We’re facing a seismic shift in the world of customer experience with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data analytics and other emerging technologies shaking the very foundations of our industry. Businesses are rethinking the structure of everything, from their tech stacks to their teams. In just a few years time, these forces will radically transform the pivotal connection between customers getting support and the organisations that provide it.

Long gone are the days when customer service was just a department and customer experience (CX) just a strategy. As more and more companies fight it out on the CX battlefield, customer service has evolved into an engine for growth. Organisations are continually looking for better ways to evaluate, predict, and improve the customer experience—and, as a result, their bottom line.

AI for employee experience means leveraging artificial intelligence technology to improve all aspects of the employee journey, including onboarding, performance, development, support from internal service teams and access to information to perform daily tasks. The key to running a successful business is creating an environment that fosters an exceptional employee experience (EX).

Recent technological advancements have empowered many organisations to finally offer the level of personalisation most consumers want. According to our research, 61% of consumers say the faster a company is to offer personalised experiences, the more likely they are to purchase from them. From that same research, 66% of consumers are also willing to share their data if it means getting more relevant and personalised experiences. However, with better personalisation comes great risk.

In the year since generative AI became widely available, the world has changed enormously. As of February, ChatGPT set the record for the fastest-growing user base. Once a novelty, generative AI now forms the baseline of different technologies. Even beyond technology, generative AI is asserting itself in finance, pharmaceuticals and art. With generative AI, there’s a strong sense that understanding how it can be used is uncharted territory.

Your phone buzzes with an email notification. Subject line: Important information about a recent security incident. Sounds familiar, right? Unfortunately, security incidents are more and more common, which means many companies are leaning on trust to galvanise their customer relationships. Trust is the cornerstone of customer relationships, but in today’s changing data privacy and security landscape, it’s hard to earn and easy to lose.

IT leaders have been responsible for keeping systems up to date and managing security issues. With the last few years framed by both economic volatility and rapid changes in technology – namely in advancements in AI – priorities are shifting. Half of IT leaders we surveyed say that they’re being asked to do more with fewer resources.

Over the last year, the impact of AI on customer service has been massive. Many customer experience applications and workflows can be optimised with AI – but not all AI solutions are tailored to customer experience.

Few can deny the potential of AI to improve customer experience, but many remain hesitant to trust it. That’s why building customer confidence in AI remains one of the biggest challenges facing CX leaders today. The reasons are understandable: AI is powerful, very technical and can be difficult to understand. The name alone can spark fears of human obsolescence – or getting trapped in an endless loop with a chatbot that can’t help.

Zendesk’s CX Trends 2023 Report found that 40 per cent of business leaders now view customer support as a revenue driver. This growing number highlights the importance of first-class customer service to business success. Frighteningly, 73 per cent of customers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad experiences. And staying on top of your customer service is easier said than done, especially with so many data points, stats, and KPIs to try to decipher—let alone draw insights from.