Customers now expect every interaction with a company to be personalized, streamlined, and convenient. Clients want brands to be active on all channels they prefer, empowered with knowledge, and ready to respond to their unique needs. In fact, 73% of customers now say CX is the number one thing they consider when deciding whether to purchase from a company.
However, in a world where customer expectations are evolving rapidly, it can be challenging to know where to begin when updating your CX stack. While 73% of customer support leaders today say they believe customer expectations are increasing, only 42% believe they’re living up to the requirements of their consumers. Keeping on top of the latest trends influencing customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty scores could be a great way to stay ahead of the competition.
Here are some of the most crucial CX trends companies will need to prepare for in 2023.
Cloud Technology Convergence
One of the significant trends of 2022 was the rapid adoption of CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) platforms. Many brands began moving their Contact Center stack into the cloud to respond quickly to changing customer expectations and empower employees in the age of remote and hybrid work. As a result, the CCaaS landscape is growing at a CAGR of 18.4%.
However, investing in CCaaS on its own may not be enough for true CX leaders. Creating the best customer experiences means ensuring your team members are consistently aligned and informed. Connecting multiple cloud environments into a single “work hub” for the modern service agent could be the best way to achieve this goal.
Increasingly, we’re seeing more UCaaS, and CCaaS vendors offer combined “Experience as a Service” solutions in the cloud.
“As part of the integration of UCaaS and CCaaS, we’re going to start seeing more integration with collaboration tools such as team spaces, video, screen sharing and document sharing to let agents, customers, and subject matter experts collaborate together and create what I call the “collaborative contact center.” When a customer can send a video of a broken appliance, or the damage to their car after an accident, and an agent can share how-to videos or walk through the proper way to fill out a loan application, issues can be solved much more quickly, resulting in improved customer satisfaction,” said Blair Pleasant, President and Principal Analyst, COMMfusion.
These tools connect contact center functionality with UC and collaboration capabilities, workforce engagement tools, and other SaaS solutions for an end-to-end suite of cloud innovations. With these comprehensive tools, brands can more easily align their teams and gain meaningful insights into the entire customer journey.
The Rise of Proactive and Predictive Care
Simply responding rapidly to customer queries isn’t enough in today’s fast-paced landscape. Gartner believes that by 2025, proactive customer service and engagement solutions will outweigh reactive strategies. Consumers are increasingly looking for companies that can use tools like predictive modeling and automation to eliminate problems before they ever happen.
To deliver the best level of proactive care, organizations will need to invest more heavily in tools that allow them to assess historical and real-time data and develop strategies for success. Customer journey mapping tools and AI analytics will enable brands to stay one step ahead of their customer’s needs and even reach out to clients before they need to call for assistance.
Creating proactive strategies will also mean making self-service solutions more advanced, using natural language processing tools to collect insights about customer needs, and developing more intelligent solutions to client problems.
Tools to Enhance Employee Experience
Throughout 2022, companies began to learn that Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) weren’t disparate concepts but two sides of the same coin. We’re rapidly moving towards a landscape where brands are beginning to focus more heavily on the concept of “Total Experience” and the broader experience economy.
As a result, CX is becoming less of a siloed concept in the business environment. As part of a comprehensive customer experience strategy, brands invest more heavily in tools that engage, empower, and inform employees. Virtual assistants are emerging to make it easier for agents to access crucial information from the contact center and CRM during customer calls.
Workforce management and engagement tools are beginning to intertwine with the CCaaS and UCaaS landscape, helping brands to engage and unify hybrid workers. In 2023, any effective strategy for CX must consider the employee experience and how the two concepts go hand-in-hand to boost satisfaction.
