The digital customer experience market has shifted to where there is now a real need to evolve from contact center-driven customer service to a comprehensive CX strategy consisting of new operational models, digital technology, and continuous analytics insights, analyst firm Nelson Hall concluded in a recent report.
The report, titled "Digital Customer Experience Services," identifies the three key pillars of this transformational strategy:
- Support from the executive board and senior company leadership;
- Business value justification for adopting digital technology, such as CX automation; and
- Ongoing co-innovation between vendors and clients.
From a client perspective, the current requirements for cost optimization and scalability will remain, but the main focus will shift more toward customer satisfaction improvements, the report concluded.
In a mature industry where best practices in contact center management are well-established, such improvements can be delivered through a truly transformational CX approach, according to the report.
Other key findings in the report include the following:
- The customer experience services market is expected to reach $88 billion by 2022, growing at a compound annual rate of more than 5 percent;
- Supplier consolidation is impacting most CX sectors;
- Eliminating low-value interactions and enhancing the live agent support with technology are main investment areas;
- CX transformation relies on digital-first technology, such as cloud-based platforms, natural language processing, analytics, robotic process automation, and machine learning, and new channels such as cognitive chatbots;
- Cognitive chatbots are in early stages of deployment;
- Organizations require revenue generation optimization through digital models, with heavy use of predictive analytics; and
- Effective orchestration of a unified CX is a key differentiator.