Customer experience (often abbreviated to ‘CX’) is likely to continue to be a hot topic in 2023 as enterprises wrestle with disruptions, new business priorities and changing customer expectations, according to Gartner.
In terms of the trends for 2023, there are different directions that businesses will seek to move in and where consumers also have an interest. On the agenda are not only technology and cultural trends, but also cybersecurity risks.
To gain a better understanding of some of the potential alterations for 2023, Digital Journal touched base with Alok Kulkarni, Co-founder and CEO of Cyara.
One of Kulkarni’s focal points is with the way businesses will be restructuring in order to reduce costs, which has cultural and technological implications.
Kulkarni notes: “Amid continued economic instability, there will be an acceleration of traditionally on-prem companies shifting contact centre operations to the cloud (CCaaS) so agents work remotely as a way to reduce overhead costs.”
Citing an example, an done on a big scale, Kulkarni mentions: “Amazon’s announcement to close all but one of its U.S. call centres is a recent example of what we can expect to see from other big tech corporations in the next year. Technologies like interactive voice response (IVR), a form of self-service that enables customers to accomplish tasks on their own by communicating with a telephone keypad or speech recognition, will also increase as companies make this shift to the cloud and remote work to reduce human capital and overhead costs.”
These changes can only be driven by updates to technology, as Kulkarni notes: “The move to remote call center agents will require organizations to prioritize technology that supports managing remote agents and helps them deliver high-quality customer experience from anywhere, regardless of the disruptions they may face working from their homes.”
At the same time as these cost reduction methods, firms will need to adjust and increase their spending on suitable technology. Kulkarni notes: “ Continued economic turmoil will lead organizations to increase investments in IT systems that drive process improvements and cost reduction.”
He adds: “Due to this pressure, there will be an acceleration in cloud migrations and automation as companies seek to increase speed and efficiency to remain competitive. This shift will not only enable companies to reduce the complexity and operating costs of their IT systems but will also free up employee time to focus on more high-value duties instead of spending time on manual, repetitive tasks.”
There are other areas where costs control will be a concern. Kulkarni addresses: “Companies will also look to keep costs down by shifting their focus from customer growth to customer retention, as research shows that acquiring a new customer is more expensive than retaining an existing one. As customer expectations for outstanding service and experience continue to rise, businesses can no longer rely on improvements in usability, functionality, and dependability of a product or service to ensure customer loyalty. Customers are essential for the business, and if they aren’t getting the experience they want, they’ll have no problem taking their business elsewhere. In 2023, providing exceptional CX will be critical for maintaining and retaining customers, and it will directly impact the company’s ability to weather the economic uncertainty.”
