The Future is Phygital

As businesses strive to create more personalized and immersive experiences, the synergy between physical spaces and digital experiences is becoming increasingly critical. From enhancing customer engagement to streamlining operations, the integration of physical and digital experiences is paving the way for digital transformation across industries.  This convergence, often referred to as a “phygital” experience, merges the tangible world of physical interaction with the seamless convenience of digital technology.

What is phygital?

Bringing together the words physical and digital has created a new word, phygital, and a new way of thinking about the importance of seamless experiences for customers. More companies than ever are adjusting their strategies to digitally accomplish tasks that had previously been accomplished only in-person. This includes things that have become commonplace like grocery shopping online, looking at a menu on a mobile phone, and even monitoring one’s health from a wearable device. The blending of physical and digital in customer experience strategy is certainly here to stay.

What’s the meaning of phygital in customer experience?

Considering the customer experience journey is critical to ensuring that whatever phygital strategy you create is successful. For example, if you create a mobile app for your convenience store and offer curbside pickup on quick meals but you don’t properly train store associates to engage with the app, you don’t have a successful phygital experience (or good customer experience, for that matter).

We’ve seen many five-star mobile apps end up with a 1-star rating because the out-of-app experience with an associate didn’t align with the in-app expectation, damaging customer satisfaction. Getting to market quickly should not be at the associate’s or customer’s expense.

Thinking about the kind of customer experience you want your users to have is critical to your success. It’s not enough to simply check the box that you have a mobile app or website. These digital experiences must be optimized to account for the more common phygital experience that many customers will have with your brand.

What is a phygital strategy?

Creating a phygital strategy must, again, start with assessing your current customer experience. Where are customers running into challenges? What moments of achievement do they have that you want to invest in more? These kinds of insights will give you a lot to work with and can help guide you in the direction necessary to creating a phygital experience that exceeds customer expectations.

Ask yourself what you can do to blend your physical and digital experiences together, for the better? The goal is to create the kinds of immersive engagements that customers find so easy that they achieve silent utility—you have no feedback from your users because it simply works. Silent utility means you have a great strategy because the effort required of customers to engage with your brand is so minimal and frictionless that it keeps them coming back.

What role does marketing play in phygital strategies?

It’s great to start thinking about how phygital will come to life for your business, and that plan needs to include your marketing strategy. How you communicate new digital offerings and configure customer support as users begin to onboard and utilize these experiences will be critical to your success. Consider signage for your stores to educate and convert in-store only customers to digital ones. Think about exclusive offers you can provide to customers who engage with your mobile app or website to encourage adoption. Don’t forget to measure and analyze your results so that you can continually optimize your phygital strategy for the best possible customer experience.

Examples of phygital experiences today

There are many ways to enhance the phygital experiences that you have already enabled. Let’s look at some real-life physical digital examples and how they can propel your customer experience.

Kiosks

A classic example of phygital design can be found in a kiosk. Whether at the airport, a bank, or restaurant, a kiosk makes it possible for users to accomplish routine tasks quickly and efficiently using digital technology in a specific physical space. Just about everyone has used one and they’ve become so commonplace and accepted that most consumers don’t even consider whether it’s a physical or digital experience—it’s just the way things are done.

Consider walking into a quick service restaurant and stepping up to a kiosk. The kiosk greets you and offers recommendations based on items you’ve bought previously and the information you have in your mobile app, such as dietary restrictions. This kind of engagement simplifies the kiosk experience, making it so customer centric that they have the best possible interaction with your brand, boosting customer loyalty as a result.

Mobile apps, curbside, and in store pickup

Take, for example, the introduction of QR codes at restaurants. Using your mobile device, you can scan a QR code on your table and view the menu or drinks on tap without having to touch a physical, printed menu. And while this is wonderful for some, not every customer wants to use technology which means your phygital experience must account for the various types of customers you’ll be serving. Your job is to ensure that all your customers have what they need—and that means creating a physical digital integration that is accessible for everyone.

Websites and customer portals

Creating an easy-to-use website portal is crucial for many industries, including insurance and healthcare. Customers in both industries expect their experience to be easy to navigate so they can find what they need on their own. Sadly, not all websites live up to this expectation, resulting in countless calls to a customer service agent—but it doesn’t have to be this way!

First, websites should be optimized for mobile. Mobile is often a primary source for everyday activities, including for everyday insurance and healthcare activities. While insurance companies rely heavily on agents’ relationships with customers, imagine the difference technology could make if agents were trained to teach customers how to use self-service options.

Considering the healthcare industry, website portals with a telemedicine component will continue to grow in importance as healthcare providers begin to think about how they can best serve patients into the future. For patients who don’t need to be seen in person, website portals can offer a phygital way for them to converse with their doctor while also leveraging technology to better fit their lifestyle.

Voice

Amazon’s Alexa is making its way into more homes every year. But they can be used for more than just playing games or listening to music. More companies are creating voice skills to aid consumers with everyday tasks. And just like the other examples listed, it’s common for these experiences to have a digital component that is married with a physical one. For example, perhaps you ask Alexa to keep track of medical statistics that your wearable devices report each day. You can access that data at any time, particularly when you are entering a telemedicine appointment with your doctor and ready to have a conversation about how to improve your overall health.

Digital payments

It’s clear that banking consumers are comfortable with phygital options. That said, bank branches still exist and should align with the digital experiences customers are having everyday with their banks.

Retailers should also be thinking about how to make the purchase and check out experience easier for customers. is a great example of this. Mobile apps can integrate with digital payments so that customers can fill up their gas tanks with minimal effort and complete fuel purchases right from their phones.

What is the future of phygital?

In the future, true phygital experiences will have an advanced anticipation model. This idea of advanced anticipation is something that we will likely hear a lot more about as phygital experiences become more commonplace. For example, many of us have voice-activated remotes. You can speak the name of your favorite television show into your remote and instantly, your TV provider launches your program. But what if your TV and TV provider knew you so well that you didn’t even need to speak into the remote? It knew your preferences and routines and what you wanted to watch. That’s advanced anticipation. It’s like the Netflix strategy—capturing data that, over time, helps devices “learn” how to make helpful suggestions that point you toward the things that will be of most interest to you.

Phygital is about bridging the relationship between a user (human) and activity (company) and making that experience so effortless that your customers don’t even notice that their life has become easier. The line between physical and digital experiences will be so blurred that users won’t even recognize the difference.

Will customers really want to give me the information required to create these immersive experiences?

To create truly phygital experiences, some level of advanced information about a consumer and their preferences is often required. While concerns around data privacy and security will never go away, if there is a fair exchange of value, your customers will largely be willing to provide the information necessary to have the kinds of interactions that they want. Thinking about the rewards programs that customers opt into at their favorite coffee chain or restaurant, ask yourself: why are they willing to agree to the terms? It’s because they understand that if they allow the company to know that they buy coffee every Saturday, they may be rewarded for that behavior and get a free cup. The same will apply for your company if you provide a product or service that adds value to their lives.

Where should I start?

As the world evolves and the boundaries between digital and physical experiences continue to blur, you’ll want to start thinking about the strategy that will work best for your business. Hexaware has helped some of the world’s largest brands transform their processes, create better customer experience management, and streamlined business operations. Check out our past work and then let’s chat about how together, we can create a more meaningful phygital experience for your company.