The future of CX lies in data driven digital networks

Tarv Nijjar, global director of AI and digital strategic initiatives at multinational food manufacturer Mars Inc, shares his CX career journey and his predictions for customer experience trends in 2022.

CX Network: Could you give me an idea of what your CX career has looked like up to this point?

Tarv Nijjar: Looking at the last 12 years I have been at Mars, I started off in field sales looking after independent stores, where I made sure our products were [adequately] stocked, that the retailers themselves had the right deals and stock. After this, I moved into a sales system position, and my customers became employees holding my previous role, and I had to make sure they had the right technology to do their job correctly.

I then led our global customer strategy transformation, where my customers became multinational corporations. I had to make sure we could supply their stock to them in time, in full. I moved then into the finance section of Mars where my customers were in various areas of the main business, but were predominantly CFOs.

Finally, my role over the past couple of years has been involved with influencing the consumer along the consumer journey, in addition to helping some of our businesses to serve consumers better by using artificial intelligence (AI) and customer analytics.

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CXN: How can businesses use customer journey mapping to ensure seamless consumer interactions?

TN: Understanding the customer is really important, as is starting with the problem – you must speak to customers and ask for their opinions. You need to raise their Willingless To Pay (WTP) to the highest level possible to unlock value creation, which is the willingness to pay minus the resource cost.

It is crucial to understand the problems your product helps to solve. It is also important understand what the right solution would be from a customer point of view, as this unlocks the best value creation.

What CX trends do you feel will emerge in 2022? How will these trends affect customer engagement?

TN: Artificial intelligence will play a huge part in CX, and it already is. Personalization will move to a place where companies are [expanding] customer's likes to give them new content to explore. As an example, TikTok has an algorithm that knows what videos users like and will feed them that content, but will also feed users videos that have an element of something new. It broadens their likes and interests, and that is exploration.

Data is critical, as is enhancing the user interface with AI to help the exploration and exploitation of likes to give customers both what they want as well as suggesting new things for them to try.

CXN: What will be the consequences of CX practitioners not meeting these trends in terms of customer engagement?

TN: The future has to be data driven digital networks. The consequences of not being within one is unfortunately failure. Everyone is now attuned to an environment where they expect data to consume. If the experience is not slightly personalized to a customer's likes, it will turn them off and they will go elsewhere. Data and digital will allow companies to give the optimum experience to customers, and any companies that are not doing this will be at a disadvantage.

To learn more about the trends CX practitioners can anticipate in 2022, download CX Network's Customer experience predictions report: 2022.