Businesses need to focus more on customer experiences and providing convenience to consumers in the digital era, experts said at a conference held in Ho Chi Minh City on September 13.

A discussion panel at a conference on providing better customer
experiences held in HCM City on September 13

Nguyen Duong, founder of CEM Partner, which provides consultancy and training on customer experiences, said that before businesses decide on strategies and technologies, they should first identify what kind of experience they would like to deliver and what kind of information consumers need.

In addition, businesses should look at things from the point of view of customers, he added.

Many company departments tended to work separately from each other and dealt with customers in different ways, Duong explained. 

Staff, for example, might keep customer information to themselves, as opposed to sharing it with other departments. This would create poor internal cooperation and troublesome procedures, leaving bad experiences for customers, he said.

To avoid this kind of fragmented management, company departments should work closely with each other to improve customer services.

In addition to making sure that their products and services work as promised, businesses should provide conveniences such as ease of access to their products and services, and leave consumers with positive experiences and memories.

At the conference, Nguyen Son Hai Dang, technical sales manager at IT consultancy InfoFabrica, introduced a Freshbots product, a codeless bot-building platform from Freshworks, a US customer engagement software company and a partner of InfoFabrica.

The Freshbots product creates chatbots that improve customer services such as answering frequently asked questions and assisting customers in buying products and services.

Vu Manh Cuong, IT director of agricultural corporation Wilmar CLV, said that businesses should avoid irrelevant landing pages, and annoying advertisements and cumbersome checkout processes in today's digital landscape.

More than half of Vietnam's population uses the internet and smartphones, with the trend expected to rise in the future.

The conference was held by CIO Vietnam, a community formed to promote learning and networking in the IT field, and the High Quality Vietnamese Product Business Association.