The “In Their Own Words” series is a collection of short columns from some of Chicago’s most influential tech leaders. After a tumultuous 2020—with a global pandemic, civil unrest and a turbulent economy—Inno wanted to give Chicago's tech community an opportunity to reflect on the highs and lows of the last 12 months, and share how they're working smarter and better in the next 12. Each columnist was asked to answer the question: How are you and your company preparing for 2021?
For more columns like this, scroll to the end of the story.
How can brands become more personal?
That’s the question every founder in a Covid economy should be asking themselves. We are knee-deep in an isolation economy and people are yearning for in-person interaction at every turn—from work to family get-togethers, and even while they shop.
In my industry, haircare, we need an even more personal touch. I can’t tell the texture of someone’s hair purely from a picture. I need to feel the texture and moisture level in order to be accurate. I can’t get that from a picture. We need to need to recreate the in-store experience for customers, now more than ever.
So how do we do that?
Currently, the closest you come to a personal interaction with an online company is via live text chat, which most of us hate. It's robotic, slow and you never know when to end a chat.
I predict that the live chat features where we spend 10-30 minutes waiting to text back and forth with customer service will soon be over. No more watching the little ellipses load over and over as we wait. No more taking 5 minutes just to explain your problem by text, which I hate doing.
In the age of voice-to-text search, Clubhouse, the new voice app, and Zoom, customer service will eventually turn into live video chat as the standard.
In just a few years, everyone will have a representative who is ready to chat with LIVE video at just the click of a button. No more watching loading screens as we talk to one person who is talking to five other people at the same time.
One-on-one interactions with a living breathing person—that makes a customer feel special. That encourages them to buy. That creates a new lever for revenue in your business. Suddenly, your customer service team goes from being a cost center to a profit center.
That’s how we make shopping online personal, by using real people.
