Clay Heinz

Business leaders have long wish lists for improving the customer experience, but competing priorities pose significant hurdles to transforming the experience, according to new research. Meanwhile, some companies are redefining what it means to prioritize the customer. Although customer experience correlates to customer loyalty and financial results, companies still struggle to deliver excellent experiences to their customers.

One of the hottest contact center topics in 2020 will be hybrid human and AI workforces, according to the State of Customer Service 2020 report by the Incite Group. Contact centers are increasingly applying artificial intelligence that’s merged with other technologies like machine learning to its human workforce.

New research from Forrester finds that the quality of customer experiences is largely at a standstill. Forrester’s 5th annual U.S. Customer Experience Index report found that the overall quality of the U.S. customer experience grew only by an anemic 0.4 points, to 70.2 from 2018 to 2019. According to the report, 81 percent of customer experience stayed the same, while only 14 percent of customer experiences improved, and 5 percent declined. In addition, elite brands remain stuck.