How Augmented Reality Transforms the Customer Experience

The digitization of consumer journey is a much needed leap for every brand out there today. This digital transformation has been fuelled by a chain of digital disruptions that has compelled brands to proactively adapt innovative strategies at all levels. The customer journey today has become one of the most important aspects that brands are focusing on. While the pandemic has put a restriction on our daily lives and impacted our purchasing habits, the time that customers spend online nowadays has increased. This has given brands an opportunity to take a closer look at technologies like augmented reality.

Brands all across the world believe that digitization of the consumer journey is a much-needed step in this age. Thankfully, advanced technological solutions are evolving every single day to help brands make the leap. Due to its versatile nature, augmented reality technology has become an important component in accompanying a consumer throughout the entire lifecycle of the sales funnel.

• Making consumers aware: this starts at the very beginning of the funnel. In this stage augmented reality companies make use of this technology to boost customer engagement and brand awareness. When it comes to advertising, AR powered ads have rolled out sometime back. Several renowned social media channels have quickly caught up on this trend. While this started as a beta testing for a select group of industries but rapidly got implemented on a broader scope based on the growing demand of the end users. This technology is not only progressively light weight but different platforms can integrate solutions without the hassle of any additional workload. For the modern-day customer, seeing is believing and this runs synonymous with the AR technology. With brands narrating their stories in new ways, customers at the same time experience services and products that feel real. As social distancing is there to stay for a while, trying out new things through the AR or knowing about a particular product without visiting the store physically, becomes important. This transit through the consumer journey gets streamlined and they are directly taken to the next stage.
• Interaction: after consumers are made aware and their attention is grabbed, how does a brand compel a customer to spend more time? The answer is immersive AR solutions. Advertisers receive a new tool set that is powerful enough to transform the established paradigm of consumer brand interaction. This technology offers a new way to effortlessly create new consumer experience on a larger scale. The best part of this technology is that the high adaptive nature makes it possible to offer customized options according to each industry specific. With the help of cutting-edge AR products like augmented reality business cards, brands boost their ROI and offer consumers digital content that they can directly engage with. The level of interaction in this case is unprecedented. The fact that augmented reality allows putting in digital content in real life environments, genuine emotions are spurred that no image or video could induce.
• Connection: as it keeps growing in functionality, augmented reality moves from a single experience to a connecting link for many evolving technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and more. As it is less hardware dependent as compared to virtual reality, augmented reality is a one stop solution that is considered more user friendly offering highly customizable options. Customers already use AR powered technologies in their pockets like smartphones that is powerful enough to deliver experiences anytime and anywhere. With the help of different products and services of augmented reality companies, users get the freedom to move around freely and interact actively with the help of 3D content. If we consider a smartphone, the option of instant tracking allows the experience to literally take place from any remote location. This experience can be lived anywhere from the screen of your smartphone to physical objects like buildings or machines. AR solutions open up a whole new world of interactive indoor and outdoor advertising.
• Engagement: once the customer is attracted and engaged in your products and services, you can harness their attention and convert that into sales and engagement. Augmented reality plays a role not only in presenting the product but also in adding branded content that are in general quite complex. This seamlessly showcases the product functionality and innovation. With the help of 3D instructions, your customers can visualize and get a real time learning experience. For instance, you can ask your customers to try your products virtually. Like whether a particular piece of furniture fits in your office. With the AR technology you can actually take a step forward and assemble the furniture. The augmented reality experience therefore spreads across the entire lifecycle of consumer journey which creates an integrated roadmap for brands to work on.

Therefore, augmented reality solutions help brands reimagine consumer journey. Right from grabbing the attention to creating customized experiences, this technology boosts engagement and drives sales in the best possible way.