smart technology is nothing new — devices have long incorporated data about the way we live into the products and services we experience. But now, that data is reshaping the very fabric of our reality. The metaverse is a completely immersive virtual world with infinite potential for new experiences.
As virtual and augmented reality tech becomes more accessible, your customers are spending more and more time in virtual spaces. And as a result, they will expect increasingly experiential relationships with brands they use. The rise of the metaverse means you’ll need to create a customer journey that has the sights, sounds, feelings, smells, and emotional resonance of real life.
Leverage these trends with a unified approach
These trends paint a picture of a consumer landscape in which the typical flow of information and interaction — from brand to customer through advertising and marketing, and from customer to brand through purchases of discrete products — has been totally upended. Technology has given a voice to every individual and community, and they are using it to demand social change, express their true selves, and build new frontiers of experience.
Brands that win in this context are there as partners when, where, and how their customers need them. They create a unified, seamless experience for customers, no matter how fragmented the digital media landscape becomes. They incorporate AI into their strategies, so they can understand customer sentiment at a deeper level than mere clicks and “likes.” And they unify their internal marketing operations so they can be more efficient, more collaborative, and better access data to generate true insight.
As the only Unified-CXM platform, Sprinklr helps the world’s largest, most trusted brands make their customers happier by reaching across 30+ digital channels using industry-leading AI to create insight-driven strategies and better customer experiences — no matter what trends arise.
For an industry deep dive into the tech trends and social stats influencing your brand, explore Twitter and Sprinklr’s Birdseye Report.