Memorable. Unique. Surprising. Positive. Enjoyable. These are just a few of the ways consumers describe interactions they consider to be “Moments of Wow” with their favorite brands.
Every company in every industry has the potential to create customer moments of wow. Where is customer experience headed? CX experts look into the future to predict next-gen wow moments in 2017 and beyond.
STATS
- By 2020, 40% of commerce transactions will be enabled by cognitive/AI personal shoppers and conversational commerce solutions. – IDC
- By 2018, more than 10 billion things will be connected in the combined consumer and business worlds. – Gartner
- Social media spend will reach $35.98 billion by 2017. – eMarketer
- By 2020, the average person will have more conversations with bots than with their spouse. – Gartner
- By 2018, 50% of customer support interactions will be digitalised and occur in online communities. – IDC
- By 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality. – Gartner
PREDICTIONS
Great expectations
“The future of customer experience is one in which companies take seriously consumers’ rising expectations of them…The problem that most companies have is that they don’t recognise they’re on the downward slope of these rising expectations. They think they’re keeping up. They think they add technology and therefore they’re better, when in fact, they’re declining in the customers’ eyes.”
– Don Peppers, Founding Partner, Peppers & Rogers Group
Time well spent
“What you’re going to see is that because time is so important and because companies want to get to a position where customers value their time with them, you’re going to increasingly see more and more companies charging for time rather than charging explicitly for the good or the service.”
– Joe Pine, Co-author, The Experience Economy
Digital interactions
“Face-to-face communications, followed by telephone, will become the least-used channels in the next five years. What’s hot is self-service and video interactions with customer reps.”
– Shep Hyken, Author, The Cult of the Customer
Bust those silos
“Companies will start adopting different organisational structures that break down silos and integrate information and systems to facilitate those customer experience improvements. Companies will also invest more in the frontline employee experience, as they realise paying higher wages and better equipped and engaged employees not only helps them fight the battle for talent, but also improves the customer experience.”
– Denise Lee Yohn, Author, What Great Brands Do
Reality check
“Over the next five years, we’re going to have to reconcile the fact that customers’ expectations are rising, companies aren’t delivering on them, and one of the biggest gaps is when it comes to meeting their emotional needs.”
– Bruce Temkin, Customer Experience Transformist
Learn more about what makes wow moments today and tomorrow in the eBook, “Creating Moments of Wow: Predictions for 2017 and Beyond.”
