CX Insights

Using consumer promises for business growth

AT&T is banking on building trust with consumers as a growth strategy. It comes after the company fumbled a response to a 12 hour outage for its mobile phone service back in February 2024, providing just a $5 credit to impacted customers.  

The two biggest promises? 

First, if a customer is routed to technical assistance, they can speak with a human agent in 5 minutes or schedule a callback at a time that works for them. 

Second, is a promise to have a fiber internet technician available same day or next day for issues, with a credit provided if that fails to happen.

Making big promises like this is an investment in the customer experience infrastructure consumers want - when things go wrong, they want to get in touch easily and get the problem resolved swiftly. 

It’ll be interesting to see this pays off for AT&T, but demonstrates that brands see they can’t take consumer trust for granted.

Poor shopping experiences drive consumers to spend abroad

Poor in-store experiences can drive people to shop online, but for some customers, they’re taking their buying power international.

Luxury brand stores in China have just a 60% satisfaction rating after reports of high pressure sales tactics and coldness toward customers who sales staff perceive as unlikely to make large purchases.

The result?

Consumers are spending that money in other regions. Much of this redirected spending comes from Western brands that have launched in the Chinese market and bungled the critical training elements.

When any brand expands into new markets, cultural competency is foundational to success. For the customer experience, cultural nuance is an added layer that leaders must consider when training staff. 

Social psychologist Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions are a great place to brush up - use this interactive country comparison tool.

What makes a customer service hero?

We talked about the UK’s worst customer service in 2024 a few weeks ago - now it’s time to discuss last year’s customer service heroes.

What are the common themes? Going above and beyond brand policies - but sometimes it’s as simple as a few bags of coffee beans. Being helpful, flexible, and generous will build goodwill, and maybe an outsized return when you build loyal lifelong customers.

What can a customer community do for you?

I spoke with Lisa Painter, the Head of Client and Leadership Experiences at Kustomer, about the power of connecting with highly engaged clients and how easy it is to start a customer community. 

Why start one?

  • Get rich insights
  • Make clients feel valued
  • Build brand loyalty
  • Strengthen your professional network

Build a better customer experience directly at the source. Lisa breaks down all the steps you need to get started in the full interview here.

AI Insights

AI in CX: new findings

A new report analyzing AI in customer experience provides insight on where CX leaders stand with their current usage and future plans to integrate AI. Here are some of the top findings:

  • 50% of contact centers are using GenAI for customer replies
  • 90.6% of businesses have a plan to unify customer data across service, sales, and marketing
  • Over 62% of CX leaders have deployed hyper-personalization techniques in the customer experience 

Where does your team stand in the AI race? Still making plans or already launching AI tools? It’s time to hustle as the majority are incorporating AI into their CX workflows. See Kustomer’s AI Agents in action in this on-demand webinar now!

Two new AI Agent for retail tools

TalkDesk launched AI Agents for Retail and Salesforce launched AgentForce for Retail, a skills library to make AI agents more industry specific. 

AI powered CX is particularly important for retail brands. In addition to saving on operational costs, research shows consumers feel that AI in the shopping experience for retailers can boost their repeat buying behaviors.

These latest innovations show the importance of training and honing AI. It’s not an out of the box solution. It takes time and planning to configure workflows and AI Agents to your specific needs. An AI powered CX tool that allows for customization can be worth the additional time up front when it delivers a better customer experience and better results.

AI-powered CX: coming to a school district near you

The School District of Philadelphia joins hundreds of other school districts nationwide leveraging Let’s Talk, an automated customer service platform for K-12 schools to better serve students and their families. The goal? Improving student outcomes with enhanced communication.

The average CSAT for schools that used the platform was 8.3/10 last school year, and the School District of Philadelphia is already seeing average response times faster than their goal.

AI powered CX tools can be a resource for not just business operations, but even for public services, especially when employees are serving populations that speak different languages. Plus, this will help consumers become more familiar and comfortable interacting with AI.