The CX lessons to take from 2022

As 2022 draws to a close, there are many lessons to take into the New Year

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Adam Jeffs
10/07/2022

Twelve months ago – as supply chains were faltering and the great resignation was in full swing – CX practitioners told CX Network how they expected things to play out in 2022.

With insights from our Customer Experience Predictions Report, CX Network reflects on the insights to find out what lessons can be taken into next year.

Strengthen CX teams with intelligent automation and holistic recruitment strategies

Iain Langridge, product and customer experience leader at Amazon

Langridge offered advice for boosting the quality of talent across CX teams. He explained that as CX is a multi-dimensional function, organizations should hire employees with the mindset of searching for diversity in cognitive skills.

He remarked: “The sheer breadth and depth of skills needed to lead a company in CX are still being well and widely understood. Until you have professionals who have grown up in CX from day one, you have to ensure that you have a broad set of skills and original thinking on the team, and that can only come from diverse hiring and skills.”

This talent acquisition approach should build the needed foundation for the CX department instilling a customer-centric culture in the wider business. Customer centricity has been central to the success of digital CX transformation in Langridge’s experience.

“Focusing on the company culture of caring about the customer yields better results than any number of planned and organized CX projects,” Langridge noted. “It works, because you are leveraging the power of many people in the company to deliver impactful outcomes across customers’ journeys. So long as you have got the company measuring and caring about customer engagement and retention, then you are winning the war regardless of individual battles.”

Augmenting employees with technological enhancements

While automation has traditionally focused on the customer, Langridge claimed that the complexity of automated experiences and controllability of the employee environment makes it prime for automation to have a productive impact.

“You can augment employees with automated tools and processes and dramatically improve customer outcomes and speed to resolution,” explained Langridge.

Lesson from 2022

Use automation to augment employee–customer interactions, reduce customer wait times and strengthen CX teams.

Digital hubs to help drive digitalization

Athina Kanioura, chief strategy and transformation officer at PepsiCo

Kanioura predicted that the use of internal digital hubs to encourage employee innovation would become a priority in 2022. According to Kanioura, these internal hubs would become shared workspaces designed to encourage collaboration between employees.

She believed that by introducing digital hubs designed for real-time collaboration, organizations would be able to drive digitalization and increase their digital delivery networks.

“By creating an agile and dedicated environment where innovation will thrive, [brands] will have the opportunity to lead work that will reach global scale,” said Kanioura.

Give consumers better transparency

By introducing digital hubs, Kanioura predicted that companies would be able to give consumers better transparency on their products, including real-time sales and inventory data. Additionally, it would allow employees to utilize predictive decision-making tools, enabling them to address customer issues quicker.

Lesson from 2022

Introduce internal digital hubs to increase employee innovation and accuracy around the service they deliver to your customers

Successful CX transformations should be led by VoC

André Grandt, customer experience chapter lead and transformation officer at Roche

At the date of the initial report Grandt, predicted that there would be a focus in the customer experience space on designing intuitive, consistent digital and omnichannel experiences over the next 12 months.

To do this in a streamlined manner brands should look to customer behaviors to guide their transformation projects.

Grandt said: “More and more companies are realizing they have key customer signals, for example behavioral [or] emotional, that they must capture, analyze, learn from and act on to enhance customer experiences.”

Grandt also suggested that in 2022 businesses will become less concerned with ROI and more with doing social good as customers begin to evaluate brands and base their buying decisions on sustainability priorities and ethics.

“Going forward customers are evaluating more than ever before. This will include [considerations] such as how well [your company] treats [its] staff, in what ways you as a business support your community, and whether you make a positive contribution to society. All of these count and enhance your overall customer experience,” he explained.

Increase customer feedback touchpoints

In order to engage with this strategy, Grandt suggested that brands shift their mindset from capturing customer feedback at only a few, isolated touchpoints to capturing customers’ signals at every touchpoint consistently. This, Grandt said, would enable brands to better predict and respond to their customers’ needs and wants.

Lesson from 2022

Capture signals at every touchpoint to better respond to customer needs.

Advances in technology will continue to improve employee experiences

Julian Neo, managing director of DHL Express Manila and Brunei

Neo expected remote working to remain as an integral part of future workforce models.

While the “new normal” was still evolving at the time, he believed that technology would continue to place employees in a stronger position to deliver for customers.

Neo said: “We have learnt that automation can be leveraged for mundane tasks and what this does is free up valuable time for our employees to do more meaningful work like connecting with the customers.

“Automation not only increases productivity but more importantly, it improves our employee experience as well,” he continues. “So we will continue to find that balance between technology while still providing the human touch in our customer interactions.”

Make data-led technology decisions

Despite the enticing promises made by the potential of technology, Neo advised CX practitioners to resist blindly jumping on the technology bandwagon and instead focus on what would matter most to customers and employees.

He shared: “Identify [your customers’] needs and then work on finding the best solution. Be careful not to get too caught up by what is trending; [while] it is good for others, this does not necessarily mean it is good for you too.”