Companies are striving to take customer experience more seriously than in the past and, as a result, are realizing that CX is what makes the difference in ROI, sales, customer loyalty, and overall success. However, this is easier said than done. The customer of today is informed, connected, and possesses more product and service knowledge than ever before. To succeed, companies must continuously meet the extraordinary demands and expectations of today’s connected consumer.

This year, the only transmission that companies should be ‘tuning in to’ is customer experience (CX). We are firmly in a CX renaissance: 89% of companies now compete on the basis of customer experience alone. So, in 2019, breaking through the noise coming from the competition and providing a static-free customer experience are both increasingly important.

If you’re starting to forge your customer experience strategy for 2019, you are not alone. We have done the channel surfing for you, and have found some of the important customer experience trends for you to monitor in 2019.

Live Better Electronically: AI And The Customer Experience

The best way to embrace AI is to implement it strategically, allowing it to assist in solving problems, improving processes, and making the contact between employees, agents, and customers optimal across the board. It is imperative that AI not be viewed as a simple CX shortcut or a mere cost-saving opportunity, as this would detract from customer-centric communication, would then increase friction between customers and companies. However, when technology (AI) is used by a physician, it helps doctors predict whether a patient has a high near-term risk for becoming sick, allowing doctors to prioritize attention and necessary resources for the patient instead of doing a more cursory assessment in under 16 minutes.

No, AI is not a substitute for human contact, but its greatest potential lies in helping us better understand customer behaviours, expectations, and desires.

Control the Remote, Control the World

Everything that constitutes a brand – messaging, values, communication, advertising, customer touchpoints – plays a significant role in shaping the customer experience. How customers perceive a brand, and how that brand communicates with stakeholders (and vice versa), are the determining factors in a customer’s buying decisions. Remember, customer experience is the sum of all interactions that a customer has with a company; that is a brand.

For most businesses, marketing owning CX is not the greatest solution. Marketers run the risk of focusing solely on the buying experience and ignoring the full customer journey. The reality is that managing CX cannot be done in silos. It takes collaboration and coordination across multiple functions and departments.

The reality is that no one person in an organization can control the remote. Creating a seamless and memorable customer experience is more complicated than ever and requires an inter-departmental approach.

Change the Channel: Prioritizing Omnichannel in Customer Experience

It’s easy for companies to be enthusiastic about the breadth of their communications offerings, and to have confidence in their ability to service customer requests. However, from the customer’s perspective, nothing matters unless they can connect to a company using their preferred channel – simply. Online Customers want a quick and easy way to get online customer support, regardless of how they get it.

Every interaction a customer has with a brand ultimately impacts their experiences. When these interactions involve multiple channels, those very separate interactions get lumped together in the minds of the customers. So, it is imperative that companies streamline their omnichannel communications and create consistency across all channels because, after all, consistency equates to trust. Even better: Trust leads to brand loyalty, a loyalty that is only as good as a customer’s last encounter with a company.

With TalkAgent, your customers will never wait on hold again, regardless of where the conversation begins – web, mobile or inbound call. Our cloud-based technology easily hooks into your existing call center infrastructure, with minimal impact to your business processes.