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Art Tech AI Tech

Computers can now create art! But is it the same as human creations? 

Computers can now create art! But is it the same as human creations

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

For those of us mere mortals, aka not art inclined, we may think of art as the sole bastion of talented creative masters. These individuals epitomise the very best of human creativity. 

On the fundamental level, art is really not just limited to the masters, everyone of us can indulge in a spot of artistic creativity.

We’ve been using art as an intrinsic way of expressing ourselves; our emotions, and our knowledge to other people.

If we think of art in this way, it can be seen as a form of communication that is unique to us humans. However, recent events have shown that Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has begun to intrude into the art scene. 

An example would be the painting, Edmond de Belamy that was sold for $432,500 – nearly 45 times its highest estimate. This begs us to question if A.I. has begun to eat into this realm that once belonged only to humans.

The present

Currently, A.I. hasn’t had too much influence over the art industry. With people still producing paintings and music albums, we can still believe that art is something that’s made by humans.

However, like the example above, we’re already starting to see signs of A.I. creating paintings. ‘Edmond de Belamy’ is an A.I.-generated painting by a Paris-based collective called Obvious.

Hugo Caselles-Dupré, a member of Obvious, said that “We found that portraits provided the best way to illustrate our point, which is that algorithms are able to emulate creativity”.

Just like Edmond de Belamy, A.I. is also taking its baby steps into the music industry. One example of this is a program called ‘OpenAI’. 

As Jon Porter from TheVerge says, “OpenAI’s MuseNet is a new online tool that uses A.I. to generate songs with as many as 10 different instruments”. 

Not only that, but it can create music in as many as 15 different styles, imitating classical composers like Mozart, contemporary artists like Lady Gaga, or genres like bluegrass or even video game music”. Soon enough, there’s likely to be A.I.-generated songs and art forms.

Now, the question here is – 

If artificial intelligence were to be able to emulate creativity, would that be beneficial or disadvantageous to us? 

Would artists still be able to create inspiring artworks? Would musicians still be able to create soothing pieces? 

Or would all these be taken away from us, and be dominated by A.I.?

We’re already over-reliant on technology in many parts of our lives, and that reliance on technology might rub off with the art scene, and lead us into losing the ability to differentiate human-created art and A.I.-created art.

We might also be wholly dependent on technology in the future to be creative. This might sound a bit far stretched, but it is definitely something that could happen.

AI and Machine Learning

With these questions in mind, we have to plan out the risks that we might take by letting A.I. into the art and music industries.

It might be like letting babies into a playground, or it might be like letting a pack of wolves into a herd of sheep. 

As of right now, A.I. definitely isn’t able to create art with the same quality as humans. 

They’re only able to create art from taking the data provided to them and piecing them together, making them seem unique, but in fact they are still replicated from human creativity.

This is because “art” is a complex thing. It’s not simple for A.I to just learn how to make art out of nowhere. Ken Weiner, a blogger on Scientific American, says that

“Even though the Cloudpainter machine (an artificially intelligent painting robot) has evolved over time to become a highly intelligent system capable of making creative decisions of its own accord, the final piece of work could only be described as a collaboration between human and machine”.

What this means is that with our current set of technologies, the artwork of any A.I still involves a human touch. But what about the future?

There is something called ‘machine learning’, and it is an application of artificial intelligence that provides the system with an ability to take in data and learn and improve from its past experiences and uses.

This is extremely important since machine learning could allow A.I. to create distinctive forms of art and music that may not even closely resemble the input data, opening the concepts of originality and creativity to A.I.-generated art and music.

The future

In the future, with the development of machine learning and A.I., the question is: Is this handmade, or is this made by A.I.?

A.I.-generated images already lurk around in our daily lives, and we might not even notice it until we look more closely. 

A.I.-generated faces, where they take 2 different photos and merge them together; or Snapchat filters, where they locate different spots on your face, such as your nose or your eyes, and put a mask on it, are both examples of A.I.-generated images and videos that have become part of our daily lives.

Sooner or later, A.I., along with the help of machine learning, will be able to adapt to our current world and will eventually create everything for us.

Art would be made by taking previous paintings in order to make a new one, while music would be made by taking previous songs of a specific genre and re-produce beats, patterns, and rhythms all on its own.

A.I. might even emulate human creativity and produce never-before-seen pieces of art.

It feels like we are on the verge of an A.I. revolution in the art and music scene. Just like how jobs were changed, for better or worse during the industrial revolution, A.I. may change the way we view and appreciate music. 

New, different art and music styles could be produced, styles of the past like Mozart’s music could be recreated, resurrected, revamped.

The question here is, in what way will A.I. change the art and music world, and how would we, being creatures able to emulate creativity and the people who gave life to these machines in the first place, deal with it?

Illustrations by Toh Bee Suan

Sources cited:

“Why Is Art so Important to Mankind?” Artist, artist-strange-work.com/why-is-art-so-important-to-mankind/.

“Is Artificial Intelligence Set to Become Art’s Next Medium?: Christie’s.” The First Piece of AI-Generated Art to Come to Auction | Christie’s, Christies, 12 Dec. 2018, www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx.

Porter, Jon. “OpenAI’s MuseNet Generates AI Music at the Push of a Button.” The Verge, The Verge, 26 Apr. 2019, www.theverge.com/2019/4/26/18517803/openai-musenet-artificial-intelligence-ai-music-generation-lady-gaga-harry-potter-mozart.

Weiner, Ken. “Can AI Create True Art?” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 12 Nov. 2018, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/can-ai-create-true-art/.

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AI Tech

ChatGPT and Generative AI’s – A Digilah view

ChatGPT and Generative AI’s
ChatGPT and Generative AI’s

Written by Vidya Dhareshwar on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Chatgpt, Bard AI and all the generative AI seems to be the current flavour. There is an insurmountable buzz around and about it . 

Everyone has an opinion on its impact and the ways that it can change, how we and our future generations engage with and use tech in our daily lives.

Whilst there have been many concerns on its impact on search engines, students, jobs and livelihoods, the fact remains that this evolution has happened and is here to stay.

ChatGPT alone has been the fastest growing consumer internet app ever with over 100 million users two months after launch. This itself shows the vast potential of generative AI.

 Just as life evolves, so does technology and yet this revolutionary technology doesn’t take away from human intelligence instead it is trained to learn what humans mean when they ask a question. 

Many users are awed at its ability to provide human-quality responses, inspiring the feeling that it may eventually have the power to disrupt how humans interact with computers and change how information is retrieved.

In the context of Digilah, where we like to provide a digital platform for every tech enthusiast to learn and contribute their tech journey and thought leadership, we view chatGPT, Bard AI and all other generative AI’s as an enabler and an opportunity for many of our start up and tech founders to share their learnings.

Let’s talk about the tech startup market in South East Asia alone. As per a Forbes article, The digital and tech industries of this region have enjoyed an enormous boom over the last few years. 

According to Jungle Ventures, Southeast Asia’s technology startups had a combined valuation of $340 billion in 2020, and they anticipate this will triple by 2025.

This is a diverse but very strong prospective market with a focus in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

This market is quite complicated. Many entrepreneurs are hindered by concerns over a difference in mentality and a lack of understanding of how to do business there. We @ Digilah look at this as a huge opportunity.

There is a need to get all of the learnings and journeys of these startups and founders so that this rich knowledge repertoire is available to all. 

Many of them would like to share their journeys and provide their insights but sometimes are busy learning and navigating the markets and business challenges and for some it might also mean a constraint in terms of resources and skills to share their journeys be it content creation or communication skills or just time.

We present the combined power of Human Experience with the generative AI’s in the form of articles published by us at Digilah. Our submission is to use the vast reach of the generative AI tools to start the journey.

What this tech will do is provide for a framework, a skeleton, a structure of an article , a startup founders journey as a start point. This can then be brought to life by adding the content  and context of experience, leadership, success, failures and insights by the tech founders.

These articles are extremely valuable and become a  rich database of insight and knowledge for all knowledge seekers today and for the future.

In short, in our view, ChatGPT, Bard AI AND Human Experience is the opportunity to build the knowledge here at Digilah, all at the click of a key.

Hello readers! Hope you liked what you read today. Click the like button at the bottom of this page and share insights with your colleagues and friends!

For more such amazing content follow DigilahVidya Dhareshwar

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Climate Tech

Eye on Science: Tech-ing Solar Power Generation To The Next Level

Tech-ing Solar Power Generation To The Next Level

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Reference image of Singapore’s largest solar farm

With the effects of climate change worsening by the day, scientists around the world are venturing into the world of renewables in search of a better alternative for producing clean energy.

Many countries are turning toward the use of solar energy as it is one of the cleanest and most sustainable forms of alternative energy.

For instance, Singapore has built one of the largest floating solar farms in the world to reduce its reliance on natural gas for the production of electricity. 

That being so, researchers have now extended their study of generating solar power not only from the Earth but also in space!

Reference image of a Solar Power Station in Space

The concept of capturing solar power from space and then transferring it to Earth was first introduced in the 1920s by a scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

 Now, scientists are bringing this concept to reality by developing a new form of cutting-edge technology known as the space-based solar power station (SSP). An SSP works the same way as it does on Earth, except that it floats in space. 

The solar power station collects energy from the sun using large sheets of metal known as solar panels. Each solar panel is made up of combining multiple photovoltaic cells, also known as solar cells.

Solar cells are the key component in a solar panel that helps to create an electric current when it comes into contact with sunlight. For energy to be utilised on Earth in the form of electricity, solar panels in space have to transmit the collected solar energy back to earth through radio waves.

Why Build A Solar Power Station in Space?

Today, solar power plants can be found in many countries like India, China and the US. Each solar plant consists of millions of solar panels which can help generate electricity for as many as 200,000 homes.

 However, solar plants on Earth can only function during the day to produce energy, when there is sunlight. Their ability to effectively capture sunlight also depends on environmental factors like weather, cloud cover, air pollutants and dust. 

Unlike on Earth, solar panels in space can be directly exposed to more powerful sunlight at all times of the day. It is estimated that solar panels in space can generate up to 2,000 gigawatts of power constantly. 

This is nearly 40 times more energy than a solar panel would generate on Earth. With such potential, space-based solar stations can undoubtedly help offset the rate of carbon emissions produced through the burning of non-renewables like fossil fuels. 

Challenges to Building A Solar Power Station in Space

Although deemed more functional and effective, there are some challenges to successfully build and maintain a space-based solar power station.

Currently, one of the most significant issues is about finding a safe and suitable way to send the energy generated in space back to Earth for consumption. 

The main concern is that some of the energy will be lost during the travel, leaving only a small amount of solar energy that may reach Earth in the end.

Reference image of a football stadium

There are other challenges to building a solar power station in space, given that a single solar plant may be as huge as 1,400 football stadiums. 

To build something of this size, a large number of heavy solar panels will need to be taken into space using rockets. 

This will require countless rocket launches from Earth, which is expensive and harmful to the environment. On top of this, solar panels in space can be damaged by space debris or any floating objects. 

They may also degrade faster from being continuously exposed to extremely powerful radiation from the sun. 

Future of Solar Power Stations in Space

Despite the challenges, countries like China, the UK, the US, and Japan are already making huge strides in improving current technology and experimenting with building small solar power stations in space. 

For instance, the UK is planning to undertake a huge project to build a solar power station in space as part of the government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, to achieve net zero energy consumption by 2050.

 Similarly, researchers from Japan and the US are working on developing high-efficiency solar cells that can help with the safe conversion and transmission of solar energy from space to Earth. 

With more developments, this groundbreaking invention of building solar power stations in space can revolutionise the future of renewables while helping to curb the effects of climate change on our planet. 

Reference Links Used: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-now-home-to-one-of-the-worlds-largest-floating-solar-farms

https://singularityhub.com/2022/03/18/a-solar-power-station-in-space-heres-how-it-would-work-and-its-potential-benefits/

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AI Tech

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨?

how far do we want to go

Written by : Marcus Parade on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

… 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨?

There will be a time sooner than we think, when you will not recognize the difference of a human being and a human robot said an expert of robotics already 10 years ago.

We are still in our early days of AI and robotics and already now, amazing advances have been made in a very short time.

In concern of AI, all kinds of industries are or will be affected, where huge amounts of data are accessible to be processed.

𝐀𝐈 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 many cases better efficiency, insights and incredible time savings and therefore also support an increased competitive advantage. 

AI is one of the most exciting and rapidly advancing technologies of our time.

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 trying to figure out the legal and ethical implications of a content world increasingly turned on by AI, is the progress of this technology advancing “day by day”.

𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐥𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 do now for us 🙂💡. We’ve all heard of Alexa, Google and Siri Assistants – these are all examples of AI in the form of virtual assistants. 

But AI is also being used in a far more wide range of industries – from healthcare to finance to retail and much much more.

For example, AI-powered diagnostic tools are being used to help doctors identify diseases like cancer more quickly and accurately. In finance, AI is being used to detect and prevent fraud.

And in retail, AI is being used to personalize shopping experiences and make precise recommendations to customers.

AI is also being used in many other industries such as transportation, manufacturing, law, astronomy, agriculture, energy – basically 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐭 and again – the AI is getting better day by day …

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 🌎? 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 where I find things get really interesting. Some experts predict that AI will eventually be able to do just about anything a human can do and I personally think even far far beyond in many fields.

For example, AI can be used to perform complex surgeries and improve our mobility and here I do not only mean self-driving cars, but also the overall complexity of traffic and logistics and more.

AI is also expected to play a key role in fields such as natural language processing, image recognition, climate prediction and the bit scary part – military weapons and operations.

What I particularly like is that AI might even find out more about the languages of our whales singing 🐳🎵🐋 as well as other animals 🦅. This will teach us a lot about language structures, communication, emotions of animals and even ourselves.

𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 change the way we consume information, and how we interact with our world 🌏. As AI becomes more advanced, it’s expected that it will be able to “understand ” natural existing and ancient languages, and carry on conversations with humans that are indistinguishable from conversations with other humans.

𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 AI as an additional mega tool that helps our lives to make our challenges easier. 

A bit questionable I personally find though, that there are many start-ups now, tapping markets for people, that want to hold conversations with their beloved ones that have passed away 💛.

Whereas it is often a big challenge to cope with a lost life, I think it is also important to strive forward towards our future. But everyone should decide for themselves and I think experiences will solve many questions.

AMAZING 𝐀𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 process and understand images and videos, and make predictions, decisions and summaries based on all kinds of data. 

What has been recently released for example is the AI used for texting called chat.openAI.com (COAI). The provided data for this platform here is the complete internet that is open and not secured.

𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 Google on “red 🚨 alert”, as their business strategy is nowadays being questioned as them not being up to date enough in comparison to the progresses of AI.

Whereas the search engine of Google relies on their algorithms to search for the most relevant results, will AI be able to provide more and more precise SUMMARIES of different sources combined of what you are searching for.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 results, so far the results of the AI and COAI are amazing, but when I read some of the AI texts, you will be able to detect some limits at the stage of today. So far the texts of COAI sound quite emotionless and yet quite perfect in many cases.

As an example, job applicants have been invited for job interviews by letting AI write ✍📜 them their resume as well as the attached letter. In the end, we humans have to decide, if we want to use the AI proposals, adjust it or leave it out. 

And such as in the example with the job interview, no AI can play your individual role, your character and your true emotions while talking in real life face to face.

𝐀𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 ask the AI for jokes on COAI for example, I found them 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐫 a bit middle range. I asked for example 3 times, to tell me jokes about AI:

“Why was the AI sad 😪? Because it had no emotions.”

“Why did the robot 🤖 go on a diet? Because it wanted to reduce its “byte” size!”

“Why was the AI cold ⛄❄? Because it left its algorithms open!”

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 some examples, where the AI so far is still hitting its limits. It is also possible that these jokes existed already in the internet and that the jokes were not independently combined.

But as mentioned, AI gets better day by day. The AI will even be able to adapt to your personal writing and speaking style and you will be able to “outsource” many kinds of texting AND research.

In my opinion, ANY industry that is involved with any kind of texting or large data research – even companies such as creating advertising spots and many many more, will be affected “massively” by the progress of AI. The innovative ideas however I will stay in our power 🤜 – if we choose to.

𝐀𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 need less employees, as any kind of texting can be done much faster. And the AI even at this stage can deliver very good outputs in order for people 🎭 to have a much faster start with the usage of COAI.

In my opinion, “luckily” so far, the human evaluation and creativity is more than absolutely needed, but let’s talk again in let’s say 10 years again – the dice 🎲 might roll on improved adapted ground …

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐰𝐬 🌈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 sunshine 🌞 – some people are worried that as AI becomes more advanced, it could lead as mentioned to widespread job losses and even the rise of a robot 🤖 “rebellion”.

There is also a concern that AI could be used to create autonomous weapons, and to gather data on individuals without their knowledge or consent.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 Elon Musk, but I find his quote about AI very interesting, that AI could be the biggest threat for human kind. 

Logically I think however, it should “easily” be possible to create secure gateways for AI not be able to become independent and to totally restrict opportunistic behaviour in favour of AI so far.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨?? I personally believe that most technological advances will be tried out if it is more or less promising for a competitive advantage.

It’s also integrated in our genes for our survival instinct to strive for technological advances. As AI provides competitive advantages and an easier life, this is and will be part of our evolutionary processes of technology surrounding us. 

It will accompany us now and for our common & united future. As the scientist Darwin already stated “Survival of the fittest”.

𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 standards will need to be set, as the AI is extracting and combining data from all kinds of previous inputs that is found in our internet. For example the first upload bans for AI artwork have started. 

I can follow these measures and as of now, I think AI inclusion should a t least be identified, but this could also be wishful thinking…

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫all, AI has the potential to make our lives better in countless ways. 

AI can helps us be more efficient and productive, it can help us make better decisions, and it can help us to understand and interact with the world in innovative, inspirational and faster ways.

And who knows, maybe in the future we’ll all have robot butlers to do our chores and make us 007-🍸 Martinis or whatever … 😁

𝐒𝐨, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 – we – 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐭 – 𝐚 brief overview of what AI can do now and what our future might hold. 

It’s an exciting time to be alive and to see how far AI has come, and it is going to be even more exciting to see what our future will reveal.

The possibilities are quite endless and I am most curious to see how AI will shape our world in the coming years ahead to our common advantage.

𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲’𝐬 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐬 still narrow and often yet not so very intelligent, but it soon will be, as the tech is getting better day by day – like the harnessing of electricity – that has changed the very fabric of our human life. 

Some scientists proclaimed that in 2029, AI will be “smarter” than us humans – others say quite a bit later…

𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐮𝐬 hopefully only go as far, as where we humans still remain the ultimate decision making power without opportunistic behaviour. AND having unifying sustainable goals supported by AI, to save our lovely planet with humans living on it 🌍

💛🌹🌞

𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 much you like or found my article somewhat inspiring – 𝐈𝐅 – perhaps you might like to comment or place a 👍 or so? 🌞

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Digi Tech HR Tech

The hidden life-changing (and money-making) power of Change Management

The hidden life-changing (and money-making) power of Change Management

Written by : Lata Hamilton on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

It’s no secret that digital transformation is the hottest thing since sliced bread, and everyone wants a piece of this money-making pie.

Whether it’s going to make your company money or save your company money, the future is new technologies that turn old, manual processes into faster, simpler, automated magic.

But what happens when your digital transformation dream goes up in smoke, and you’re left holding the ashes? You’ve spent bucketloads on innovation and development but for some reason your amazing platform, system or app hasn’t hit the mark, isn’t being used properly by your staff, customers or clients, has run over deadline, and left you feeling you’ve wasted not just money, but also time, effort, energy and hope.

You wouldn’t be alone. 

A massive number of digital projects fail. A 2020 Forbes article found that the number of technology projects which experience serious issues in things like cost, schedule, and goals can be up to 60%! I’ve seen it myself on major digital transformation projects that I’ve worked on with some of Australia’s biggest companies.

But there is a silver lining. The same Forbes article found that the secret to reducing technology project failure rate is often: people.

How?

Through the power of Change Management – which can not only transform your transformation, but also your results.

My simple definition of Change Management is: “moving people from one way of doing something to a new way of doing something, through communications, training, and business readiness, to realise the benefits of the change.”

People are the users of any digital technology – they are the ones that unlock its potential. The sad truth is that people are hard-wired to hate change. 

Even when a new technology could save time, effort and expense, most people will still resist it. 

Change Management encourages inviting people in to co-create and co-design what the change will mean for them, give them, and bring them. It builds trust instead of fear, empowers your people to own their future, and helps them get ready for a new way of doing things.

Here are some practical Change Management-inspired approaches you can use to help launch your digital technology more successfully with staff, customers and clients:

  • Co-design the features and processes of the new system with actual end users so it’s fit-for-purpose, user-friendly, and loved before launch.
  • Get your teams ready for the new way of doing things by clearly explaining to them how their processes and tools will be different and what they need to do to prepare.
  • Build a microsite and provide regular project updates, news, training tools, and resources – as well as a countdown to launch and a forum to ask questions!
  • Do live demos of the technology all the way through development – seeing is believing!
  • Give people the chance to get hands-on with the system before it’s launched – even if there’s still bugs, it will help build confidence in the solution.
  • Create an exciting launch event – bring it to life with a quiz, competition, or lucky draw that requires people to try out the new system, with super cool prizes on offer.

Bringing people on the journey not only changes your experience of leading a digital project, but improves the likelihood of success.

The Forbes article also suggests building soft skills, supporting leadership, and offering better training experiences – which are all things a great Change Management expert can provide.

If you want to learn more about the power of Change Management, download my free “Change Hackathon Planning Workbook” here which steps through how to crowdsource and co-create future ways of working during transformation and change.

Name and title:

Lata Hamilton – Change Leadership and Confidence expert

Bio:

Lata Hamilton is a pocket rocket burst of energy with a big heart… and big hair! She helps women carve their own paths for change in their career, leadership and life. Lata is a Change Leadership and Confidence expert, the creator of the “Leading Successful Change” program, and the Founder & CEO of Passion Pioneers.

Websites:

www.latahamilton.com 

www.passionpioneers.com.au 

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HR Tech

Use the right PLATFORMS

use the right platform

Written by : Lori Figueiredo on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

As a leader you are likely to leave all the decisions on where learning occurs to others.  However there are many reasons why you should be interested in how to create safe spaces where you and your people are learning.

As demonstrated in the earlier example (PROCESS article), if you yourself are an active learner your people will mirror your daily habits. 

If you take the time to become aware of the options and you consciously become an active learner developing yourself aligned to the shared PURPOSE with a clear PROCESS – this in itself is a powerful force aligning your teams to your strategic ambitions.  

Let’s explore how you can think about which platforms could be used.  Going back to first principles – we can learn and therefore create safe spaces on the web, in a workshop or in the workplace.

You as a role model – As a learner, you yourself should be leading the way and being an early adopter curious to explore new learning technologies that enable digital learning. 

Are you trying out Chat GPT as an example and what enterprise learning technology platforms are you using?  Do you demonstrate that you are learning in the workplace which is called action learning? Are you participating in workshop sessions which enable social learning? 

What investments do you approve – I have had leaders approve a very expensive learning technology because it had spaceships – which by the way were completely irrelevant to the behaviours, mindset and culture they needed to achieve better results.

If you are consciously leveraging learning technology to upskill yourself, you will be fully equipped to influence the requirements, selection and adoption of platforms that enable digital, social and action learning.

Return on investment – Are you aware if your organization is investing in the right platforms or spaces that best suit the target audience and the nature of the impact required?

Are you purely signing off on budgets that may be totally ineffective, while your entire organization continues on the same track, not making any changes at a behavioural, mindset and skill level?

On the other hand your teams are using their valuable time addressing recurring problems or losing customers from poor service or paying fines for ethical misconduct due to the way the organization works and learns together?

All this is happening because the why, how and where your people are working and learning together is ineffectual.

For example many organizations still spend lots of money on online content with low adoption rates and yet every year these online subscription licenses are automatically renewed.

We are not pro- or anti- digital learning (or eLearning as it was called) or classroom training.  

It is the conscious decision to combine the 3 ways we learn naturally (through Education, Experience and Exposure) with the 3 places where we learn.

So here is a way they think about this and nudge yourself, your leaders and teams to leverage the available PLATFORMS most effectively. 

For each micro-learning experience every team can:

*LEARN on the WEB – use digital learning to identify, curate and consume relevant content just-in-time 

*APPLY the learning in the WORKPLACE – use action learning while working on tasks or jobs to be done

*REVIEW it in WORKSHOPS – use social learning to reflect, assess and adjust your behaviours and results

In fact, this is often referred to as the 4th – which is E for environment. Much research and your own evidence will confirm that creating safe spaces for learning on the web, workplace and workshops is a critical ingredient to drive the critical behaviours and results of any community or ecosystem of people navigating change.

We use a digital-action-social learning cycle using the web-workplace-workshops for each unit of learning from a simple to a very complex learning strategy.

Using this as part of the 5P framework anyone is able to create a highly scalable and sustainable learning, enablement and change strategy with strategic impact. 

Collectively leaders can reach millions of people with deep and meaningful impact on their behaviours and results which in turn leads to people and organizational transformation, success and growth.

Furthermore you are creating psychological safety in your organization which is a fundamental role as a leader. Aligning the PLATFORMS to the PURPOSE and PROCESS, ensure you are leveraging all the possible spaces and embedding continuous learning, adapting and improving as a daily habit into your operating rhythm.

 

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ineffective . . . while your entire organization continues on the same track,
not making any changes at a behavioural, mindset and skill level.any 

Categories
Mar Tech Logistic & Travel Tech

Revive Customer Experience (CX) in the Hospitality Industry

Revive Customer Experience in the Hospitality Industry with a CX Solution

Written by : Krutant Iyer on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

The travel restrictions in many countries have eased. Hotels and group tours are filling up. The travel and hospitality industry were the worst-hit sectors during the pandemic.

The challenges of going through the lockdown. No more dining out, partying with friends, or even setting out on a staycation with family.

We have come a long way. Even though most countries around the world have lifted travel restrictions, people are still apprehensive about booking a flight ticket, pre-paying for a hotel booking, or even dining at their favourite restaurant. But that doesn’t mean people are not keen to go out again.  

The pandemic has changed the hiring landscape in nearly every industry, including hospitality. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over, the industry needs to thrive with the highest focus on customer experience (CX). 

Leaders from the hospitality industry are well aware that compassionate customer service is the key to creating an excellent guest experience and winning their trust and loyalty.

Silent Pitfalls of Customer Experience 

  1. A New Generation of Well-Informed Customers

The post-pandemic traveller is savvier than before and has higher expectations from businesses.

The new-age customer is smart enough to not make a booking online before searching all avenues for the best price available, and if by chance the price on the official website is higher than the one offered by an online travel agency, then that business is likely to see a dent in their revenue. 

From searching and booking the experience to sharing stories about the experience, customers expect businesses to go over and beyond in fulfilling their expectations for ‘something different and hip’ to be considered a full-course 5-star service. 

  1. Bad Experiences Shared by Customers

One bad experience is all it takes for customers to take to social media and vent about their negative experiences.

It is also true that customers are not so driven when it comes to sharing positive experiences and need to be goaded with enticing add-ons or coupons to share one. 

Customers expect instant gratification and to accommodate customers’ on-the-fly requests, businesses need to have holistic visibility of their entire journey to craft top-notch experiences.  

  1. Data Collection and Personalisation

Most hospitality businesses have marked their presence on various digital channels to actively engage with their customers and offer personalised services. However, this is not the case.

Their efforts are hindered by the lack of availability to collect data from various distributed systems and use this data to fulfil customer expectations. 

When customer data is distributed across multiple systems that have no way of integrating into one, centralised destination, it leaves the customer-facing teams grasping at straws to fulfil customer expectations.

  1. Disconnected with Customer Service Touchpoints

Multi-channel communication hailed the pre-pandemic era. 

However, the landscape has seen unprecedented changes. Most businesses are out of touch with how they handle customer enquiries across individual touchpoints. 

To deliver great customer experiences, the hospitality industry needs to first provide its employees with the resources they need to thrive in any situation. 

An increased focus on CX opportunities as we head into 2023 and beyond will be crucial to boosting team productivity, performance, and engagement. 

Let’s take a look at some important pillars of how the hospitality industry can reboot customer experience with an omnichannel transformation.

Roadmap to Experiential Transformation

  1. Deliver Proactive Customer Service

Having an online presence is just half the battle. The other half is taking a more proactive, consultative approach for online visitors. Rather than depending on conversion rate optimisation (CRO) techniques, have a smart greeting function to welcome visitors. 

While some visitors prefer to browse alone to find the best deals, others will appreciate you asking questions to better understand what they are looking for, and their requirements. 

The most pleasant moment is when the visitor is greeted in the native language. When the customer-facing agent speaks the customers’ language, this shows the efforts the business is willing to make to satisfy their needs. 

A visitor clicks on the live chat link below the smart greeting, for example. From the enquiry window, your sales agent knows the visitor browsed a cosy resort. 

When it comes to the hospitality industry, the customer experience begins right from the moment of discovery and the first interaction. Businesses need to proactively engage with visitors to convert them into paying customers.

  1. Connect Customers with the Right Experiences

Bridge the gap between telecom and digital experiences, by unifying all touchpoints on a single platform.

Businesses can create frictionless and contextual experiences by effortlessly switching between social media channels, emails, SMS, video, and phone to adapt responses. 

Post-pandemic customers are looking for live human support on their preferred channel of communication. Go further and provide them with real-time, humanised experiences at every touchpoint backed by customer intent and sentiment data from a unified dashboard.

Some visitors are hesitant to move forward, in this instance for the cosy resort booking because of some safety measures of the theme park.

It takes a split second for them to leave a chat and never return if their needs are not addressed optimally. 

The ability to share files within the chat widget ensures that the chain of conversation does not get broken, and empowers the agent to keep the interaction contextual. 

To ensure the visitor can make an informed purchase decision, your sales agent even turns the chat into a video call and offers a virtual tour of the resort. 

Conversational AI capabilities can turn the live chat into a live video tour to seamlessly assist customers through the booking process. This will expedite the decision-making.

  1. Humanise Customer Relationships in a Digital World

The hospitality industry needs to transform its customer experience to emulate real-world, personalised services. 

This can be achieved by using smart capabilities such as sticky routing. Sticky routing empowers businesses to direct returning customers to the same customer support agents who attended to their previous enquiries.

Let’s say the customer who booked the resort returns to your website again after a few weeks. This time, the customer enquiries about the availability of corporate booking packages for the company’s annual event. The customer is then directed to the same agent who attended to the previous enquiries. 

Intelligent routing and binding rules act as tunnels to ensure customers receive personalised service and help in establishing efficient workflows. 

  1. Adherence and Compliance with Data Security

Keeping data secure, private, and safe from breaches takes precedence when businesses decide to digitalise their traditional processes.

Currently, many businesses are limited by the strict regulations implemented by the governing bodies on outbound telecom communication services, which impedes their ability to effectively use calls and text messaging services.

Customers’ details are a wealth to a business.

They are highly confidential. Empowering the business with a robust cloud-based unified communication solution is highly essential. 

To connect customers with businesses securely and offering data retention capabilities following the government regulatory requirements is critical.

Key trends driving the hospitality industry

If you are wondering about the forces that are driving the hospitality industry after coming out of the pandemic, these numbers would make you sit up: 

  • 97% of millennials share their travel experience on social media 

  • Approximately 90% of customers are willing to share their behavioural data if it can lead to them being offered an affordable brand experience  

  • 80% of customers feel more emotionally connected to a business when customer service solves their problem

  • Sales in the leisure tourism market are projected to grow at 19.5% CAGR 

  • 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience 

  • Customers who are loyal to a business spend 67% more than new customers

Look forward and understand your customers better

To deliver on ambitious aspirations, the hospitality industry needs a deep understanding of its customers. The needs and expectations are constantly shifting. 

With the right omnichannel CX solution, businesses can offer secure and personalised experiences to their guests while eliminating loopholes from disjointed touchpoints. 

Businesses are paving the path to a brighter future by making efforts to enhance their relationships by proactively engaging with their customers on channels of their choosing.

Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.

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Adopt a clear PROCESS

Adopt a clear PROCESS

Written by : Lori Figueiredo on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Every day, as a leader you are “designing learning experiences” – for yourself and your teams.  It’s likely unconscious and it should become conscious as it is a core aspect of being human and achieving breakthroughs – since every day, life is our classroom. 

Most importantly the way you work AND LEARN with your ecosystem of stakeholders influences the way they operate in the way you engage with them. In addition, you are role modelling your behaviours or habits as a learner. 

Every moment of the day you demonstrate how you respond to change – whether you are adaptive and constantly learning, reflecting and improving or whether you are stuck, inflexible and not adaptive at all. Take note, active learning is a future skill identified as critical by the World Economic Forum.

As we know “what got you here, won’t get you there” which was made famous by the book of the same name by Marshall Goldsmith. 

Yet when uncovering the status quo and the future path ahead, in many leading organisations, leaders expect organizational change and behaviour change as well as different results from their teams. 

Yet they themselves are still behaving and measuring KPIs which directly block the innovation, agility and adaptability required to create the changes expected.  

On the other hand we have worked with legendary leaders who are at every level – strategic, tactical and even at a personal level – are leading the way as active and agile learners.  

When a CEO managing a

billion-dollar organization was consuming new content, applying the new content immediately and then constantly sharing his own formal and informal insights gained daily – everyone in the organization followed his example.

In this organization, you could feel the alignment, you could feel SYZYGY and breakthroughs in performance happened daily! He, furthermore, was well prepared to be involved in the organizational enablers that support agile teams, as he himself was agile.  

He guided the selection of the learntech platforms we explored to enable digital learning. He himself was involved in social and action learning with his peers and subordinates as a daily and conscious habit.  Because of this “operating or engagement model” his people were fully aligned with his strategic priorities and the shared purpose was clearly evident – as depicted in the visual.
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Therefore, for leaders and teams to work AND LEARN together in a way that is agile, the leaders of any organization, community or ecosystem need to adopt a clear process.  

What we mean by that is – as a daily habit – to consciously combine the 3 ways we learn naturally towards achieving the pre-defined change or clear PURPOSE: 

  • Learn key content = Education = LEARN IT!
  • Learn by doing = Experience = APPLY IT!
  • Learn with/from others = Exposure = REVIEW IT!

Let’s use a BIG example, let’s explore the end-to-end professional development journey as a private banker from new hire to being a leader OR a small example, constantly improving how the frontline ensures customers feel welcomed as they enter the store, bank, restaurant or hotel.

For both examples when we are highly effective, we would naturally break up a huge, or tiny, body of knowledge into small independent and discrete units.  This natural phenomenon has been labelled microlearning.  

For both examples high performing individuals and teams would pre-define the PURPOSE to ensure IMPACT.  

As anyone navigating change and their own learning journey, for every microlearning unit, using our PURPOSE, we would have defined what each Learner or group of Learners needs to ACHIEVE (results), DO (behaviours) and LEARN (knowledge, skills and attitudes). 

Whether you are the head of learning or the head of Private Banking enabling thousands of private bankers or a private bank navigating your own development, creating this role clarity is critical.

Now the PROCESS for the consumer of the learning, we go in the opposite direction. We first LEARN the critical knowledge, skills and attitudes through Education. 

Then we immediately APPLY the learning by doing which involves learning through Experience. In addition we REVIEW what we are learning when we exchange, discuss, get coaching, get inputs from others and this has been labelled “Exposure” as part of the highly researched and documented 3Es.

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Therefore, to create a clear PROCESS, we start by breaking down the learning into bite-size chunks with every microlearning unit being made up of LEARN-APPLY-REVIEW.  

Let’s think of these units each as an engaging and meaningful learning experience. Thereafter these series of experiences are strung together into learning journeys.  

Finally at an organizational level, many such learning journeys roll up to define the organizational learning strategy. Note that typical organizational strategies when deployed range from including fully end-to-end structured journeys to more dynamic journeys where agile practices are adopted as daily habits.

This visual shows an example of a mobile learning app where the PURPOSE and PROCESS where embedding in to design and navigation of the end-to-end learning journey to enable the required behaviours and results.

From an organisational perspective, we recommend starting with the big picture using the 5P framework to set the overarching learning strategy. Then prototyping specific learning journeys to test and improve the strategy. Over time the specific way of working and learning together for a positive impact is embedded in the culture of the organization.

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Ad Tech Web 3.0 Tech

IS YOUR BRAND METAVERSE READY?

IS YOUR BRAND METAVERSE READY?

Written by : Srishti Jain on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

You need not answer that. It’s clearly a rhetorical question. What we mean is how ready is your brand to start the Web 3.0 Journey.

Let us first start with telling you about Evolution of User Experience in the Digital space. 

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Link to above image

We are currently in the Transition phase and slowly moving towards AR VR Wearables & Mixed Reality devices as an everyday utility. While your customer base is moving towards the Web 3.0 it’s important for your brand to jump on the wagon.

What it means is you change your communication and your content to something more engaging, a lot more immersive and definitely more interactive, allowing two way communication

At retail level, we can explore Interactive store facades, Virtual try-on, In-store engagement games, Interactive Visual Merchandise and Immersive in-store experiences.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality (AR) is overlaying visual, auditory, or other sensory information onto the real world to enhance one’s experience. You don’t need fancy wearables like Heads sets or smart glasses to access it, rather it can be accessed through mobile apps or on your phone’s web browser. 

Does AI come handy in building AR experiences?

Yes, Use of Artificial Intelligence plugs computer intelligence into the entire user journey to make the experience seamless. Say, a chat bot or an AR bot to guide you through the entire journey will enhance the entire experience many fold.

We integrate self-training AI modules into some experiences which understand Human behaviour and make the journey better.

How Retail Businesses Are Using Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality allows brands to develop smart retail experiences that influence their customers’ perception or buying decisions.

Retailers have traditionally relied on print advertising campaigns or other media to promote products. Being divided in the past, print, media and in-store marketing efforts are merged today into the comprehensive consumer experience via augmented reality.

Retail AR spans from enhancing VM display windows to product Trial experience, from in-store engagement to Smart mirror installations and much more.

Following the trend, augmented reality has emerged as an innovative tool that allows brands to interact with consumers on their mobile devices or on pre-installed set ups. Soon this experience will extend to smart glasses. 

Below examples of AR speak for themselves:

Nescafe Virtual Date

Link to above images

A fabulous AR portal for the youngsters, where they can walk-in, explore, interact, and also share with loved ones. From writing the name of their loved one on a virtual canvas to watching a shooting star, this Valentine’s Day specific immersive activation was a grandeur. 

Interesting Insight: This pack lead experience increased pack purchase and communicated appropriate content for the right TG

Ponds Influencer campaign amplified by AR

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A gamified Social-AR campaign on Ponds’ new product launch, where users had to move around the Ponds Serum with their face and pop the bubbles containing elements harmful to skin. Bursting bubbles increases “Glow meter” above the user, which when filled gratifies the user with a sparkling glowing skin.

Interesting Insight: User Generated content saw a big jump during this campaign building the much needed hype a brand wants in the initial phase.

Mural in Manhattan

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A picture containing text, outdoor, street Description automatically generated

Link to above images

This Mural on Road Safety in Manhattan comes to life in AR when passers-by scan it via a mobile App, enabling Artists to add another creative layer to their work and elevate the message within the Art and communicate with the world. 

Additional features: Location sensing, mapping the nearby area and taking a selfie with the art are additional features of this experience. 

  1. Medical Team Internal Training for a pharmaceutical brand

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This Micro-gastrointestinal simulation in AR has enabled a Pharma Brand to train their medical teams in research, product development and sales pitches. The Medical team could showcase the introduction of certain microbes and their effects in AR.

What to expect in the coming years?

With the mixed reality glasses recently launched in a big way in India, industries get more opportunities to share immersive & engaging content with its target customers

By 2027 we will see a big jump in AR/VR/ MR/XR content floating around us in our day to day lives using our smartphones and other wearable devices.

Impresario Tech build end-to-end brand campaigns focusing on Pre-purchase consideration or post purchase engagement, in store experience or on-pack brand communications with the use of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed reality, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

These immersive experiences can be built app-free (on web), deployed as special apps, rest on brands’ social media handles or installed physically in retail environments.

Love to guide you through your brand’s transformation journey. 

Write to us at Inquiry@impresariotech.io

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Mar Tech Property Tech

Total Experience Strategy in Proptech: Improve the Real Estate Market

How to Win Clients and Influence Markets with Total Experience in Proptech

Written by : Sean Cho on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Property technology, or PropTech, refers to the use of information technology (IT) to help individuals and companies research, buy, sell and manage real estate. 

Typically, the participants in the real estate industry are brokers, agents, developers, buyers, sellers, landlords, and lenders. This technology-based sector allows them to be more efficient by automating manual tasks such as managing inventory and communicating with clients.

The real estate sector encompasses a wide range of processes and transactions, ranging from how real estate is planned and designed to how it is bought and sold. The Proptech sector consists of start-ups and innovative products across the commercial and residential real estate markets. 

The convergence of technologies, cloud, and digital transformation are forces driving the rapid growth of PropTech. 

PropTech aims to minimize the cost and resources associated with real estate transactions, maximize efficiency, save time, and personalize property management.

Digital Innovation is Transforming the Property Sector

Real estate is a highly specialized industry, so these agencies require considerable flexibility when considering a digital solution. 

If a solution matches their often highly customized requirements, then it will be able to support their prospect’s pipeline — which is a combination of marketing, in-person meetings, property showings, and property closings — as well as the customer journey in real estate.

The property industry is undergoing a shift from traditional to digital services, as a result of the rapid rise of online and virtual services. 

Customers are increasingly being exposed to new technologies, which have affected the way they communicate with sales and lettings agents and property businesses. 

To remain competitive in this rapidly changing market, businesses need to implement a customer experience strategy that will best meet the needs of their particular audience.

To learn how property industry players can leverage PropTech to create memorable customer and employee experiences, keep reading! 

We’ll also share some use cases to show how a total experience platform can turn ordinary property interactions into extraordinary ones.

Customer Experience Still Evades Many Real Estate Agencies

A statistic that is widely quoted in the industry is that 1 in 3 customers will walk away from your brand after just one negative experience. 

Multiple studies echo this, always with the same message that it’s cut-throat: that your business needs to act fast to retain them. The numbers are not exaggerated, but rather represent a normal part of everyday life, and most businesses miss these small details. 

Not responding to a phone call or email quickly enough is an example of a small detail that can have major consequences.

If you don’t respond well to these kind of details, customers will leave your business in favour of another company that provides better service. 

According to recent studies, 86% of consumers will not remain loyal to a company after a negative experience; and if they do stay, it is likely because they are unable to find what they need elsewhere in which case you got lucky.

In a highly competitive market, providing a great customer experience will help build loyalty, nurture repeat business, and create brand advocates. Agents and employees need tools to stay productive and collaborate effectively online from wherever they are.

4 Customer and Employee Experience Strategies to Boost Business

Here are some examples of how you can harness Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) in your business to create a competitive advantage. 

Great customer service can differentiate real estate products and services from competitors, while time-saving tools and hacks for employees can turbocharge their productivity and keep them from burning out.

 

    1. How Communication Builds Trust between a Tenant and an Agent

Georg and Berta, who are relocating from Germany to Hong Kong for an expatriate posting, browse your property agency website and shortlist a few rental apartments.

Wanting to know more, Berta clicks on the smart widget on your website and watches a branded video featuring an agent while being connected with him directly.

The call routing system detected the customer’s browser language and routed them to an agent who speaks German. The customer is delighted to be talking to someone in their native language.

Your agent then suggests they switch to a video call for a more interactive conversation, taking just one click to seamlessly make that change while still on the same call.

By chance, your agent is currently showing a property in the Mid-Levels area with rents of around HKD 40,000 a month. Using the mobile app, she checks Georg and Berta’s browsing history and sees they are coincidentally looking at the Mid-Levels area with rents of the same price range.

Qualifying the lead further, she gets their expected move-in date which helps to narrow down the listings more.

While a real estate agency website can contain virtual reality walkthroughs and videos, nothing beats a personal live video tour from the agent. Sensing the prospect’s eagerness, she conducts an impromptu walkthrough and adds her commentary on the apartment’s condition.

 

    1. Discover new ways to market a property and generate interest

Keanu, who lives in New Zealand, saw an advertisement for your company’s new beach resort in Hajodae, South Korea. To promote the launch of the property, your firm took out a full-page advertisement in his local newspaper with a QR code.

Wanting to know more, he instantly connected via web call to an English-speaking property agent in South Korea.

The property is still in the pre-launch stage, so the only way to get a sense of the completed unit is to visit a show flat. Your agent switches easily to a video call, slowly panning his phone to show Keanu what he can expect from the resort property once it has been completed.

Currently, you only have a basic landing page for visitors to register their interest. However, your property agent screen shares from the video call and plays him a promotional video of the property.

As Keanu is an enthusiastic surfer, he inquired about the facilities. Your agent provides you with a link to a VR walkthrough of the resort.

Your property agent mentions that the firm has a tie-up with a financial institution that can offer loans denominated in South Korean Won, and Keanu seems excited by the possibility of such financing.

As he discusses his plans for the property, your agent invites the expert to the ongoing call.

 

    1. Transform the way of closing a new residential lease

Taiwan real estate agent Annya has just ended a virtual tour of four apartments with a couple from France, who are now considering the properties. Although she feels they are good prospects, she knows that they may change their minds at any time, or another agent they’ve contacted might win the deal.

Annya received a message on her phone. The couple had used the web link on the agency’s website to send a message; they liked the last viewed apartment in Taipei and wanted to offer a two-year lease at TW$80,000 per month. Thrilled by this news, she called the landlord through the smart app, and he happily agreed. 

Annya prepares a provisional tenancy agreement and attaches it to a live chat session with the French couple.

She reminds them to wire the initial deposit to the landlord once they have digitally signed the contract. Receiving signed copies of both the contract and a screenshot of the telegraphic transfer, she calls the tenants.

She walks the tenants through the landlord’s leasing process during a video call. The landlord’s solicitors will prepare a draft tenancy agreement for them to review. In the meantime, Annya suggests that she recommend a lawyer who can represent them. They agree, and she invites the lawyer to join the conference call.

 

    1. Increased communication and collaboration by overseeing commercial tenants

As the property manager of a large-scale commercial complex consisting of a shopping mall and offices above it, Shoba is responsible for hundreds of retail and office tenants. A member of a dedicated team of accountants, technicians, and procurement and contracts specialists working in the onsite management office, she leads her team in providing an exceptional level of service to all clients.

The use of a lightweight CRM offers tenants a chat room environment, centralizing every interaction and communication.

Through the use of interaction history, she is able to chart the correspondence over time, enabling to resolve issues quickly. 

In addition, Shoba uses CINNOX as a cloud communications tool, enabling her to manage chats, calls, video calls, and emails from one place, thereby avoiding the cost of installing a more complicated PABX system!

When a new tenant moves into an apartment community, he or she is given a laminated card with QR codes printed on it.

When scanned, the codes direct callers to the appropriate team for help with payments and statements—saving tenants time from searching for a number. The same teams are also shared via web links in an email, giving tenants an option to chat instead.

CINNOX helps teams collaborate. For example, if a new tenant wants to move in after hours, Shoba can create a chatroom to notify operations about the loading bay, advise facilities to keep the lights on, inform security about the removalists, and add the external moving company as a contact so everyone is kept updated.

An Experience-Driven Approach To PropTech

From the examples above, it’s clear when you address your immediate CX and EX needs with a total experience platform. You are also laying the groundwork for future success. 

By putting all your interaction data in one place, you are creating a treasure trove of data that can be analyzed with powerful machine learning and AI tools to discover valuable insights in the future.

PropTech is a new industry that combines property with technology, allowing developers, landlords, property agents, and property managers to leverage technology to keep in step with digital-savvy customers. 

When choosing the right partner to develop your customer experience, look for a business that puts the customer (your customer) first and foremost, and who demonstrates that they too take that approach from their business.

Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.

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