The interview was originally published in ADgully.

The Industry and Indian economy as a whole

This year, Experience Design brought users further closer to the products. It was a year of fostering inclusion, prioritising personalisation, increasing transparency and true product innovations beyond regular digitisation. Being the fastest growing economy, we also committed to delivering experiences faster than ever before, from quick commerce to ultra optimised financial services journeys. The primary aim was to do it faster and to remove frictions at every stage of the customer’s experience.

Customer Experience sector

Customer Experience or CX is defined as the experience an organization provides its customer at every touchpoint of interaction, throughout the customer’s journey and the lifecycle of the business relationship. And this, is what we specialise in helping our clients do – from defining and planning their entire CX roadmap, to designing and executing each intervention as a best-in-class experience.

Deep research, honed processes, a mind-set oriented towards innovation and very hard work combined with bursts of inspiration have enabled us to deliver compelling solutions consistently – some of which have become gold standards in industry.

Hot updates by industry

Retail & Consumer Products:

• Commerce became truly quicker across categories.
• The growing focus on Phygital and Omnichannel experiences has made brand simplify customer identification and mobilise an interrupted one customer experience.
• Rewards and offers are no longer the only differentiator driving loyalty. Factors contributing to repeat usage include experience consistency across touchpoints, brands public image and values, focus on sustainability and speediness to resolve issues.
• Increased uptake in AI led journeys which improved the product visualisation through virtual and augmented experiences.

BFSI:

• The Neo banking way found its way into traditional banks. Streamlining the self- assisted user flows took priority, lowering dependency on human assistance.
• Business and workbench transformations took focus, leading to further optimisation to the end customer journeys
• Branches saw a face and experience uplift too with addition of interactive tools that further reduced the load on the tellers
• WhatsApp integrations in financial services were a game changer for customer servicing and bot led journeys
• Predictive personalised up and cross sell nudges became smarter and more accurate

Performance during 2024

• The slow first half of the year was more than compensated by a buzzing second half. Innovation and upskilling were the two keywords of this year. We found ourselves challenged by complex user and business problems, which we helped solve with grace. Some of the noteworthy work:
• Worked with a larger pharmaceutical in India to design a disease management mobile application with a connected device to administer at home treatments to oneself. A fully loaded experience that helped the user manage their disease, their diet, consultations, moods and improvement trajectory with utmost ease.
• Collaborated with the Google and a make-up & skin care giant in India to bring their AI enabled skin assistant to life. Chat based journeys that helped users plan their skincare routines and find make up products shades most suited to their needs.
• Worked closely with a government body in the Middle East to help transform services across municipal corporations’ purview to help businesses and citizens get ease of access to government facilities.
• Partnered with a large NBFC is India in their endeavour to help optimise their customer journeys and enrich the self-assisted mobile experience from application to account management.
• Helped build the interface for a generative AI tool that works as a task assistant to employees across various roles.

(Aksha Sachdev, Chief Experience Officer, Fractal Ink India)