July's CX News Roundup

Welcome to your July CX news roundup, brought to you by the CX Exchange. This month’s newsletter features an exclusive interview packed full of insight on current and future CX trends in travel and hospitality with CX expert Vinay Parmar. With CX Retail Exchange 2024 having taken place in London this week, below we’ve also summarised some of the event’s key themes and insightful discussions. Finally, we’ve collated some recent CX News to keep you up to date on all the latest goings on in customer experience.

Current CX Trends in Travel and Hospitality

Global occurrences like the cost of living crisis and the rapid advancement of AI are transforming customer expectations when it comes to travel and hospitality experiences. Not only do customers expect more value for money, but they also want a more instantaneous and personalised service.

The CX Travel & Hospitality Exchange aims to provide innovative strategies for CX leaders to meet and exceed these expectations. With the Exchange fast approaching, we sat down with chairperson Vinay Parmar to discuss current and future customer experience trends in travel and hospitality. Some key takeaways from the discussion were:

• High expectations: Stiff competition in this space means that customer expectations are high in the travel and hospitality industry. What’s more, industry disrupters like Uber are transforming the way consumers think about convenience. Travel and hospitality organisations need to remain agile and see CX as a key factor differentiating them from competitors.
• Focusing on employee experience has cascading benefits: Customer experience needs to be about what’s happening for the customer, and that’s always a by-product of what’s happening internally. If you have teams navigating five different systems to get the data they need to make the right decision, that will impact the speed at which things can get done and will have knock-on effects for the customer.
• Aligning your CX with your brand: The role of CX is to ask whether what your customers are experiencing when interacting with your organisation is aligned with your brand and values, and whether you are delivering what you are promising. Far too many organisations still don’t have a clear idea of who they are and what they want to deliver. Many brands create a picture of something, but then when you actually experience it, the gap between what was promised and what is delivered is huge.
• Getting the basics right: There is a temptation to ‘wow’ customers with brilliant things, but many organisations are still not meeting the fundamentals of customer experience. Customer experience is built upon the consistent delivery of excellence. It’s only when you achieve excellence in those basic customer interactions like the check-in process that you can start to build the more surprising experiences that delight your customers.
• Use AI to help people in their roles: Many companies want to go down the AI route to reduce their base cost, for example by cutting headcount. Other businesses are thinking more about the human experiences and using AI to help people do their jobs better through real-time call transferring or reading emails and suggesting replies. In travel and hospitality, there are certain points in the customer journey that require human touch. When things go wrong or when you miss your flight, you wouldn’t necessarily trust a chatbot to fix it. Using AI to support customer agents in these cases achieves a better outcome for the customer and employee.

You can read the full interview with Vinay Parmar here .

Key Learnings from CX Retail Exchange 2024

The 2024 edition of CX Retail Exchange took place this week in London, uniting customer experience leaders from retail and ecommerce for two days of learning, networking and discovery.

Chaired by Founder and MD of CXellence Consulting Manuela Pifani , the event brought together over 20 expert speakers from leading brands like Asda, Pret A Manger and John Lewis to share their perspectives on the current challenges and opportunities for CX leaders in retail. Some key learnings from the event include:

• Retailers are operating in a difficult climate: Research suggests that customer satisfaction has reached a 9-year low. Dissatisfied customers are less loyal to retailers, leading to greater churn. Societal and macroeconomic factors like climate change and the cost of living crisis are front of mind for many customers and are affecting their purchasing habits. Retailers must truly understand their customer needs and preferences and balance these competing priorities to deliver on customer expectations.
• A steady approach to AI: Although it can be tempting to jump on the AI bandwagon, when implemented in the wrong way, AI can have a negative impact on the customer experience. Retailers need to thoroughly plan exactly how they implement AI in a customer-centric way, identifying the relevant use cases and where AI can help to improve things. Proper planning takes time, but when implemented in the right way, AI can empower employees to better support customers, and enable customers to get faster and more efficient service.
• Incorporating the voice of the customer: With all the new and exciting technological developments hitting the market, it’s more important than ever to remember to bring the human back into the customer experience. As well as data analysis, call centres, reviews, online surveys and mystery shopping are all important sources for sentiment analysis. Using both positive and negative feedback can help CX leaders get into the mindset of the customer and understand where things are working and where they can be improved. There may be some pushback on acting upon the customer voice as ‘only one person said that.’ However, it is important to acknowledge that that one person may be representative of hundreds of other customers that, instead of leaving feedback, decided not to return to the business.
• Earning long-term loyalty: Loyalty is probably the word that featured more than any other at this year’s CX Retail Exchange. Loyalty programmes have evolved massively in recent years and take many different forms depending on a retailer’s customer base and brand identity. A unique loyalty offering can help retailers stand out from competitors. In a post-Covid world, customers value experiences more than ever, so maximising partnerships and offering bespoke experiences and events as part of loyalty programmes can help drive connection with customers. Chairperson Manuela Pifani also highlighted that: “loyalty is about why customers choose to keep engaging with an organisation. That doesn’t just take the shape of a loyalty programme; there are many other aspects. It’s more about the value that the customer gets from engaging with that brand overall, rather than just a loyalty programme.”

Overall, there was a huge sense of passion and optimism in the room about future opportunities to enhance customer experiences over the coming months. We’d like to extend a massive thank you to all our sponsors, speakers and delegates for helping to create a truly inspiring event. We can’t wait to reconnect next year to discuss new developments and ideas in customer experience!

The CX Exchange Awards UK: Nominations Opening Soon!

The CX Exchange Awards UK are returning to the Hilton Syon Park this December. The ceremony on the 2nd December provides a unique opportunity for CX leaders across industries to come together and celebrate the outstanding achievements in the world over CX over the past year.

Nominations for the 2024 CX Exchange Awards UK are opening soon, so If you know a CX leader, innovator or initiative that deserves recognition, make sure to register your interest here .

And in the meantime, check out our highlights video from last year’s ceremony below!

CX News in Brief

Survey highlights importance of loyalty programmes to customers

Personalised gift company Snappy last month published its 2024 Customer Loyalty Study . Gathering responses from 1,500 US consumers between 25th May and 11th June 2024, the survey highlighted that for the majority of consumers (70%), loyalty programmes play a key role in deciding which brands to engage with. Other key findings from the survey include:

• 76% of respondents reported spending more money when part of a loyalty programme
• 91% of customers prefer loyalty programmes that allow them to choose their gifts or rewards
• Communicating the value of loyalty initiatives remains key with 39% of respondents feeling let down by inadequate information regarding loyalty programmes

Bank of America achieves highest score for digital customer experience

Financial services intelligence firm Keynova found that Bank of America achieved the highest score for desktop user experience in its bi-annual Online Banker Scorecard .

The Online Banker Scorecard evaluates digital features and customer experience at the 18 largest banks in the US to identify evolving trends and insights. As well as identifying Bank of America as the top performing bank in this area, the report also found that:

• 72% of banks use chatbots for customer assistance, with 67% transferring customers to a human agent after two unhelpful answers from the bot
• Only 56% of banks enabled easy access to a customer service phone number via search or online assistant
• 61% of banks offer a free credit score summary on customers’ dashboards

Zara parent company to stop logging ancient and endangered paper for packaging

In the context of an increasingly environmentally conscious consumer base, Inditex Group, the parent group of Zara, Bershka, and four other fashion brands, has joined the Pack4Good campaign . Set up by Canadian not-for-profit group Canopy , the Pack4Good campaign promotes sustainable packaging alternatives in retail such as recycled pulp and paper and next-generation solutions.

Make sure to subscribe to The Official CX Newsletter for more insights into the world of customer experience!

View upcoming CX Exchanges

CX Travel & Hospitality (09-10 September | Hilton Syon Park, London, UK)

CX Retail USA (24-25 September 2024 | Marriott Dallas Uptown, Texas)

CX BFSI USA (15-16 October 2024 | Miami, USA)

CX Healthcare East (29-30 October 2024 | Fort Lauderdale)

CX Retail EU (5-6 November | Lisbon Marriott, Portugal)

CX UK Exchange (2-3 December | Hilton Syon Park, London, UK)

The CX Exchange Awards UK (2 December | Hilton Syon Park, London, UK)

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