Global Brands Rank AI, Personalization and AR/VR As Top Customer Experience Trends for 2024, According to New Study
New Data from Contentsquare Reveal the Top 10 Trends That Will Dominate Digital Commerce Experience Next Year
AI, hyper-personalization and immersive experiences will dominate the digital commerce landscape in 2024, according to more than 2,700 brand marketers and digital professionals who participated in a new study by Contentsquare. A leader in Digital Experience Analytics (DXA).
Contentsquare queried experts from leading global brands to determine the top 10 list of CX trends for the coming year, which include:
- AI
- Personalization
- Immersive Experiences
- Customer Centricity
- Data-Driven Insights
- Omnichannel Experiences
- Social Media
- Digital Trust
- Digital Accessibility
- Mobile Experiences
“In 2024, brands will increasingly lean into experience analytics to drive decision-making, unlocking a deeper understanding of customer interactions, preferences, and sentiments, and ultimately paving the way for more personalized and impactful consumer engagements over time,” said Lucie Buisson, Chief Product Officer of Contentsquare. “Businesses know that, in order to orchestrate seamless experiences and build lasting connections, they need to understand the complete customer journey, across all platforms and sessions. 2024 will be the year of (finally!) breaking down data silos, which means transcending the limitations of isolated data sources and working with more holistic customer views.”
How AI is Innovating Customer Experience
As part of the AI paradigm shift, marketers highlighted the conversational transformation of e-commerce through advanced chatbots and other interfaces, allowing for a better understanding of user preferences.
“The impact that generative AI will have on the overall customer experience will be seen not just in personalization but also in the speed and scaling of content creation overall,” said Dave Anderson, VP Product Marketing and Strategy at Contentsquare. “But brands should be aware that the rules of engagement, oversight and regulation for AI are still unclear and we may reach a tipping point where advancing AI at rapid speed can come into question. Tech leaders will need to start taking regulations more seriously, with ethics playing a big role in AI just as it did with the data privacy discussions a decade ago.”
AI has quickly become embedded into the digital customer experience with the emergence of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard and other large language models. In 2024, global brand leaders foresee greater use of AI tools for business overall, to reflect the growing personal use of AI for its customers.
“In the coming year, decision-making–beyond just tasks and execution is going to be supported by AI-powered tools,” said Jean-Christophe Pitié, Chief Marketing and Partnerships Officer of Contentsquare. “Contextual AI will be able to understand and predict customer needs, and offer companies better insights to improve the customer experience and delight end users.”
Hyper-Personalization, Immersive Experiences and Customer-Centricity Drive Engagement
The top 10 list also includes the advent of hyper-personalization; using AR and VR to offer more immersive experiences; and moving towards greater customer-centricity. According to McKinsey, brands that get personalization right generate +40% more revenue. The digital professionals surveyed believe that customer experiences in 2024 will focus on authenticity and taking a human-centered approach, which ultimately drives higher customer retention and loyalty.
“Transitioning from a one-size-fits-all to a customer-centric approach is the most direct way to retain customers and increase loyalty,” said Juliane Kappel, Chief Customer Officer at Hello Fresh. “Understanding the ever-evolving customer needs along with constantly changing life realities—such as whether they are training for a marathon, becoming a parent, or eating vegan for a month—will be pivotal for a product market fit and sustainable growth company like ours.”
Data-Backed Decision Making
Respondents predict that data-backed decision-making will be at the heart of digital experience building in 2024, with data analytics platforms giving companies an unprecedented understanding of the customer experience across all touchpoints and helping brands optimize speed and remove obstacles along the customer journey. However, the gradual phasing out of third-party cookies coming in 2024 will create a greater mandate for brands to balance personalization with privacy, with an emerging focus on zero-party data and cookieless alternatives to build trust with customers.
Interestingly, mobile ranks last on the list of experiences expected to dominate. With mobile commanding the lion’s share of traffic (70%) in 2024 and smartphone penetration predicted to reach 4.7 billion by 2024, brands must continue to prioritize mobile-first experience design and in-app journeys in order to stay relevant. Super apps have also emerged as a key strategy to engage customers.
To learn more, download the full report here.
Methodology
Contentsquare’s findings are based upon a survey fielded between April and October 2023 of 2,751 business professionals globally in marketing, UX and product roles from businesses including retail, B2B, financial services, telco, and many more. The data was collected from executives who attended Contentsquare’s flagship CX Circle events across the globe. Registrants were asked, “What do you think will be the biggest trend in digital experience next year?”. The data was collated and sorted using thematic analysis as a prompt for Open AI’s Chat-GPT4 tool. All data was translated and grouped into the 10 categories and sub-categories.
About Contentsquare
Contentsquare delivers the power to make the digital world more human. Its AI-powered platform provides rich and contextual insight into customer behaviors, feelings and intent — at every touchpoint in their journey — enabling businesses to build empathy and create lasting impact. The global leader in digital experience analytics, Contentsquare helps brands everywhere transform the way they do business, allowing them to take action at enterprise scale and build customer trust with security, privacy and accessibility. More than 1,000 leading brands use Contentsquare to grow their business, deliver more customer happiness and move with greater agility in a constantly changing world. Its insights power the customer experience on over 1 million websites worldwide. For more information, visit www.contentsquare.com
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