Watching how customer experience has changed and evolved over the past year led us to look at what you can expect in 2021. Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and Alchemer VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga, discuss how customer experience will change in 2021.
Trend 1: Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines
Organizations will move to a more centralized customer experience (CX) yet expand CX to every department as customers touch more parts of the business. Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines, as they are the people who can close the loop with the customer. This helps people feel that they are heard and encourages them to participate in your Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs.
Trend 2: Digital transformation efforts will accelerate dramatically. In many instances, customers will no longer engage with a company face–to–face
During the pandemic, customers lost immediate face-to-face interaction, such as going to the mall to shop or flying to meet a business-to-business customer. Now companies must create (and recreate) that trust and intimacy without the face-to-face experience. More and more, your website will become the storefront for your business. Companies that are thriving today are those that have successfully embraced digital transformation to do business digitally, even though the experience is different.
Trend 3: The sophistication of CX will skyrocket
As a result of the pandemic, there will be a new wave of automation at the customer level that will eliminate background activities and give more time to customer-facing teams to engage directly with their customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will help automate background activities, so that people can focus on customers. To be successful, organizations will need to apply higher-level skillsets to better engage customers and building hyper-personalized experiences.
Trend 4: Some companies will over-rotate toward automation
In the rush to embrace digital transformation, it’s easy to go too far. Automating background activities is a good thing to do as it frees up people to spend more time with customers. It’s not easy and possible to automate too many customer-facing interactions. Companies will need to guard against further separating themselves from the few remaining personal interactions that they have with their customers. Successful companies will use automation to allow for more personal customer engagements, not to replace them.
Trend 5: Employee experience will be just as critical as customer experience
It’s easy to be isolated and transactional with everybody working remotely. Being able to engage your employees in the same ways you engage your customers will help you retain your best people and maintain your corporate culture. Keeping a pulse on your employees allows you keep your employees engaged and passionate about their work and company. As we all adjust to whatever new norms the next six months bring, successful companies will work to keep their employee engagement and passion high, which will help their customers enjoy more of their experiences with your company.
Hear more from David and Ryan
While this blog has covered the top trends we see shaping CX in 2021, the webinar offers even more, including more than ten minutes of questions and answers with Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and Alchemer VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga. To watch the webinar, click here and sign in. You will also find other webinars about NPS, Employee Experience, and Risk Assessments.