If there's one thing management gurus like to do early in annually, it's make predictions – and customer experience (CX) experts are no different.
But business predictions are like weather forecasts. Everybody consumes them, but rarely does anybody remember check their accuracy.
Back in 2021, for instance, 89% of companies surveyed predicted that – within two years – they'd be competing mostly on the basis of customer experience (Gartner). Yet, here i am 5 years after that prediction, and there's widespread stagnation in customer experience quality (Forrester Research). Overall U.S. customer satisfaction is at exactly the same level it had been a decade ago (American Customer Satisfaction Index).
In study after study, companies say they will improve their concentrate on customer experience. At the same time, CX gurus issue rosy annual prognostications about how exactly that enhanced focus will manifest itself – such as during these examples, culled from prediction lists over the past couple years:
- Companies can create more customer-centric cultures, using new recognition systems and training programs.
- Companies will use technology to digitally transform the customer experience.
- Companies goes further by empowering their employees to surprise and delight.
- Companies will use robotic process automation to speed customer transactions.
- Companies will leverage AI to automate customer interactions without which makes them feel mechanical.
- Companies will break up silos and align customer experience strategies across functional domains.
- Companies will use predictive analytics to create more personalized customer experience.
- Companies will overhaul their voice-of-the-customer programs, relying more about text analytics of unstructured content, for example survey comments, call center recordings, social media conversations and online chat sessions.
However, despite all the expert predictions, despite all of the pledges to focus on CX, the needle has not moved much for many companies. The disparity can't you need to be related to heightened customer expectations, as even objective measures of CX maturity indicate the majority of organizations lag in this regard (a lot for that increased focus).
The issue is that lots of companies pay lip plan to customer experience, pursuing it to create good annual report copy, instead of they are driving fundamental changes in how they conduct business. When push involves shove, CX initiatives are often subordinated to other priorities and starved for funding, based on the Qualtrics “State of Customer Experience Management” report.
That's an unfortunate outcome, given the compelling evidence available that illustrates the ROI of the great customer experience (as well as the penalties exacted for any poor one).
This may be the reality in today's business community, though, and that's why there's one bold customer experience prediction that actually includes a high probability of coming true this year. That prediction is simply this: Very little will change.
Most organizations will lumber along, spinning their wheels on customer experience, discussing it endlessly, executing on minor improvements that amount to corporate window dressing, just so someone can “check the box” on their next performance review.
Most organizations will continue their navel-gazing, focusing inward on structural changes, role shifts, political infighting and inter-silo strife.
Most organizations will lose whatever little momentum they've already gained around customer experience improvement, as top executives with “Organizational Attention Deficit Disorder” spot some shiny new object that becomes the following initiative of the day.
Granted, this is quite a pessimistic outlook. But the truth is, most organizations are unremarkable, and are destined to stay that way. That's precisely why, when a company does break from the pack and deliver a differentiated customer experience, it turns heads.
So, instead of obsess over what everyone else will be doing (or exactly what the CX gurus say everyone else is going to be doing), focus instead on what your company can do to prevent the fate of mediocrity.
Think concerning how to send a clear, unmistakable signal to the marketplace – as well as your workplace – that something fundamental is changing.
A signal that you are no more going to get it done “like we've always done.”
A signal that you are disrupting things as they are inside your industry.
A signal that you're liberating customers from long-simmering frustrations.
A signal that you are dispensing with the typical CX platitudes, in favor of very tangible and compelling changes that will make a positive change within the lives of the customers and the employees who serve them.
It's disheartening to state that little can change within the state on most companies' customer experiences next year. It's not a fait accompli, though. If you do not want your company to be the type of validating this bold prediction, well then- go do something bold!
