How IoT Apps Can Help in Shaping Consumer Experience?

• By James Grills
• 05-08-2020
• Internet of Things

The Forrester 2018 report says that consumers are increasingly seeking IoT products that are personalized, monitored, and updated with the new features. The IoT or Internet-of-Things technology/apps have brought the consumers and businesses a world of opportunities and conveniences through the internet-connected devices that can freely exchange data over the internet. Businesses can use IoT connectivity, apps, and devices for purposes, including inventory management, data sharing, enhancing productivity and efficiency, and improving security.

The data captured, generated, and shared by the IoT devices are capitalized on by the businesses for delivering more customized and personalized experiences to their consumers. The customer experience professionals should work with the technology organizations to better integrate the physical world's requirements and contexts into the customer's journey through the use of IoT analytics programs.
However, the integration for the improvements may also require contributions from operations, supply chain, marketing, product engineering, and other relevant departments. Below is how IoT trends, apps, devices, and technology can help shape consumer experience.

Improving the Experiences of Consumers Through Real-Time Monitoring
Consumers are expecting a lot from their IoT devices and apps nowadays so many businesses are hiring an app developer for the business. For instance, they want to be updated about when the lines for purchasing beer get to be shorter, or the nearby options where the seat-based dining and food delivery options are available. When they go in for repairs of their laptops or tablets, they expect that there will be information already available on the battery cycle count.
IoT devices and apps are generating a lot of data every second. Businesses should make use of the new technologies, including IoT, data science, and machine learning, to ensure that they can offer the best services to customers in real-time and follow their problems.

Customizing The Solutions And Situations For Consumers
The customer wants their IoT applications and devices to provide them customized and personalized experiences in terms of real-world issues, developments, and contexts. For instance, the business clients want that they should get the custom notifications for their energy use, and leading firms, including Schneider Electric, offer the latest IoT capable commercial electric panels that can do just that. Such customized applications of IoT will reduce the downtimes of businesses and will help them provide even better services/products to their clients while increasing their revenues.

Enriching Personalized Communications
IoT also enriches communications, one of the ways businesses and their clients come closer and develop a better understanding of each other. These personalized communications can provide for long-term relationships as well. IoT helps businesses obtain information from a variety of sources so that they can understand the behavior of customers and improve operations.

The insights from the software and data allow the businesses to communicate with their consumers in a more personalized way, gauge their interest areas better, and deliver what may be essential for delivering a more personalized and customized experience.
IoT helps businesses provide personalized suggestions to their consumers in the form of relevant products/services, or guide them towards using the specific product features based on the statistics gathered through the IoT sensors. Such efficiency and care reveal to the customer that the company cares for them, and they start to feel valued.

More than a transactional event, a more personalized and emotional connection can develop between the business and their clients through IoT apps and may result in enhanced trust and loyalty. The passionate and connective actions improve the overall experience significantly and expose the partnership to a whole new world of symbiotic relationships that can be highly fruitful and convenient for them.

Learning to Improve
The scale of competitiveness evident today is on the higher side, and globalization has ensured that the firms need to make the best use of their scarce resources and keep on learning to remain competitive and sustainable. The IoT apps, as offered by a renowned and leading IoT App Development Company, helps businesses gather crucial and important data through the sensors and other means, analyze the experiences of their customers, and monitor, learn and improve side by side.

Tesla (the American EV maker) has introduced new features, including the “Tesla Autopilot” that can make the best use of IoT sensors and improves the learning capability of the company exceptionally. Some more, real, and current examples of IoT's use in business scenarios can be seen here.

Creating New Business Offerings
IoT apps bring to businesses much new data and information that can be a valuable source of information for the design and development of new services or products. Therefore, businesses need not launch a product/service in ambiguity but tailor-make their offering from the very onset.

For instance, Kaeser Kompressoren recently launched the new compressed air-as-a-service option to its existing product portfolio of the industrial air compressors. The design of the new offering was based on the information received through the IoT apps. It is for businesses that would prefer the option over the leasing or ownership option and would pay separately for each of the uses.

Strategic Actions
The real-time data obtained through IoT devices and sensors provide feedback and reflections of short-term value and helps in better defining the long-term and strategic-value actions. IoT helps businesses manage their unit functions better, which ultimately reflects improved and more efficient services to the customers.

The free flow of information and its delivery to the requisite clients and customers ensures that the consumers develop a liking for the more transparent processes. When the operational tasks are better monitored, the quality of the business offerings also improves, and so is the delivery’s efficiency. All of these positive developments ensure that customer experiences are delightful throughout the journey.

Ensuring Security Throughout Consumer Journey
Strategic plans and their success may also depend to a certain extent on the security of the measures used. IoT also ensures that companies can provide a safe and secure digital environment to their consumers, which will help them retain their customers. In these times, retaining a customer is five times less costly for a company than generating a new one. Every company should focus on retaining its existing customers first, and IoT and the security it provides is crucial for generating trust and confidence.

Any of the products and features can be monitored over the internet through the use of IoT. Companies can also use the verification IDs, biometric sensors, and other IoT and digital measures to ensure that identification is ensured and reliable. IoT can bring many more layers to digital security and improve customer service while ensuring that the customer data, information, finances, and privacy do not get impregnated at any time.

The world of interconnected devices, with their software, sensors, and connectivity to the internet and network, help the firms accumulate a vast amount of information. The exchange of this data and information can make the systems and the concerned more responsive. Customer service is based on timely and prompt responsiveness through adequate and desired resources and measures. IoT may be one of the most excellent impetus tools for improving customer service and has already been transforming consumer experiences in multiple segments of business activities, products, and services.