IACC External Meetings Demand Report 2022

in elevators, security access, meeting rooms, offices, and other areas. Some buildings may employ health screening methods at their security gates during outbreaks. This may be seen in the increased usage of sensors and voice recognition. The adoption of touchless technology can not only help to avoid disease transmission but can also be combined with technologies that help with space utilisation tracking, optimisation, and maintenance (Arup et al., 2020).

2.2.4 The constantly Changing Customer Expectations "Businesses need to not only meet customer demands but exceed them" (IssueTrak, 2020).

Salesforce (2020) published the state of the connected customer report which summerises a conducted global survey with more than 15.000+ respondents and reveals the following the changing customer expectations and behaviours during the pandemic, the standards customers have in evaluating brands in a progressively online world, how the quick and broad shift to digital channels will affect customer engagement speaking of long-term and lastly why and how customers hold organisations accountable nowadays. 1. Connection with customers Regardless of the change of customer expectations that have hit organisations with phenomenal speed and scale, customer experience is still the number one way to differentiate yourself as an organisation (Becker, 2018). 80% of customers find customer experience just as important as the organisation ’s product or services. That figure incorporates 83% of millennials and 85% of business purchasers, that usually have high standards and are critical towards customer experience. Going beyond experience not just helps organisations generate sales, but also build relationships with their customers. All organisations – regardless of if they provided their customers with exceeding experiences before – now have to be able to meet a new set of customer needs and expectations. And these are mainly digital. Even though 54% of customers would like to see new products and services in response to COVID-19, 69% would rather see organisations digitalising their already existing products and services; digital variants of IRL experiences (Salesforce, 2020). 2. Understand your customers ‘’Great service experiences are personalised, seamless, and quick — simple in theory but hard to deliver in reality ” (Salesforce, 2020). Personalisation has become increasingly important, even so, that most customers expect each interaction, whether it be online or offline, to be as personal as possible. It drives engagement and helps with building relationships, see 2.2.1. for an elaboration on personalisation . Giving customers one- on-one attention on a grand scale is not a small task, however, customers stay aware of the possible distinction between their expectations and reality (Sitecore, n.d.). 4. Keep up with digitalisation It is well-known that customers are progressively spending more time online. Of all interactions, around 60% took place online in 2020, which is a huge increase to 2019’s 42% (Salesforce, 2020). The expectancy is for it to keep rising, even past the pandemic. As well that 80% of business buyers believe to engage more in business online after the pandemic than previously. It is more crucial than ever for an organisation to keep up with digitalisation to be able to still fill the customer’s needs (Treehouse Technology Group, 2021). Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming more widely known. 60% of customers are fine with AI being used in customer engagement, with 66% being millennials (Salesforce, 2020). However, nearly half (48%) of customers trust organisations to utilise AI morally, while 65% are worried about the possible unethical use of AI.

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