FINAL WORD

This continued growth in online shopping means brands are under more pressure than ever before to provide customers with rewarding , seamless and memorable digital experiences . So , with the end of the year fast approaching – it ’ s important to ask : what do top customer experience professionals believe will be the biggest trends we ’ ll be seeing in the near future ?

To find out , we spoke to five CX specialists from leading brands , all of which took part in the CX Circle London event from Contentsquare :

Employees will be content creators

Daisy Morris is a social media strategist and the founder of the social media consultancy and digital community , The Selfhood .

For Morris , the coming years will be defined by employees evolving into brand ambassadors and content creators as they continue to grow their own personal brands . From LinkedIn to TikTok we see this happening rapidly as it helps brands create more of a personal feel on their channels .

This is not a bad thing . Online interactions need to be more human with personalised business strategies behind them that are intentional , emotive and authentic . As Morris said : “ Who says URL experiences can ’ t feel as good as IRL ones ?”

Going back to basic principles

For Mark Adams , VP Innovation at VICE , the biggest trend that we ’ ll see sweeping across the CX industry is a return to ‘ first principles ’.

Adams said : “ The digital environment within which we live is now so mindbogglingly complicated that it ' s impossible to keep up with , let alone make sense of the different threads of innovation .”

AI will become ubiquitous

Gary Roth , Director of Business Value Engineering , at Contentsquare , believes that in 50 years from now , there will be an AI Revolution .

In his opinion , humanity will change more in the next 50 years than in the previous three centuries . To put it into perspective , if you look back at your history books , you will realise that there is more time between Cleopatra and the pyramids than between Cleopatra and the iPhone .

We are at the point of exponential change , and AI might be the largest technological revolution we have ever seen . AI is on the verge of becoming ubiquitous – as Roth said : “ Intelligence will be everywhere and nowhere at the same time , just like electricity is today . Everywhere you go , you know that there ' s electricity in the walls , the floor , the ceiling , everywhere , and you don ’ t even notice it anymore . Electricity became invisible and AI will be the same .”

Brands will ( and should ) become boutiques

According to Rob Sleath , Optimisation Manger at Lovehoney and Sarah-Jane Morris , Head of Digital Product , we ’ re on a half-pipe continuum of customer experience .

“ In the olden days , your purchasing experience was artisan , it was bespoke and it was personal when you walked into a shop . But now , with mass production , large retailers taking over and the Internet , there ’ s a disconnect between customers and sellers . The experience is becoming more transactional ,” said Sleath .

THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THE BEHAVIOURAL , ATTITUDINAL AND EMOTIONAL SIDE OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WILL EVOLVE CX TO A COMPANY-WIDE MANDATE .

Faced with this situation , Adams argues that we must get back to a basic foundational understanding of the nature of digital systems . At its heart , the Internet remains an interconnected set of networks . It seems basic to say it but once you remember that fact , you can start to question whether your strategy works for those networks – does it identify and activate them in the way you want ?

In this transactional landscape , he believes it ’ s time for product experts and personal experiences to re-emerge . “ We ’ re heading back up the other side of the half-pipe where big brands will become boutiques again .”

Morris shared how they ’ re doing this : “ At Lovehoney , it ’ s all about treating your customers like people and not just traffic . You can start to www . intelligentcxo . com

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