How to be Competitive in the Age of 5G Courtesy Customer Digital Experience

Enterprises, in order to stay ahead of the competitive curve, are looking to offer digital customer experience assurance while adopting new technologies. 5G, or Fifth Generation Wireless, happens to be one such technology that is poised to alter the digital customer experience in a significant way. Touted to be way faster than 4G LTE, with the capability to manage more connected devices, 5G can provide the following:

l Download a huge file in a matter of seconds

l A capacity of more than 1000 times vis-a-vis 4G LTE

l Reduction in latency thanks to its expected upload rate of 10 Gbps and a download rate of 20 Gbps

As per GSMA, the industry trade group, 5G connections are going to touch 1.4 billion by 2025, which shall account for around 15 percent of the global figure. With the advent of 5G, the global revenue for IoT is expected to touch $1.1 trillion and IoT connections will reach 25 billion. The capacity augmentation to be derived through 5G implementation will help enterprises to enable new deployment models, deliver novel or innovative services, and achieve next-gen customer experience assurance. The mobile ecosystem, too, will branch into new realms with high reliability, superior speeds, and minuscule latency as its hallmarks.

The other downstream benefits that 5G will bring to the table include creating digitalized supply chains and logistics, driving benign transportation, and remote healthcare, among others. It goes without saying that with 5G wireless technology, the customer experience will undergo a significant transformation. With better immersive and personalized experiences, 5G is expected to bring a sea change in customer engagement, customer behavior, customer journey, customer service, customer patterns, customer expectations, and customer loyalty.

How will the customer experience be impacted by 5G?

Even though the industry can leverage the superior reliability and enhanced capacity, efficiency, and performance of the 5G wireless network, customer expectations are going to hit the roof. With 5G making inroads, the industry could see a greater proliferation of technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, and Big Data, among others. These technologies can be used by enterprises across segments as customer experience assurance tools to maintain their competitive edge.

5G promises a radical transformation in customer experiences, whereas the present 4G networks leave a lot to be desired. As per a PwC survey, 4 out of 10 customers have doubts about the reliability of the internet services on their mobile phones. This is expected to change with 5G becoming the enabler of digital transformation around the world. The segments where 5G can impact the customer experience in a major way are:

Big Data: Currently, retail and other industry segments are leveraging AI and big data analytics to identify customer behavior patterns to personalize and enhance CX. With 5G, the capability for customer sentiment analysis is going to increase with more volumes of data being collected and analyzed at faster speeds. In fact, businesses are likely to rely more on mobile networks while streamlining their core operations. Also, since latency in 5G wireless networks is going to be minuscule or faster than human visual processing, it will be easier for people to control devices remotely as if in real-time.

AV/VR capabilities: The augmented capability of 5G can result in the processing power of digital systems being moved to the cloud, thereby enabling more widespread usage of AR/VR. Presently, AR/VR are used very selectively in virtual stores to allow customers to "experience" products that are available at the stores in their homes. This concept can receive a boost from the high-speed and low latency of 5G, especially in virtual stores or while applying makeup to one’s face, among others. AR/VR in gaming can be a game-changer too, with 5G making its presence felt. However, it is difficult to predict the growth of AR/VR since it will ultimately depend on the pace of brand adoption by customers.

Video consumption: According to IHS Markit’s report, video consumption is expected to account for 70 percent of mobile traffic, which is a major jump from a mere 47 percent in 2015. 5G will boost the promotion and consumption of general live video across industries. Even live video support will facilitate customer service, especially for customer-facing companies. Again, an Oracle survey comprising 5000 people found that around 75 percent of the respondents understood the value of voice and video chat. They harped on the critical importance of first-call resolutions in achieving digital customer experience assurance. For customer service agents given to using emails, a video explaining the steps to address an issue is far better than a series of emails describing the step-by-step process.

Healthcare: One significant disadvantage of using 4G to conduct remote patient monitoring is the slow speeds in receiving, reporting, and transmitting vital health parameters of patients from remote locations. However, this is expected to change with the advent of 5G, wherein health professionals can collect, analyze, report, and transmit patient information from remote centers on a continuous basis. This can be a godsend for people living in rural areas where access to quality medical care is still a pipe dream. 5G can give a boost to remote home monitoring systems and telehealth services, with doctors located several miles away able to make video calls to connect to the patients, make diagnoses and offer prescriptions.

Conclusion

The transformational impact of 5G wireless network service in terms of bandwidth and speed can give customers across industry segments a never-before experience. Business enterprises can leverage technologies such as AI, IoT, and Cloud Computing, among others, to derive key customer experience insights and stay competitive. Also, through user experience monitoring using 5G in real time, businesses can understand any issues with their software products or services and fix them quickly.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies. I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality that yields strong results and always happy to create valuable content & share thoughts.