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What’s On the Minds of Today’s Top CX Experts?
Are you ready for the customer of the future?
Today’s 6th graders—who are playing video games on a TV while their laptop shows someone else playing video games on YouTube all while talking with friends through a PlayStation headset—are tomorrow’s customers. And it’ll happen faster than you could ever expect.
That’s just one bite of insight coming out of last month’s CXOutsourcers Mindshare event in Las Vegas. It’s been three years since the last in-person conference, and this gathering was a triumphant return to face-to-face knowledge share and ideation.
The conference was exceptionally valuable and every bit mind-blowing. If the future of customer experience is on your mind, read on for a few more bite-sized perspectives.
4x Growth with Better Employee Experience
Anne Bibb, founder and CEO of Remote Evolution, says the companies who invest in the employee experience realize growth four times faster than those that don’t. Happy workers have a substantial impact on customer satisfaction.
For organizations heading into Q4 with serious growth goals, this means ensuring that your customer experience strategy starts with a strong foundation in employee experience. For many, this looks like strengthening your internal communication. The key strategy for 2023 includes shortening the communication distance between the C-Suite and the frontline so every employee is on the same page.
And—most importantly—understand that a strong communication strategy looks different from one company to the next—there’s no size fits all. Understand your audience first and build from there.
And Speaking of Employee Experience…
…it starts with exceptional recruiting and onboarding. Indu Badlani, CEO at ProjectSpace and co-founder of StaffingExpert, says that employee happiness and retention is a direct result of a human resources function that is founded on treating individuals like, well, individuals.
She also points out that the generational make-up of the customer service workforce is shifting. Badlani is based in Philippines, where 47% of the workforce is Millennials. As a result, career paths in customer experience look different than they once did, and organizations need to be prepared for the workforce of the future. What skills will they need and how will they develop them? What strategies can they leverage now to cultivate talent?
Lessons from the CX Futurist
Stephanie Todd, keynote speaker at CXO and founder of SoulCX imparted many words of wisdom, some of which she recently published on her company’s LinkedIn profile. “Two thirds of companies,” she says, “compete solely on CX.”
There are two specific ways to ensure you’re winning that competition. First, get back to basics. “If the plane doesn’t fly, I don’t care about the inflight entertainment… CX should be the same,” she says. Get in touch with the customer journey and make sure the basics of what you’re offering are rock solid.
Second, cross-team collaboration is critical. Marketing and CX must work together. The entire business structure must be de-siloed. The customer will feel the disjointed nature of your business if you have a clunky, segmented process and strategy. When it’s streamlined, each customer immediately has “heightened loyalty and purchasing power.” Words to live by.
Blockchain on Your CX Radar?
Blockchain technology isn’t losing its buzzword status anytime soon. Shelli Ryan, CEO and Founder of Ad Hoc Communication Resources, presented a report about blockchain in the contact center and its impact on customer experience. In particular, it is being used to “empower agents and drive efficiencies,” she says.
The industry as a whole is slowly moving from discovery to implementation, but there’s still far to go in deploying impactful blockchain strategy for customer experience. As it takes greater prominence, it will also help organizations address issues like financial fraud, data, and cybersecurity. If it’s not on your radar already, blockchain is one of those disruptive tech trends that can’t be ignored.
The Metaverse Meets Customer Experience
William Carson, Director of Market Engagement at Ascensos, was the one to describe his 6th grade daughter playing Minecraft on TV while watching YouTube and chatting via her PS5. That’s the future customer, he said, as he reflected on Stephen Loynd’s CXOutsourcers presentation about the Metaverse. It is the technologies making the Metaverse a reality that will disrupt the realm of customer experience the most.
Millions of dollars are being invested in these technologies and gaming initiatives, representing the “next evolutionary stage of the Internet, [which] will offer new opportunities for shared experiences… and could fundamentally change how we interact with each other and the world,” writes Loynd. The implications for customer experience are monumental.
The Future of Customer Experience
The CXOutsourcers conference was an excellent forum to get an inside look at what some of the industry’s top minds are projecting for the future of customer experience.
