Last month the industry analyst Forrester hosted their annual Customer Experience (CX) conference in New York City – CXNYC2018. It’s a big event hosted at the New York Hilton and naturally there were many detailed insights into the general direction we see CX headed at present. CIO magazine published a very good summary of the event highlights. 

Reading through the highlights I can see several important issues. I have picked out a few of the issues covered by CIO in their coverage of CXNYC2018, adding my own comments here:

1. Customers don’t see your org chart; this is becoming a real issue for companies that still see customer service as a distinct function. The customer no longer sees advertising, sales, or service as separate activities – they are all just interactions with a brand. You can’t expect your customer to navigate your internal departments. It’s up to you to ensure that either your customer-facing teams are working together or (even better) you coordinate them all to work as a single customer experience team.
2. CX is your brand; the way customers felt about a brand used to be driven largely by the type of advertising and marketing campaigns a brand paid for. Today, customers form their impression of a brand much more from their experience – online, on apps, and in person in a store. Every small interaction adds up to an impression or opinion.
3. Data is the new sexy stuff; Forrester analysts are calling data the sexy stuff, but I’ve been telling clients this message for years – you have to show your customer that you understand their needs and that means capturing useful data and analyzing it quickly enough to influence real-time interactions. For instance, being able to make suggestions to an agent about how to handle a customer interaction based on a detailed understanding of the preferences of that customer.
4. CX is good business; Forrester studied 287 companies across 19 industries and found clear evidence that an investment in better CX is returned through a combination of increased customer loyalty and increased revenue. For example, 61% of customers who were not satisfied with their online experience would not return to buy from the same brand and customers who reported an excellent experience with a brand are twice as likely as others to remain loyal.
5. CX is remodeling not redecorating; One speaker used the analogy of a house redecoration – you can paint the walls, but it still feels like the same house. This is very true with the CX challenge. You can add a channel here and there and extend your support hours, but to truly meet customer expectations today requires a complete CX strategy that will include every touchpoint between your brand and the customer.

These are all important and useful ideas. In particular the reminder that a full and complete CX strategy is not just about contact center management just emphasizes why CX is one of the number one strategic priorities of the desk of the CEO today. 

Let me know what you think about these points and if you were at the CXNYC event then which talks impressed you most? Leave a comment here or get in touch via my LinkedIn. 

Photo by Tayloright licensed under Creative Commons.