Hi Team,

It has been 7 weeks since I wrote my last newsletter …

Why the long break?

A couple of reasons to be entirely honest:

1. Writing A Weekly Newsletter Gets TOUGH - I always told myself that I would write consistently for 1 year and would assess how things were going. Across the 1 year, I published 47 newsletters and acquired 585 subscribers. Whilst it’s decent progress, it was no where near the goal that I had in mind.

   
   

2. My Mindset Moved From “Want” To “Should” - I was telling myself that I should write the newsletter. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I initially had been.

But upon reflection, the good news is that I’M BACK. I’m going to forget about vanity metrics (i.e. # of subscribers) and continue to focus on the reasons that I initially started to write this newsletter:

• To ensure I document best practices & insights about #CX & #EX

• To meet some cool people / build a network in this space

Anyway, that’s enough moaning for one day. Back to the content 👇

8 Golden Nuggets From Adobe’s 2023 State of Digital Customer Experience Report

You can check out the full report here.

Research Methodology

Oxford Economics, in partnership with Adobe, conducted surveys of 1,500 executives and 4,000 customers from 13 countries. Responses were collected from June to August of 2023.

Nugget #1 - AI Is Becoming More Widely Accepted By Customers, Except For Customer Support Scenarios

As is evident with the graph below, customers are starting to accept AI-enabled interactions, particularly in the product exploration phase. The concept of a virtual AI concierge who can provide guidance pre-purchase appears to appeal to customers.

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s evident that customers still prefer to speak to a human when they need support / when they need to return or cancel an order.

Nugget #2 - Customers Expect Generative AI to Personalise Their Digital Experience, and Speed Up Their Customer Support Interactions.

Interestingly, majority of customers believe that Generative AI could lead to unethical decision making. This is something that organisations should be mindful of when building & communicating their gen-AI policies to customers.

Nugget #3 - <20% of Executives Have Started Integrating Generative AI Into Their Customer Experience Efforts, However 52% Expect To Leverage It Within The Next 12 months.

As is depicted in the visual below, most organisations appear to be taking a cautious approach to generative AI. Executives have to consider an array of different factors before implementing this new technology - what use cases is it most relevant for? What talent will manage it? How can it integrate into the existing tech stack …

Nugget #4 - According to Adobe, The Most Common Digital CX Use Cases For Generative AI Are Below:

1. Support attraction of new customers e.g. copywriting (81%)

2. Customer Support (79%)

3. Experience Creation e.g. generative video / audio / images (75%)

4. Audience Definition (73%)

5. Campaign Performance Measurement (69%)

6. Experience Delivery (66%)

Nugget #5 - Customer Data Foundations Appear To Be Established In Most Organisations, Allowing For The Focus To Now Transition To Activating This Data In Personalised Ways

According to the Adobe report, many organisations are going to use 2024 to focus on personalisation - 49% of businesses plan to implement distinct approaches to different customer segments, and 47% plan to invest in breaking down organizational silos to enhance experiences across the customer journey.

This shift in focus appears to come from the fact that a large majority of organisations (78%) have a CDP in place, with 46% of organisations also owning some form of personalisation engine technology:

When diving under the personalisation hood a little bit further, it’s encouraging to see advanced data analytics capabilities such as predictive analytics & machine learning being deployed across so many organisations. It is no longer acceptable to store your data in a CDP - the best organisations are figuring out ways to activate their datasets. Predictive & ML algorithms are being used to make every single interaction with customers just a little bit better ….

Nugget #6 - The Ongoing Focus On Personalisation Aligns To Customers Preferences. A Memorable Experience Is A Personalised One …

As can be seen in the results below, 3 out of the top 5 reasons that customers had a memorable customer experience was a result of personalisation …

Nugget #7 - Executives Must Make Sure That Shiny New Toys Don’t Impact Their Fundamental Service Delivery Model …

The below graph is a bit hard to interpret however the message is that Executives underestimate the importance of product & service fundamentals. Customers are most likely to leave an organisation is a product is faulty or if there are frequent delivery / service delays. The moral? Get the fundamentals right before investing in advanced AI / personalisation technologies:

Nugget #8 - The ROI On CX Is Legitimate.

Adobe’s analysis of the Executive survey identified a small group of organisations that place an increased emphasis on the customer experience—and outperform others as a result. In order to qualify, these companies must say improving the customer experience is a top priority for their business and that adaptable CX is a core business focus. They must also have established key components of their customer experience framework and tech stack:

Thanks to whoever has read this far - I hope you’ve learnt something new 🙂 

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