CX TRENDS FOR 2023: the rise of empowered CX, bright cx and more!

hey everyone welcome to this new video
where I talk about the future trends of
customer experience it's an annual habit
that I have to list the trends of the
upcoming year so welcome to this new
video
the the first Trend that I want to talk
about is something that I'm truly
passionate about I really believe that
we need to inject more positivity in
customer experience because reality is
that it's it's a dark world out there I
mean if you if you read the news if you
listen to the news it's about all the
issues that we have you know inflation
drop in buying power geopolitical
tensions so it's like a dark and gray
and rainy Sky out there and when it's
been dark and rainy for a week just ask
yourself what do you long for at a
moment like that and the answer is very
simple when it's been dark and gray for
an entire week what you are looking
forward to are clear blue skies and a
bright Sun out there and I think this is
something that we need to take with us
next year in customer experience make it
more positive we need more positivity
and preferably positivity with impact
and I got really convinced about this
during summer when I had one of the best
days of the year it was when I went to
the movie theater to watch top gun
Maverick I mean it was amazing I'm sure
many of you have seen the film when the
music starts when you see Tom Cruise
with his motorcycle I mean at that point
you already know this is going to be one
of the best movies ever right but if you
make the analysis of the film
truth is that it's it's it's really feel
good I mean there it's about fighter
jets but no one dies there are no bad
guys in there it's just a team of of
people who has to fulfill a mission and
the mission is impossible but you know
the moment that they get the mission
that they will be successful so the
story is really straightforward
and then the question is is this what
the market wants right and the answer is
yes this is what the market wants Top
Gun is like the best rated film ever
it's one of the most successful films in
terms of Revenue ever so people really
long for this these Positive Vibes and
we need to bring this towards them I
really believe that we need to add the
Top Gun effect in customer experience
the next few months people need that
positivity and if we can do it with
impact I mean that's the really Holy
Grail out there I'm sure many of you are
familiar with Mr Beast he's like the
most popular YouTuber out there he has
more than 100 million followers and and
the cool thing is the secret of if a
success is that he he shares his his
wealth and his success with his
followers so he's like the biggest quiz
monster on the planet if you ask me
sometimes he says hey do you want to do
you want to have one million dollars I'm
gonna give you one million dollars but
you have to spend it in the next one or
two hours and then then he makes a
creative video about that so a big chunk
of his money is just going back to his
followers and and because of that people
just adore his videos they're really
cool but he's also sharing like when he
had his uh 100 million follower on his
channel he gave that person an island
for free so crazy guy and then his
follower said yeah Mr Beast you're doing
so many good things for us but why don't
you do things for the planet and he said
well okay I agree give me a challenge
and his followers said well we want you
to plant 20 million trees and he planted
20 million trees and then they said well
you know Mr Beast the beaches are
becoming really really dirty can you
clean the beaches and he said okay I'm
gonna try so they started to clean the
most dirtiest beaches on the planet and
and this is the entire philosophy right
he's very popular but he shares his
wealth it's super super positive it's
super super feel good and this is what
the market likes these days and this is
what we need to inject to our customer
experience the next couple of years it's
like the evolution of work people used
to work with their with their hands in
the past today most people work with
their brain in the future if we want to
make a difference it's about working
from the heart because that is what the
market needs at this point positivity
with impact
the second Trend that I want to talk
about is the rise of empowered customer
experience I I think that in the past
companies try to tell their customers
what to do and and force them or guide
them in a certain direction
today you feel that this this doesn't
work anymore people don't want to be
told what to do what people like is that
you offer a context that you offer
options that you offer opportunities and
that they then can select what fits best
with them in a positive way again one of
my favorite examples to explain this is
every table I met the founder of every
table a few months ago when I was in Los
Angeles and and this is a company that
tries to do well they want to offer
healthy lunches
at an affordable price and what they do
is they open up their stores in you know
the less rich neighborhoods in the US
where the income is like lower than
average
and what they want to do is they want to
offer a healthy alternative so they look
at the price of a Big Mac meal and then
they go 10 below that so that you have a
healthy alternative they don't force you
to do it they don't tell you to do it
but they offer the opportunity that you
can eat something that is good for you
at an affordable rate and and their
mission is to make sure that every
American citizen can eat healthy in an
affordable way and and the cool thing is
even people that don't have money get
the opportunity to enjoy because you
know if if you and me would go and they
would see that we can afford the five
dollar lunch we have the opportunity to
buy a second lunch again another five
dollars and then they give us a Post-It
and we can put that posted on the window
outside and then for instance when a
homeless person walks by they can take
that posted walk in and then they get
the lunch that you paid for them it's
like the whole Pay It Forward philosophy
they don't force you to it but they
offer that opportunity and a lot of us
we like to share and give something to
homeless people but sometimes we don't
do it because we're afraid they're going
to use the money for bad purposes but in
this philosophy I mean why not share a
healthy lunch with someone who cannot
afford it and and maybe the coolest
thing is that in their stores they make
sure that the people who run the stores
who own the stores it's a franchise
concept that they are people that are
less fortunate like opening a McDonald's
is really expensive but in every table
everyone can do it they have their own
University they subsidize you they make
sure that you have cheap loans to make
sure that people from the neighborhood
have the opportunity to run it you know
and and this is giving people options
this is giving opportunities this is
creating a context where consumers
and individuals can decide we're going
to take this opportunity and I think
we're going to need this much more where
we offer the opportunity but where we
Empower our customers
you know a lot of companies are lowering
their budgets and their investments in
customer experience and of course I
understand why
but it's not always a good idea to lower
the performance and the quality towards
your customers so I think we need to
keep the positive mindset and keep
bright customer experience in in the
next year and to do so they're like two
lanes that we can go into the one is of
course that we can increase the
efficiency of customer experience and
the other one is that we can increase
performance and like efficiency maybe
today more than ever it's important to
increase your quality of your digital
convenience if your digital channels are
up to par the chance that people will
call you or will email you with
additional questions just lower so it
helps you to increase the efficiency and
and this is something that seems obvious
but it's still an action point for a lot
of companies out there now give me the
post let me give you the positive
example take Tesla I don't know if
you've ever been to the Tesla website if
you haven't be careful if you go there
because they have this button that says
buy now order now and you have to take
that button very very seriously because
if you push it bomb you've got a car so
digital convenience to its Max potential
if you compare the Tesla website with
some of the more premium car brands out
there and let me take a random example
I'm a BMW fan myself so I will take them
I don't know if you've ever been to the
BMW website and played with the car
configurator
I would recommend you not to do it
unless you have like three hours spare
time you need to take half a day off to
go to the car configurator because it's
so complex that probably no one
understands how it works so because of
that the convenience levels are so low
that you have the feeling I have to be
an I.T nerd to really get into that
and then it's not convenient enough and
then your efficiency in terms of
customer experience is not at its full
potential so digital convenience can
help us to increase the efficiency
if you look at the productivity the
performance
you know there are a lot of things that
we can we can do I hear a lot of people
say oh we got so many requests it means
that we need more people in the contact
center that could be the case but in
many situations that I made the analysis
it's not that you need more people in
the contact center you have to increase
your quality increase the quality of
your communication the proactivity of
your communication so that you
proactively avoid that people actually
call to your contact center it's like
we're not trying to solve the problem
we're just adding people to solve the
same problem that doesn't make sense
today in this world we can't afford that
anymore and and a second thing to
increase the performance of CX is to
make sure that our Frontline staff the
sales and service people are really
empowered so that they on the spot can
help customers on the spot can decide to
compensate them so that they don't need
to ask someone else asking someone else
is inefficient both for the customer and
for your organization and it's it's
those kind of you know decisions and
processes that we need to think about to
really go to the next level and make
sure that in times where we don't have
Max budget availability that we can
still keep the quality high up and that
our customer experience is still bright
more and more customers expect you to
use your strength to make a difference
and use your influence to make a
difference today the market expects you
to become part of the solution of some
of the problems we have in society and
and today it's even stronger than that
if you're not part of the solution
you're like seen as part of the problem
you can't be neutral anymore Switzerland
in terms of the business world and
opinions is completely gone you cannot
put your head in the sound and the
market knows that you have an influence
so in our customer relation it's
important to redefine our sphere of
influence look in in the past
companies were really focused on their
own company right and you act upon your
own company and your industry you try to
influence it and maybe in the world you
you just monitor it this was the old
world you act upon your own company you
try to influence your industry and you
look and see what's happening in the
world today this is completely different
today an organization can actually act
upon all levels of course you act upon
your own company but also within the
industry you try to change things for
the better but even on a global macro
level you try to use your strengths to
make a difference and the customer knows
that this is something you can do and
it's something that they expect you to
do that you use the growing influence
that you have to change the world and to
change the market in a positive way
maybe this will be the year to reinvent
your customer loyalty uh there are too
many companies who ask themselves the
question how can we make our customers
more loyal to us whereas I believe it's
not this is not how it works you need to
turn this question around and ask
yourselves how can we show our loyalty
to our customers loyalty doesn't start
from the customer it starts from you the
organization and you know it's something
that I've been talking about and writing
about in my offer you can't refuse
Keynotes and in my my book the offer you
account refuse how we in customer
experience need to move beyond the
customer journey and also talk about the
life Journey how can you create positive
change in the life of of customers and
by doing so they become loyal to us and
there's this beautiful example here it's
it's Lululemon it's a fashion retailer
their mission is to make sure that
people look good they want to do
whatever they can to make sure that
people look good and and of course they
they do that by selling fashion and they
try to create a good experience and
they've been quite successful with that
but at a certain moment they decided
that they need to go beyond fashion to
fulfill that purpose of making sure that
people look good so they acquired a
company called Mirror it's like a tech
company and you put this smart mirror in
your house and then you can do workouts
and you have all kind of data and
information about it that helps you with
your day-to-day workout from the comfort
of your own home
so when a lot of people saw this they
were like hey this is strange this is a
retailer that is now actually buying a
tech company are they changing lanes
here what is going on but if you look to
their purpose we want to make sure our
people look good then it makes a lot of
sense that they add the working out part
to the fashion part and and now they're
going beyond that now they're starting
up a membership
initiative where people pay an annual
fee to become a Lululemon member and
it's a fee of like 128 dollars that you
have to pay so it's quite an amount for
for a year membership but of course they
compensate that with with free clothes
and free fashion items that you get but
once you're part of this community
you get a lot of benefits like you get
invited for yoga classes or for working
out in a group you get early discounts
when they have some some new products
out so you become part of that
membership and this is more than a
loyalty card here you become part of the
Lululemon Community you're part of a
lifestyle community of people with the
same interests
and by doing so you become loyal to that
Community
facilitated by Lululemon and I I love
this example this is for me one of those
examples where a company completely
reinvents Customer Loyalty by bringing
value to the customer first in embracing
them in a community which is a
completely different way of loyalty than
the old way or how we were trained to do
it in in the old ways of marketing
you can help your customers to save and
maybe make money by being your customer
this is a new philosophy in terms of of
Customer Loyalty what if you create a
shared interest where the customer can
benefit from your success let me show
you an example from
is maybe one of the largest maybe the
largest online fashion platform that we
have right now to give you an idea there
are more phones in the United States
with the xi'in app on it then you have
phones with the Amazon app on it it's
huge it's cheap and fast fashion a lot
of people criticize it I'm aware of that
but their philosophy in creating a
community and creating shared interest
is something worth looking at like if
you write a review or if you write
something on social media about chin you
will get points so they have this
loyalty point system and 100 points
equals one US dollar now if you know
that like a shirt or a dress is usually
cheaper than than ten dollars then you
have a lot of young people right now
that are writing reviews like crazy to
get free clothes from Shane and you
could say yeah but isn't this an
old-fashioned point system no because
it's it's different usually a point
system means that you need to buy
something and then you get points here
you get points by promoting Shane by
bringing in reviews which is a different
approach and and this is actually the
way that they do marketing they use
their Community to make a difference and
the community is willing to do it
because there's a shared interest if I
promote chain I will get free fashion as
a gift or as a reward because of that so
can we figure out ways in our customer
relation where the value for the
customer and the value for the company
is equal or is shared a concept that I'm
really fond of is is the whole idea of
branded economies where you use new tech
to create an economy for your customers
where you can use nfts for instance to
create a a new kind of business model
let me give you a very concrete example
imagine that you are a talented
singer-songwriter and you hope to get a
record deal but you fail to get one in
the old days it was game over no record
deal no success today all these young
talented singer-songwriters they have
their own Tick Tock Channel they have
their own YouTube channel Instagram they
have a community there and once you have
a community you could say okay I don't
need a record deal I'm gonna sell my
music as nfts and the nft gives gives
people access to the music and maybe I
will give them some royalties as well
maybe I will share some of the results
and if you compare that with the old
world I mean if you get a record deal 90
of the money then goes to the record
company and 10 goes to the artist which
is is an old-fashioned system because
usually the artist is doing most of the
promotion themselves in this new world
you launch your nfts and 90 of the
revenue is going back to the artist and
10 percent is shared with the first fans
now imagine what this does I mean
imagine that you would get 10 of the
revenues of Ed Sheeran his music that
you were an early investor in Ed Sheeran
I mean that would be amazing
so you create a shared value they're not
just consumers of your music they become
ambassadors they become fans and they
will do whatever they can to make you
successful because there is a shared
interest and because if you are
successful they are successful and this
works if you have something scarce I
mean you cannot give this to everyone
you need a smart contract so that there
is some value included in the whole
system and you need a community of
people that believe in you and that are
willing to join you in that Journey but
if you have those three you offer
something that is scarce you have
something that brings value through
smart contract and you have the
community well then you can do something
unique and then you create your own
branded economy which means that there
is a shared value for you as a company
and your customers and the value for the
company and the value for the customer
is equal
if you succeed in creating a
relationship like that what you actually
do is you make sure that your customers
make money by being your customer
a lot of organizations underestimate the
power of micro decisions and micro
decisions are like small Behavior small
sentences that someone from the
management is saying and that has a huge
influence on the behavior of your team
one of the main challenges that I see
why customer experience is not happening
in the team or at a certain company is
because the people in the field they
don't believe the managers they're like
yeah of course you're saying that I have
to be customer friendly
but I don't believe you and and there's
a gap very often I see sometimes power
points where the manager is saying we
need to go the extra mile but like an
hour later they walk in the factory and
then they say yeah but don't let
customers run the factory and you know
it's those small sentences that destroy
the power of the PowerPoint file a lot
of managers believe ah we said it in a
presentation so now they will believe us
that's nonsense it's not the
presentation that convinces your team
it's the micro decisions and the micro
sentences that you say
and because of that because the team
doesn't believe the management there's
very often a gap between the intentions
of a company and the execution I have
the feeling that a lot of companies are
what I call a diamond in the rough they
really have great intentions but it
never happens and this is one of the
challenges I think the next couple of
years in customer experience that you
close that Gap a lot of companies are
that diamond in the rough and the
question is how can you become that
beautiful shiny diamond out there
and it's a complex question but it
begins by making sure that your team
believes you that you're serious about
customer experience
and for you as a manager as a leader
it's crucial to understand that it's not
your fancy PowerPoint presentation that
will make the difference but it's your
micro decisions that will make it happen
or not happen
maybe it's time to tick tock eyes your
interfaces I don't know to what extent
you're active on Tick Tock probably your
children are question is can this Tick
Tock interface help us to reinvent our
own business interfaces I mean most
people that I work with are not part of
the tick tock generation most people
that I work with are a little bit older
and don't really understand what's
happening there the typical manager the
typical leader in an organization is
still part of the Google interface
generation now we thought this was
Innovative when when we grew up but if
you're honest I mean this is an endless
list of links and then you have to
figure it out yourself or imagine when
you have to buy a house or rent a house
I mean the the list that you get is just
endless and and maybe the worst of all
is Netflix I mean I think most of you
are Netflix users I am one as well but
look at the interface I mean it hardly
changed over the last couple of years
but it hardly changed in the last five
years and a lot of people today include
including myself are suffering from what
we call the Netflix syndrome I don't
know if you have the same issue but the
Netflix syndrome is like that feeling
when you're at the watching the last
episode of a show that you like and you
don't know which one will be next like
that black hole out there
you know if people then have to look for
a new show it takes on average 40
minutes this is what they call the
Netflix syndrome I mean this is because
the interface is not up to par anymore
not up to speed if you compare that with
Tick Tock I mean Tick Tock is fast and
easy plus the algorithm is probably the
best in the market the downside is that
you become really addictive to it I mean
when I'm on Tick Tock I have to be very
careful because before I know it I'm on
there for more than an hour you're you
you're getting dragged into it that's
the downside but the plus is this system
really knows you well so imagine that
you could change your interfaces if you
could change your website your
e-commerce platform and use this
e-commerce or this Tick Tock philosophy
that's fast and easy with a great
algorithm that would change the ball
game completely companies like Google
with shopping and Amazon are in looking
into this because they understand that
this is the interface of the new
generation time to tick tock eyes your
interfaces
maybe it's time to bring in the robots
for our customer experience in in the
past 10 years I think the question that
I got most often was this one like
Stephen will robots steal our jobs what
will we do if AI does everything
that question doesn't come anymore today
the question is how fast are we going to
have robots and AI that can actually do
the job like a human does the job and
and the reality is that a lot of
companies don't find enough humans to
create a fantastic experience like let
me share this anecdote with you a couple
of years ago I was at JD one of the
largest e-commerce companies in the
world one of the best logistic partners
and companies you can imagine and I
remember I was there and they told me
that the average delivery time when you
ordered something online was like 30
minutes on average and they delivered
anywhere any place any time and we were
like wow that's impressive and then they
said no no that's not good enough we
want to move to Lightning Delivery so we
want to deliver within five minutes so
we're going to predict when people will
buy something before they actually push
the button that was what they were
thinking about now JD one of the experts
in logistics and in online and in
delivery they're coming to Europe
and reality is that they believe that
they cannot use their business model in
Europe because you do not have enough
people to deliver the service standards
that they want so one of the first
places that they went to is the
Netherlands and in Utrecht they created
a robotic store now when you hear
robotic store a lot of you will say ah
like Amazon go this is not like Amazon
go Amazon go is fantastic you walk into
the store you take what you want you
walk back out great this is not what
they do what they do is they create a
platform a site and an app where you can
basically order everything like it would
be on Amazon on but on the Amazon
website you can get anything you want
but they don't deliver at home you have
to go to the city and then they have
that robotic store there's not a human
there and the robot delivers that
package to you
and this is what JD does because they
feel they're not enough humans in
Western Europe to deliver the service
standards that they want to deliver and
this is what we're going to see more and
more the bringing the robots I mean I
was traveling a lot in the last couple
of months and in almost every airport
you have now robots bringing the food to
the table because they're not enough
humans to do the job when I was in LA a
couple of months ago and these little
robots you see them in the wild all the
time they're like food delivery robots
you know and and I've seen it for many
years but they always had like a human
chaperone with them now they're in the
wild all by themselves delivering pizza
and Sushi and they're doing a great job
because there are not enough people to
do the job and this is something that a
lot of us will experience if we want to
deliver a certain quality standard
only having humans to deliver that will
probably not be good enough so in the
next couple of years we're going to see
more and more robots in the customer
experience time to bring in the robots
maybe 2023 will be the year where
ambient intelligence is reborn this is a
term from the 1990s where someone said
what if devices all work together thanks
to the information and the data that
they get and by doing that they deliver
a fantastic and invisible service to
Consumers this was very Visionary we've
been dreaming about this invisible CX
for a couple of years I have the feeling
that we're getting stuck at a certain
level
but there's more and more news that
we're going to get closer and closer to
that like Amazon announced that their
Alexa is moving from a reactive tool
where you ask questions to and then she
performs to a proactive tool today
already 20 of Alexis tasks in the US is
proactive where the customer doesn't ask
a question first but where the machine
is doing something for the customer
because the machine knows that the
customer wants something or needs
something this is invisible CX you don't
do anything but it just happens to you
imagine that you have an invisible bank
that is just facilitating all your
payments that is communicating
proactively towards you without you
having to ask any question or imagine an
invisible retailer where you have a
service level that food is coming to you
where you don't have to ask for it where
you know what kind of ingredients you
need to add to what you already have in
your house to make a fantastic meal
those kind of services is what I'm
talking about here we're not there yet
but in in the next three to five years
we should be able to get this invisible
customer service ambient and
intelligence Reborn
this was the last trend of this video I
hope you enjoyed the 10 CX transfer 2023
please share the video with others
subscribe to my channel and I hope to
see you again soon in one of my future
videos thanks for being here everyone
take care