Visual intelligence presents a revolutionary approach – empowering businesses to significantly enhance their understanding and resolution of customer issues. Advanced AI systems now interpret multimedia, including images and videos, with remarkable speed and precision. This enables businesses to create innovative solutions for complex satisfaction challenges while simultaneously boosting operational efficiency and reducing costs. As industries undergo digital transformation, visual intelligence is proving essential in delivering outstanding customer experiences, bolstering brand loyalty, and driving innovation. 

Modern contact centers are leveraging AI to improve the quality of their interactions with clients, maximizing positive outcomes and customer satisfaction. This cutting-edge technology allows businesses to take an omnichannel approach, accommodating not only traditional text and voice channels but also integrating visual mediums. Visual intelligence doesn’t just complement existing channels – it transforms them, creating more dynamic interaction spaces.

Revolutionizing Customer Interactions with Visual Intelligence 

The rapid adoption of visual intelligence marks a critical evolution in how businesses engage with clients. By harnessing technologies such as computer vision, AI-driven image recognition, and augmented reality (AR), organizations can provide seamless, instant support experiences that resonate deeply with consumer expectations. This means visual intelligence tools can comprehend and process video data to aid real-time decision-making processes and streamline customer journey paths, paving the way for unprecedented efficiency. 

An example is the home appliance repair industry. Visual intelligence allows agents to remotely diagnose and troubleshoot issues via real-time video feeds, giving precise, step-by-step instructions that empower customers. This innovative strategy reduces downtime, translating to enhanced cost-efficiency for both service providers and customers. It also paves the way for preventive maintenance and diagnostics, potentially solving issues before they escalate into serious problems. This refined user experience, supported by interactive, real-time engagement, increases customer confidence. Over time, this leads to reduced call handling times and improved first-contact resolution rates, fostering increased customer loyalty and generating invaluable word-of-mouth referrals. 

The shift to visual intelligence doesn’t merely change interaction paradigms; it profoundly transforms company-client partnerships. Customers begin to see contact centers less as problem-resolving entities and more as proactive experience enhancers. This transformation strengthens customer relationships and contributes to business growth by improving service quality and establishing trust.

Expanding Applications Across Industries

Visual intelligence is finding applications across diverse sectors, each leveraging its unique capabilities to optimize operations. In retail, AI-powered cameras assess customer preferences and behaviors and monitor foot traffic patterns, enabling stores to adjust layouts and personalize offerings to effectively meet consumer demand. In the insurance sector, visual intelligence accelerates claims processing, quickly analyzing damage images to ensure precise, timely assessments and foster swift settlements. 

In the automotive industry, visual intelligence offers significant advantages. Technicians use AI to evaluate vehicle conditions remotely, facilitating guidance for essential inspections before in-person services. This process simplifies arrangements, curtails unnecessary travel, prevents delays, and enhances service efficiency and satisfaction. Consequently, visual intelligence fosters dependable service relationships and fortifies the trust between companies and their customers. 

These intelligent systems also provide diversity and inclusivity enhancements, such as understanding sign language through video, ensuring wider accessibility and service for all customers. Across industries, visual intelligence streamlines operations while building consumer trust through transparency and fostering reliable partnerships. Companies are leveraging this capability to create ecosystems that not only respond but also proactively address future needs.

Transforming the Future of Customer Service 

The development of visual intelligence technologies is expected to significantly impact the future of customer service. Anticipated advancements include AI systems that predict issues before they occur, delivering proactive solutions that exceed customer expectations. These systems leverage previous interactions to craft personalized engagement strategies, aiming to enhance satisfaction and nurture long-lasting relationships. 

Visual intelligence’s potential to empower employees is also notable. By automating routine analysis tasks, AI reduces workload pressures on agents, allowing them the time to foster more meaningful interactions with clients, hone problem-solving capabilities, and enhance engagement. This shift promotes a culture of continuous improvement and learning, essential for organizations intently focused on maintaining competitive advantages in dynamic markets. As AI becomes more intuitive, agents can refocus their roles towards providing empathy-driven, human-centric service.

Adapting to Change: Preparing for a Visual Intelligence Revolution 

Navigating the complexities of integrating visual intelligence requires adaptability and innovation. Enterprises must invest in technologies that seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure and ensure employees are fully trained to leverage advanced tools effectively. This training not only includes technical proficiency but also skills to interpret AI-generated insights and actions meaningfully. 

Mastery in visual intelligence integration offers organizations a substantial competitive edge, enabling excellence in service delivery and agility in adapting to market shifts. For visionary companies, visual intelligence presents limitless opportunities. It represents a future-ready service innovation that elevates standards, enhances operational efficiency, and improves overall customer satisfaction. Companies poised to adapt these technologies will likely establish new benchmarks in customer experience standards. 

As customer expectations evolve and the realms of what’s possible in customer service expand, visual intelligence stands as a beacon pointing towards a more integrated, efficient, and human-centric future. 

70% of customers say they’d be willing to purchase more from companies offering convenient support across multiple channels. The trouble is many organizations still don’t know which channels they should be prioritizing. They’re still searching for the “perfect channel”.

In reality, many consumer groups have different preferences, making it crucial for companies to take a versatile approach to building their customer experience (CX) strategy.

The Channel Shift: Evolving Communication Channels

Voice calls are still a valuable tool for contact centers. 65% of customers still say they prefer using voice for speed and convenience in customer service. What’s more, voice interactions can still deliver exceptional results, achieving an average customer customer satisfaction score of 86%.

However, there’s a significant shift in the contact center landscape towards digital channels. An increasing number of customers, both millennials and Gen Z, are digital natives, used to finding the information they need online and interacting with businesses over social media, email and web chat.

Email is perhaps one of the most important digital communication channels for customer service teams. After all, there are more than 4 billion email users worldwide, and email offers a convenient alternative to calls for customers who don’t need immediate assistance.

However, the digital communication landscape extends a lot further, covering channels like:

1. Live Chat

72% of customers choose online chat when they want to connect with a brand. Live chat can offer an experience that combines the best of both email and phone support, combining real-time assistance, with convenient service that doesn’t require waiting in a call queue.

It can also be an excellent source of insights for companies, allowing team members to gather data about common customer queries, and better understand the customer journey.

2. Self Service

Self-service is by far one of the most popular customer service solutions for younger generations. It gives customers a way to answer questions rapidly without waiting for agent support. The challenge for companies is that self-service interactions can take place over various channels.

Automated IVR systems, chatbots, FAQ knowledge bases, and automated troubleshooting solutions all provide access to different types of self-service. It’s important to prioritize ease of access to self-service channels to minimize customer frustration.

3. Social Media

According to one study, 47% of respondents said they feel more positively about brands that can provide customer support over social media. Again, the concern for contact center leaders here is that there are so many different social channels to consider, from X (), to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn for B2B professionals, and even TikTok.

A comprehensive omni-channel customer service strategy that leverages social media will require companies to have a broad understanding of which channels their customers use.

4. Mobile Messaging

Up to 97% of the US population owns a smartphone. Mobile messaging is an excellent way to connect with customers on the go and deliver personalized service. In today’s world, mobile messaging isn’t just limited to SMS and MMS messages.

Companies are also interacting through asynchronous messaging apps including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, allowing the customer to pick up the conversation at a time that is convenient to them.

5. Video Chat

For some support inquiries, video chat can be extremely useful. The ability to share your screen, and interact with customers face-to-face can be a game changer, particularly during technical discussions. Video calls offer an excellent way for companies to walk customers through troubleshooting steps, or demonstrate visual solutions in real-time.

It can also help to strengthen relationships with customers, paving the way for more humanized interactions, in a world overcome by automation.

6. Extended Reality

Extended reality might not be as commonplace in the digital customer service world as some of the other channels, but it’s quickly gaining a lot of attention. Virtual reality landscapes offer an immersive way to onboard customers, offer training, and provide product demonstrations.

Augmented reality also gives customers access to seamless step-by-step guidance and support, overlaying crucial information on top of real-world environments.

The Right Channel at the Right Time for the Right Outcome

The reality is that there’s no “perfect channel” for the future of customer communications. Every customer will have their own preferences for how and when they want to start a conversation your business, and which channels they want to visit.

Robert Mansfield, Chief Technology Officer at Content Guru, says, “Customers want to interact with your business on their terms, through the right channel at the right time for the right outcome. Whether that’s phone, voice, email or WhatsApp, your organization needs to be ready to meet customers where they are. Investing in a cloud-based omni-channel customer service solution is essential for any business looking to reduce customer effort and elevate their CX.

Content Guru’s storm platform leverages cutting-edge intelligent automation and advanced data analytics, empowering companies to personalize interactions and streamline operations.

This isn’t just about adopting new tools—it’s about transforming how businesses connect with customers, making each touchpoint a seamless and engaging experience.”

The right approach to the future of digital transformation requires a careful evaluation of your target audience. Aggregating customer data intelligently using a Customer Data Platform (CDP), as well as using journey mapping to identify the key touchpoints your customers use is essential.

Once you’ve identified the right channels for effective customer service, you need a platform that aligns them. A truly immersive experience requires a platform that can seamlessly blend multiple channels into a single consistent user interface for your agents. Look for a contact center solution that:

1. Aligns All of your Technology

An effective omni-channel contact center provides access to more than just the right communication channels. It should align everything from video conferencing to SMS and social media messaging in one interface. However, it should also integrate with the critical tools your agents use to personalize and enhance customer journeys, such as a CDP.

An all-in-one solution that unifies both data and customer service channels will pave the way for more personalized, engaging conversations, and improve workplace efficiency.

2. Enables Intelligent Automation

Automation is the key to bringing speed and efficiency to an omni-channel contact center. It also enables companies to offer comprehensive self-service experiences, in the form of customized chatbots, intelligent IVR systems, and voice bots.

Intelligent automation solutions can reduce the number of calls and contact requests your agents need to handle, while also delivering 24/7 support to customers. Plus, it can help streamline tasks like outbound calling, conversation summarization, and strategic routing.

Embracing the Future of Customer Communications

Customer journeys have evolved drastically in recent years. They’re now multi-step, omni-channel experiences, and they need to be comprehensively aligned to ensure you can provide consistent, efficient, and personalized service.

“In order to benefit from both synchronous and asynchronous messaging platforms, as well as transitional channels like voice, your business needs a solution that can integrating multiple communication channels into a single pane of glass. With storm, businesses can unify all customer touchpoints, from social media and live chat to email and voice, into one cohesive system. In addition, by leveraging intelligent automation and advanced data analytics, storm helps businesses refine their customer engagement strategies, gain actionable insights, and maintain a competitive edge in an ever-evolving business landscape.”

An omni-channel customer experience platform that aligns both your channels and your data, enables intelligent automation, and offers valuable insights into customer requirements, will ensure you can thrive in the new age of customer expectations.

Now, there is an expectation that Apple’s influence will reinvigorate CX creativity and the adoption of extended reality (XR) technologies.

Of course, this will take time, largely due to the initial high price-point of the software.

Nevertheless, there are already immersive experience use cases driving value in customer support and beyond.

In this roundtable, three experts share examples of such use cases, longer-term trends to keep an eye on, and tech partners that can support immersive CX projects. They are:

• Amit Kalley, CEO of Infosys Equinox
• Eric Jorgensen, Vice President of Enterprise EMEA at Zendesk
• Jonathan Maher, Head of Contact Center Specialists at Avaya Europe

Read on to capture their thoughts on this resurging topic, which will likely gain momentum in the coming years.

Share an Immersive Customer Experience Success Story (The Examples)

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) Builds a Customer Happiness Center

Maher: Avaya (with its local partner Moro) and the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) have enabled immersive CX via the DEWAVerse platform.

In this virtual environment, customers have their own private space in the metaverse to see their electricity and water consumption or carbon footprint. They can also interact with live or virtual agents, pay bills, and more.

It’s been so successful that DEWA’s contact centers are now called”customer happiness centers”.

Moreover, customers can contact DEWA using this immersive experience alongside various communication channels, including phone, email, video, and text.

DEWA has integrated all these multi-channel engagements so that customers can seamlessly transition from one medium to another as they engage with live and virtual agents.

Finally, Avaya utilized AI in building a dynamic workflow that can identify, assign, and prioritize registered callers so they receive the appropriate level of service.

A Food & Beverage Retailer Creates a One-Click Commerce Mechanism

Kalley: Infosys Equinox collaborated with a prominent global food and beverage (F&B) retailer specializing in cheese, condiments, drink mixes, and more items.

Despite active consumer engagement on their digital platforms, they spotted an unmet need: to guide consumers in crafting recipes with their products.

Infosys swiftly addressed this gap by implementing its pre-built microservices, facilitating recipe assistance, and extending the functionality to enable consumers to order all necessary ingredients with a single click.

The integration with leading online retailers and quick commerce providers resulted in a 20 percent surge in site visits and a substantial increase in orders through the one-click mechanism.

Beyond this direct-to-consumer capability, Infosys established a digital hub for a cohesive customer experience across its extensive network of 250+ global brand sites.

Liberty Leverages AI to Close the Gaps Between Customers and Service Agents

Jorgensen: Liberty, London’s luxury department store, is adding AI to its service operations to build more immersive customer experiences.

First, it leveraged AI for ticket classification and routing across multiple channels, including phone, chat, and email.

Then, the brand used AI to accurately identify customer intent and sentiment, directing issues to the right agents and resulting in speedy resolutions.

Next, Liberty plans to extend AI’s role in tackling ticket backlogs, automating routing based on agent skills and customer needs, which will cut manual triage efforts.

Name an Immersive CX Trend That Will Gain More Momentum (The Trends)

AR/VR Opens Up New Commerce Opportunities

Kalley: Brands and retailers have more opportunities than ever to engage with consumers across diverse channels – and those touchpoints will expand further.

These channels encompass social platforms, conversational interfaces, voice interactions, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), the metaverse, and even digital kiosks in physical locations like in-store or pop-up stores, alongside participation in marketplaces and super apps.

Ensuring a genuine omnichannel customer experience involves being present wherever and whenever customers engage.

A noteworthy facilitator of this trend is the adoption of composable commerce architecture.

Such an innovative approach allows brands and retailers to create content once and seamlessly deploy it across all channels simultaneously, contributing to a cohesive and adaptable consumer engagement strategy.

Virtual Reality Turns Into Just Another Channel

Maher: Apple Vision Pro is an example of a spatial computing solution, providing a gateway for immersive experiences – which brands will strive to seize upon.

Yet, from a CX point of view, the experiences must integrate into companies’ multi-channel CX offerings, just as any other customer touchpoint.

After all, it’s a new medium that customers might want to use to engage with an organization – and brands should make the same service considerations as any other channel.

Businesses Become More Strategic Around the Individual Customer

Jorgensen: With AI working in real-time to analyze and offer recommendations based on style and preference, companies have a new opportunity to connect with customers and provide interactions that feel made for them.

Zendesk research shows that immersive CX yields a 77 percent positive ROI for businesses and can craft seamless, genuine interactions where customers feel valued.

However, if businesses get this wrong and fail to meet the growing customer expectations of authenticity and personalization, they risk the opportunity to foster stronger customer connections.

Embracing such trends empowers businesses to offer tailored interactions across channels with a deep understanding of customer needs and pain points.

How Does Your Business Enable More Immersive Customer Experiences (The Providers)

Infosys

Kalley:  Infosys excels in creating immersive customer experiences for a diverse clientele, aiming to stand out, attract, and retain customers. Some of the use cases it’s enabling include:

• VR/AR technologies that enable new omnichannel experiences: Implementing VR/AR technologies for a leading US jewelry chain allowed customers to create customized designs and virtually try on jewelry, yielding significant online engagements and reducing inventory costs in physical stores.
• Social Influencers and Live Commerce: When collaborating with a major health and beauty brand, Infosys empowered social influencers to promote and sell products through customized websites, leveraging their community for an engaging experience.
• Endless Aisle: Partnering with a leading global sportswear brand, Infosys implemented “endless aisle” capabilities in over 800 stores, providing real-time inventory visibility. That allowed consumers and associates to easily reserve or order out-of-stock products for delivery at the store, home, or in another preferred location.

Zendesk

Jorgensen: Whether through lifelike chatbots or seamless conversation shifts across communication channels, Zendesk focuses on acknowledging and acting upon customer needs.

By embracing AI advancements, it offers immersive experiences that elevate customer acquisition, loyalty, and profitability while integrating teams around CX to drive operational efficiencies.

Its with Liberty is an excellent example of this. Since integrating Zendesk into their customer experience team, Liberty’s CSAT (customer satisfaction) score increased nine percent year-over-year.

Avaya

CX Today’s David Dungay caught up with the Avaya team last year to discuss its proposition for the metaverse. Check out the video below to find out what they had to say.

Miss out on our previous CX Today roundtable? If so, check it out here: CPaaS In Customer Experience: Examples, Trends, & Providers

The document also analysed how companies could navigate risks linked to the technologies. Concerns over building trust, outlining regulations, and intellectual property (IP) rights remain an issue for most enterprises.

Despite this, GenAI “remains a top emerging technology to invest in due to its breadth of impact and ability to accelerate many other top emerging technologies,” the report added.

Related emerging technologies included conversational AI and autonomous workplace assistants (AWAs).

Top Emerging Trends in Forrester’s Report

The report highlighted that GenAI had reached second in its list of emerging technologies for creating ROI for businesses. These trends would take place across verticals such as business-to-business (B2B) sales, eCommerce, customer service, and others to replace “increasingly complex but repetitive human tasks.”

Numerous other emerging technologies rapidly taking shape across global markets included:

• Decentralised Digital Identity (DDID), replacing physical proof-of-identity documents. Businesses such as governments, financial services, education, and others would benefit more from these integrations. Additional technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs and the blockchain would also complement them.
• Edge Intelligence, converting huge data sets into real-time action. Computer vision tools and sensors require edge computing-based software capable of operating at greater capacities and complexity. Analysts forecasted these to operate among customer digital experiences more than other verticals.
• ExplainableAI (XAI), allowing AI software to be both trustworthy and explainable. Finance and healthcare use cases — both high-risk and heavily regulated — would benefit the most from these technologies.
• TuringBots, coined by Forrester, are AI-backed, application-building software robots. Enterprises are set to leverage these technologies at an increasingly rapid rate over the next two to four years.

Emerging Technologies, Five Years Onward

Additional emerging technologies are set to gain traction over five or more years to create enterprise ROI:

Extended Reality (XR), benefitting enterprises with onboarding, upskilling, and training processes. According to the report, only 20 percent of US adults operating online were comfortable using it to receive information. This indicates a need for XR firms to improve hardware and, subsequently, consumer adoption rates.

Web3, which currently faces significant challenges in its adoption rates. Its goal of offering democratic web technologies for internet users has led to realities surrounding risky and scandal-hit virtual tools such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Firms must also struggle with scalability, security, privacy, identity, and key management for many Web3 technologies.

Zero Trust Edge (ZTE), a security principle embedded into software-defined networks deployed to offices and physical environments. Centrally controlled in the cloud, these tools boost security, performance, and other metrics, but will take time to demonstrate their efficacy as networking and security vendors progress.

Brian Hopkins, Forrester Vice-President, Emerging Technology Portfolio, stated that, despite showing great promise, it was “imperative” for tech leaders to determine if these emerging technologies could “deliver value.” Businesses should also assess whether they could “navigate their associated risks.”

He concluded,

“This means side-stepping misinformation, mitigating poor decisions driven by a fear of missing out, and narrowing focus from the shiny objects down to the few technologies that have real potential. Firms must also ensure that their time frame for implementing these technologies is commensurate with their overall risk/reward tolerance.”

Forrester Report on Call Centre Management

The news comes after contact centre automation firm Cyara commissioned Forrester Consulting to assess how much time, resources, and processes its platform could save users.

Cyara’s contact centre solutions aim to solve complex challenges and identify real-time risks linked to call centre processes, allowing these facilities to operate seamlessly with minimal issues.

According to the Forrester report, Cyara’s CX Assurance Platform solution offered a massive 336 percent ROI for businesses. Across the company’s family of solutions, Cyara’s huge benefits helped enterprises to pay back their investments in six month’s time.

73% of leaders say there’s a direct link between their focus on customer service and their overall business performance. Increasingly, organizations are discovering that delivering a fantastic experience means connecting with customers across all channels.

Video CX strategies bring the humanizing power of video technology into the customer experience landscape, creating deeper connections between brands and customers. Today, we’re looking at just some of the hottest trends driving the rise of video CX in 2023.

1.    Demand for Hyper Personalization

Even in a world of bots, self-service, and automation, customers demand a personalized experience. That’s one of the reasons why Chat GPT and generative AI tools have become so popular in the chatbot landscape. However, even the most intuitive bots can struggle with personalization.

Video CX tools empower agents to connect with customers on a deeper level through face-to-face interactions that can adapt to their needs. Adding video to the CX roadmap helps companies personalize experiences by giving customers more channel choices and direct interactions.

Moreover, with innovative contact center platforms, companies can align their video CX strategies with data and insights. Modern platforms can connect with CRMs and customer databases, offering real-time insights into how agents can improve the experience.

2.    Truly Connected Omnichannel Experiences

The demand for omnichannel customer service is nothing new. Today’s customers want to be able to interact with their favorite brands on any channel throughout the customer journey. 69% also say getting a consistent experience on every platform is important.

Evolving contact center and CCaaS solutions offer intuitive ways to align the omnichannel experience. They allow agents and customers to jump between video and other communication styles with the click of a button. Plus, they ensure context is retained from one platform to the next.

CPaaS and API vendors are also providing companies with new ways to implement video into a seamless customer experience. With these solutions companies can embed real-time video tools into the apps and workflows they already use.

3.    Evolving Business Insights and Analytics

Turning the contact center from a “cost center” into a hub of profitability requires data. The more valuable information companies can collect about their customers, preferences, and journeys, the better the CX strategy becomes.

Video CX solutions in the modern business world are unlocking new access to insights. With intuitive tools capable of voice and image analysis, companies can draw valuable conclusions. Business leaders can track customer sentiment throughout the purchasing journey. They can also use proactive monitoring tools for quality assurance and compliance.

Analytical and reporting tools in the video contact center can help train agents to deliver better support. They can also feed predictive AI algorithms with data. This helps companies to respond more rapidly to the needs of their audience.

4.    Seamless Cobrowsing for Remote Support

As customers continue to embrace video as a customer service resource, the tools available to teams are evolving. Today’s innovative platforms can provide agents with the opportunity to deliver robust remote support.

Cobrowsing solutions aligned with video tools create a collaborative service experience. Customers can share their screens and video feeds, and get real-time feedback from technical experts. They can use this context-rich guidance to troubleshoot and address issues remotely.

Not only does this improve first-time resolution rates and reduce average handling times, but it can minimize costs too. With cobrowsing and video tools, companies don’t need to send as many technicians to a customer’s physical location.

5.    Immersive Customer Service Experiences

Video CX technology has inspired many companies to invest in more immersive, memorable customer experiences. Increasingly, innovators in the CX landscape are beginning to look beyond video, to technologies that create a new sense of presence.

XR or extended reality tools could represent the next generation of immersive customer interactions. They’ll allow companies to connect with customers through every stage of the buyer journey. Plus, they offer a unique opportunity for companies to explore the benefits of the metaverse.

XR solutions combined with video can bring customers and teams together in unique environments for onboarding and product training. They can help agents deliver guided support to customers dealing with complex issues. Plus, they may help customers make better buying decisions.

6.    The Increasing Presence of AI

AI has become one of the most significant trends in the contact center in 2023. The rise of generative AI in particular is opening new doors for the customer experience landscape. With intelligent tools, companies can offer more advanced self-service experiences. However, they can also create scripts for video-driven sales and service agents.

Artificial intelligence could also improve the understanding between team members and customers in the video enabled CX space. With real-time transcription and translation tools, the risk of misunderstandings is minimized.

What’s more, AI-driven solutions can improve business insights too. These solutions can detect sentiment, intent, and other factors in real-time. This leads to opportunities for virtual assistants to guide agents through valuable service interactions.

7.    Harmonious Automation

Finally, just as AI is growing more common in the CX space, automation is thriving too. Automation technology in the contact center can support and empower agents, and drive higher CSAT scores. It also improves productivity, and efficiency levels in the CX space.

Automated technology built into the video CX space can serve a number of purposes. Companies can use these tools to automatically transfer visual data between team members. They can use AI-driven automation to route customers to the right agent on any channel.

Automated solutions can also rapidly collect data during conversations. This reduces the need for team members to make notes and upload them to CRM systems manually.

The Ongoing Rise of Video CX

Video in the contact center and CX world is growing increasingly common. Today’s customers want flexible, engaging, and human experiences. Video offers one of the best ways for organizations to connect with their audience on a deeper, emotional level.

As innovations continue to emerge in AI, edge computing, and 5G, video is likely to become a more consistent part of the full customer service strategy.

The new functionality utilizes holographic instructions to help deskless workers follow step-by-step processes, enhance efficiency, and learn on the job.

Microsoft Teams capabilities are combined with Guides to enable seamless collaboration among workers using HoloLens 2, allowing participants in a call to see what the HoloLens user sees in real-time, annotate their three-dimensional space, and share required files easily.

The company has released a new set of features in Guides to make the experience more intuitive and dependable.

Annotation improvements enable users to draw on any object or surface, anywhere, and remain in place, even if the user moves around.

The drawings are visible from different angles, and digital ink stays in place where intended, allowing users to annotate and share in real time. Previously, users could only draw on flat or semi-flat services.

Dynamics 365 Guides now give HoloLens users more options when joining a Teams call. The user can choose to turn on or off the video, join muted or not, and change these settings once they are in the meeting.

The company has added restricted mode features that enable the admin to restrict who can log in to the device and make calls, enhancing the company’s security and information confidentiality.

Additionally, Microsoft has added a new feature that allows users to navigate directly from one guide to another by linking the second guide in an action step.

What is Dynamics 365 Guides?

Dynamics 365 Guides is a mixed reality tool developed by Microsoft that enables deskless workers to follow step-by-step holographic instructions.

The tool aims to improve efficiency and compliance with processes and enable workers to learn on the job.

With the help of HoloLens 2 and Microsoft Teams, the tool allows remote collaboration and real-time sharing of 3D annotations and required files. Dynamics 365 Guides also gives users more options when joining Teams calls and allows them to navigate directly from one guide to another.

Powering these trends are visionary technology vendors that work closely with their customers to bring innovative customer experiences to life.

The CX Awards 2023 shines a light on these leading providers that excel not only in their creativity but also in their execution.

To crown such worthy winners, our team of judges – which includes industry analysts, practitioners, and consultants – has worked diligently, whittling down long lists of entrants.

First, there were finalists. Now, there are winners.

Below, we pinpoint all the deserving victors alongside the well-respected runners-up.

CX Awards 2023 Winners

Congratulations to all our winners and those our judges highly commend (HC).

Best Contact Center Platform

• UJET
• Cirrus Response
• Talkdesk (HC)
• Vonage

Best CRM Platform

• SugarCRM
• Content Guru
• Freshworks
• Pegasystems

Best RPA Platform

• SS&C Blue Prism
• NICE
• Pegasystems

Best Workforce Optimization Platform

• Calabrio
• Critizr
• Playvox

Best Conversational Analytics Platform

• Observe.AI
• CallMiner
• Talkdesk

Best Loyalty Management Platform

• Agilysys
• AskNicely
• Forsta
• Pushly

Best Use of AI

• LivePerson
• Ada (HC)
• Artifact
• TCS OmniStore
• Yext

Best BPO

• Wipro
• Bayview Technologies (HC)
• EXL Service
• Simplr

Best Customer Experience Team of the Year

• Vodafone Idea
• TelXL
• Wipro (HC)

Most Innovative Product

• TCS OmniStore
• Agilysys
• Bandwidth
• LivePerson (HC)
• UJET

Best CX Solution

• Vonage
• Pegasystems (HC)
• TCS OmniStore
• Sinch
• UJET

Women in CX Technology

• Kimberley Wood, Ultimate
• Charanya Kannan, Talkdesk (HC)
• Lorissa Horton, Cisco
• Susana Baque, SCIEX

CX Leader of The Year

• Jay Patel, Cisco
• Gaurav Johar, Quantiphi
• Carolyn Pampino, SmartBear
• Tiago Paiva, Talkdesk
• Wayne McCulloch, WalkMe (HC)

Congratulations to All Our Winners!

With over 100 entrants, each CX Awards victor has gone above and beyond to present themselves as a leader in their space.

As such, a massive congratulations is in order for all of our worthy winners.

Unfortunately, only a lucky few can claim the top prizes. Nevertheless, every other finalist has accomplished a significant feat in making it to this stage alone.

Next year, many may go one step further. After all, 12 months is a long time in the CX space.

So, we look forward to welcoming back all our entrants in 2024, when our awards will return – and bigger than ever before.

See you then!

Avaya showcased its Metaverse Experience concept at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Barcelona, which took place in early November.

The showcase highlighted how Avaya clients could use an immersive Metaverse space to reimagine the buyer’s journey, enabling agents to communicate with customers via realistic avatars — including accessing bespoke VR offices, showrooms, and experiences to boost productivity, collaboration, and customer engagement.

Many forward-thinking companies and government agencies are considering how the emerging Metaverse can enable innovative new opportunities and business models. This showcase expands this discussion to include leveraging integrated Metaverse technology like persistent, decentralized, and interoperable content to improve CX operations.

More on Avaya’s Metaverse Concept

As the potential for Metaverse CX is still unknown, Avaya’s focus is to reduce the risk and cost associated with testing the true potential of this new uncharted opportunity. The Avaya Experience Platform is designed to deliver “Innovation without Disruption”, which dramatically increases the accessibility of CX innovation like the Metaverse to businesses.

We’ve developed cloud services that can be deployed on top of existing systems, enabling a hybrid environment that allows you to do more with what you have — innovation without requiring a platform change.

Speaking to UC Today at GITEX 2022, Zeus Kerravala, the Founder & Principal Analyst at ZK Research, added:

“For Avaya, bringing the metaverse into its contact centre wasn’t a complicated process — the company just sees it as another channel because the Avaya Experience Platform is fully cloud-native and designed to be open.

“Avaya customers can experiment with the metaverse and add contact centre capabilities without having to bring in a new platform or go through a major upgrade.”

Moreover, Yaser Alzubaidi, the Vice President of the Specialists Organisation, Avaya International, noted how the Metaverse concept showcases the power of the Avaya Experience Platform — demonstrating how new agent and customer experiences can be easily delivered with the Avaya platform.

Alzubaidi also said:

“But they also need a migration path to rolling out these capabilities that does not involve the disruptive ripping and replacing of existing technology.”

Avaya Prepares End-Users for the Emerging Metaverse Economy

Alzubaidi also outlined how businesses are competing to participate and find a place in an emerging Metaverse economy or M-commerce. Avaya is working with its customers such as the United Arab Emirates’ government to understand the emerging Metaverse use cases.  This video provides more information:

The Avaya Experience Platform enables companies to more easily experiment with new innovations like the Metaverse by reducing the associated cost and risk.

To delve deeper into the Avaya Experience Platform, visit Avaya.

Why Do Organizations Need to Optimize Customer Experiences?

Optimizing CX is a top priority for any organization. It helps drive brand reach, increases the number of conversations with customers, and boosts the lifetime value they receive. An optimized CX ensures that a person stays with a brand and does not switch to a competitor. This translates into increased customer satisfaction scores, a rise in revenue and profits, and reduced churn for an organization.

10 Must-have Technologies for Optimizing Customer Experience

While several technologies can help optimize CX, here are the ten of the most important:

1. Chatbots

Chatbots are computer programs that employ artificial intelligence to converse with human customers via the internet. They have quickly taken over customer support activities for many firms due to their ability to respond to client inquiries and meet the modern consumer need for immediate assistance.

2. VR/AR

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) transform how people communicate and interact. This technology will redefine how sales reps and agents interact with customers by providing a hands-on understanding of their context. It increases empathy and allows agents to suggest better solutions to customer problems. Augmented and virtual reality also enables an immersive visual user experience for customers, which is helpful when optimizing top-of-the-funnel CX.

3. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems

Managing customer relationships is key to providing a great experience. A CRM system allows businesses to keep track of all customer interactions, including offline ones. It also helps companies manage their pipeline, identify opportunities, and measure the success of marketing campaigns.

4. Customer experience management (CXM) systems

A CXM system goes beyond managing customer relationships. It collects feedback and data from all customer touchpoints to provide a holistic view of the customer experience. This information can improve customer interactions, marketing campaigns, and website design.

5. Email marketing software

Email marketing software allows businesses to design and send customized email messages to their customers. These messages can include product announcements, coupons, or information about upcoming events. It can also help businesses track the success of their marketing campaigns and identify customers who are likely to respond to certain types of offers.

6. Speech analytics

Speech analytics is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that uncovers emotional drivers and pinpoints keywords or themes that frequently provoke certain feelings, providing new sources of feedback. Speech analytics abilities can be used in conjunction with other AI processes to listen for increased voice levels and other emotional signals, analyzing customers’ sentiments and routing them to an agent when necessary.

7. Self-Service

Customer self-service portals are an excellent strategy for all contact center teams since they allow customers to help themselves, which both support teams and customers appreciate. Customers can browse through the knowledge base, access a self-service forum, and use self-service tools to follow up on past requests and contact support.

8. Customer data platform (CDP)

A customer data platform is a set of applications that works together to generate a permanent, unified customer database that other applications can access. Data is gathered from various sources, cleansed, and then merged to provide a comprehensive consumer profile. This data is subsequently accessible to other marketing platforms, such as email marketing systems. Using the insights from the CDP, companies can predict customer behavior, segment their audience, drive personalization, and perform a host of other data-driven tasks.

9. Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based solution that enables businesses to use the software provided by a contact center service provider. Business owners may lower the amount of technology they acquire by using a CCaaS model, which reduces the requirement for internal IT support. Because of the ability to pay for the required technology in a consumption model, investment is minimal, and expenses are lowered, while the ability to serve clients better is increased. Companies can quickly embrace new technologies that optimize CX without any capital expenses.

10. Marketing automation software

This helps businesses send targeted messages to customers based on their purchase history, demographics, and interests. This software allows businesses to create, test, and execute marketing campaigns quickly and easily, freeing up time for customer service reps to focus on more critical tasks.

How do These Tools Help?

By embracing these ten tools and technologies, companies can:

• Increase agent productivity by automating routine operations.
• Switch from email to customer support software that allows businesses to better monitor, track, and engage in client dialogues.
• Use chatbots to answer basic questions quickly and redirect up to 60 percent of complaints.
• Combining multiple channels into one dashboard avoids bouncing between different tabs or tools.
• Businesses can also provide a consistent experience to customers regardless of how they contact them with a consolidated view of all channels.
• Use AI to provide company personnel with any information they require in real-time, allowing them to provide better service.
• Get a better understanding of the condition of customer relationships by accessing critical customer experience data.
• Increase the size of the customer service team without increasing costs.

The Bottom Line

Technology plays a massive role in the customer experience optimization process.

By leveraging CRM, CXM, marketing automation software, email marketing software, speech analytics, cloud computing, and self-service customer portals, businesses can improve their interactions with customers and optimize their customer experience. However, one must select the appropriate technologies for their needs and ensure that they are implemented correctly to reap the benefits.

With the right technology in place, they can focus on building fantastic customer experiences (backed by effective strategies and frameworks) to keep customers coming back for more.

Indeed, it also predicts that 30 percent of companies worldwide will have metaverse-ready products and services by 2026, which begs a fundamental question – what will the future of CX look like in a metaverse environment?

What Is the Metaverse and What Does it Mean for CX?

The metaverse refers to an integrated virtual environment built on a blockchain architecture, which users can access through virtual reality (VR) and other interfaces. It aims to recreate lifelike interactions in a digital world using 3D user avatars, 3D renditions of physical surroundings, spatial anchoring, realistic navigation, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Companies will enjoy an incredible degree of flexibility in the metaverse. For instance, they could create a simple storefront that reflects their retail outlets in the real world, recreated with exacting accuracy. Or, they could all out and reimagine the brand experience as a themed VR amusement park that can break the laws of physics. As such, brands can execute any CX strategy that they envision inside the metaverse, no matter how futuristic.

Currently, a few metaverse platforms are available to consumers, such as Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Roblox. Bloktopia and Meta Platforms’ official metaverse offering are two of the most awaited products in this segment. Despite its infancy, brands are already taking advantage of the virtual real estate available on the metaverse to engage with customers in new ways. For example, Nike has its own Nikeland virtual world on Roblox, which is essentially an innovative brand activation campaign.

For more of the fundamentals of the metaverse, check out our video interview with Alex Black, Chief Technology Officer at Enghouse Interactive.

Implications of the Metaverse on the Future of CX

The metaverse may influence customer experiences in the following ways.

1. Breaking Down Global Barriers

The metaverse may break down the barriers between more and less mature economies and negate international brand outreach restrictions.

For example, customers can log into a metaverse platform to discover, experience, and access whichever brand they want. Such accessibility may revolutionize purchasing journeys.

2. Turning Experiences Into Products

Large-scale efforts like Disneyland illustrate how profitable it could be to weave an experience around a brand, product, or service. In the future, it will likely have an enormous impact on customer loyalty, far outpacing short-term wins.

The metaverse provides every business with the opportunity to envision and productize experiences. Not only will this change the value of CX, but it will also drive long-term outcomes.

3. Blurring the Line Between Self-Service and Contact Centers

Already, technologies like conversational AI allow self-service to closely resemble human agents and in-person support. Customers can type in their queries as natural language questions, and the AI can synthesize the input to provide a prompt response.

The metaverse will blur the line even further as AI-powered digital humans attend to customer issues, face-to-face and in-person.

4. Increasing Competition from Disruptors

Unlike the real world, the metaverse is a fully democratized environment, where anyone can purchase a stake and have a say in its operations. This places small, mid-market, and large brands on a level playing field.

For instance, a brand may access a coveted piece of real estate in the real world using their networks and influential contacts. Such disparities are non-existent in the metaverse, so the competition to deliver engaging experiences will be fierce.

5. Bolstering the Customer Engagement Channel Mix

In many ways, the metaverse is the newest addition to the CX channel mix, and brands may wish to expand their digital footprint accordingly.

Just like customers now expect availability and responsiveness on social media, they will soon come to look for a VR storefront, a 3D customer executive avatar, metaverse-ready services, user navigation through VR controllers and voice, and much more.

6. Furthering the Remote Revolution

One could argue that the movement restrictions during the pandemic acted as a launching pad for the rise of the metaverse, which is why platforms like Decentraland have increased exponentially in value.

Indeed, this period has changed how we work, play, buy, and engage in social activities, and the future of CX in the metaverse takes off from this trend. It will allow remote customer experiences that mimic in-person interactions’ engagement and intimacy levels.

Challenges of CX in the Metaverse

Any new technology comes with its teething challenges, and the metaverse has its fair share of issues. To begin with, the technology is still in its infancy, and there is no guarantee that companies’ investments in a VR-first CX will pan out (barring forward-looking predictions).

Second, VR adoption among consumers remains low, well below the average internet penetration and telephony reach. As such, even with suitable investments, companies will be able to engage with a relatively small audience, at least in the beginning. The upside is that engagement levels will be much higher, thanks to the hands-on and immersive nature of VR to compensate for a smaller audience.

Finally, the launch of a metaverse-friendly CX requires significant investment and technical skills. It is no coincidence that the companies currently venturing in this direction include stalwarts like Nike, Warner Bros., Disney, Hyundai, Gucci, Sotheby’s, and Louis Vuitton. Despite the platform’s democratic nature, there is a barrier to entry regarding technical skill and risk appetite.

The Bottom Line

The metaverse has the potential to reshape future customer experiences. Still, for now, it is poised to become an addition to the channel mix, not a replacement for digital and human-driven CX as it exists today.

Itching to delve deeper into the metaverse? Check out our sister publication XR Today, which provides fascinating insights into the arena.