Technology

It’s a common scenario: a customer receives a call from an unknown number. Assuming it’s spam, they decline the call and continue on with their day.

Only hours later, upon listening to the voicemail, do they realize it was a follow-up call from their doctor with eagerly awaited test results.

This scenario plays out time and time again, whether it’s a student loan servicer or HVAC repair tech, creating lost hours of employees’ time and missed connections, said James Garvert, senior vice president of TruContact Communications Solutions at TransUnion.

TransUnion decided to solve that. In February, TransUnion and AT&T launched a capability for brands to display the reason for the call, along with the name of the company and brand logo, for Android users. 

The goal of the technology is to build trust in companies’ phone calls to customers and encourage more customers to pick up the phone. 

“What we've seen is if you authenticate these calls and add more information to the consumer, they trust these calls more, they answer the calls more,” Garvert said.

TransUnion began offering the capability to display the company name and logo last year. A TransUnion study of more than 1,500 U.S. consumers found nearly three-quarters said they’d be likely to answer calls if the company name and logo were shown. 

Displaying the reason for the call is expected to boost that rate.

Companies that deploy the technology will be able to choose from a wide list of options, such as appointment reminder, customer service, refill reminder, delivery service and patient callback.

Customers still want the ability to speak to a human, especially for sensitive or complex issues, whether asking their bank about their mortgage or discussing health issues with their doctor. The TransUnion study found that 4 in 5 said the phone channel is important when communicating with businesses.

But robocalls and spam calls have eroded trust with phone calls. 

“You want consumers to trust again,” Garvert said. “When it comes to the engagement with the enterprise, there's so much out there today of the bad actors leveraging the phone channel.”

Nearly three-quarters of consumers say they have not answered a call because they worry it's a scam, according to the survey. Another 7 in 10 said they have not answered a call due to safety or fraud concerns but later learned it was a legitimate number calling them.

Robocalls and scams have become such a large issue that Congress passed the TRACED Act, which provides the Federal Communications Commission new tools to fight robocalls. That alone doesn’t stop them.

To combat bad actors and maintain trust, TransUnion’s technology requires that companies verify their information. If it seems like a simple solution, the technology to implement and authenticate callers is much more complex, Garvert said.

“You have to have authentication in place as well because what you don't want to do is enable better scams and spam,” Garvert said. “You have to set up integrations on the front end with the enterprise to get call authentication in place, and then you have the deep integrations within the mobile networks.”

Original equipment manufacturers need to consume this information, too, he said.

By getting customers to pick up the phone more, companies can improve operational efficiency. It can save money and boost employee morale, too.

“Imagine you're an operator calling out all those times and constantly getting hung up on and yelled at or others for being bothered,” Garvert said. “Instead, you're connecting with the people who want to engage with you. You feel better at the end of the day with that type of engagement.”

While the reason for call capability is only available for Android and AT&T users at this time, Garvert expects the technology to expand to iPhones in the future.

Frictionless payments, which aim to make financial transactions quick and easy for customers, are rapidly gaining popularity. 

The number of cashless transactions will increase nearly 50% globally, from 1.5 trillion in 2024 to 2.3 trillion in 2027, according to data from Statistica. Routine digital wallet usage leapt from 56% in 2022 to 85% in 2024, according to an upcoming report by consulting firm Accenture. 

It’s easy to see why, said Brian Shniderman, senior managing director and head of the North American payments practice at Accenture.

“Frictionless payments are a game-changer for improving efficiency, customer satisfaction and staying competitive. They help cut down on transaction errors, streamline operations and meet the growing demand for flexible payment options,” Shniderman said in an email. “When businesses make paying easy, they’re more likely to see higher customer loyalty, fewer abandoned carts and new growth opportunities.”

Frictionless payments, including digital wallets like Apple Pay, contactless cards and payment links like QR codes, can also slash transaction times, reduce cash handling, improve data security and provide valuable insights into consumer purchasing behavior and preferences.  

Businesses have taken note and are increasingly using payment data to change their products and services to meet customers’ needs, said Phillip Goericke, CTO of engineering at embedded payments platform NMI.

“This is really valuable in subscription models or omnichannel environments where consistency and convenience are paramount,” Goericke said.

Privacy, security and data management challenges

However, while frictionless payments offer businesses and consumers a range of benefits, there are some drawbacks.

Frictionless payments are more vulnerable to certain privacy and security risks than other payment methods because they collect and transmit valuable information using technologies like near-field communication, radio frequency identification and biometrics.

That’s raised concern among consumers and data privacy advocates who worry about bad actors using information on consumer behavior for nefarious purposes, including unauthorized purchases.

As a result, businesses that adopt frictionless payments may experience increased disputes, chargebacks and returns, which can increase costs and lead to customer mistrust, said Jennifer Fagan, retail partner at consulting firm EY.

“It may be frictionless on the front end, but there’s going to be friction on the back end,” Fagan said. “You could have a friendly fraud situation where you ask for a chargeback and say, ‘I didn’t purchase that,’ or maybe a family member had done it on your behalf.”

Due to their privacy and security risks, frictionless payments — like other financial tools — are also subject to significant regulatory oversight, making compliance challenging, especially for businesses operating across several markets. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and Payment Services Directive 2 regulations “can complicate deployment,” Shniderman said.

Businesses that rely on digital wallets to complete financial transactions could also fail to collect valuable first-party data, Fagan said.

For instance, if a customer purchases a shirt from an online store using Apple Pay or Shop Pay, the retailer may not know who purchased it. In instances like that, the retailer may “spin their wheels” marketing that same shirt to the customer even though they already own it, Fagan said.

As the consumer, “you’re looking at it saying, ‘They don’t know me at all,’” Fagan said. “So, the whole value proposition around personalization is lost.”

Additionally, while digital wallets can make it easier for customers to participate in loyalty programs, customers could “miss out on loyalty points” if they forget to connect their account or login to a retailer’s website, Fagan said. That could negatively affect their customer experience.

Customer experience leaders must also be wary of alienating customers who are unwilling or unable to use frictionless payment methods, especially if they are essential to the business.

“You need to meet customers where they are,” Goericke said.

Frictionless payments best practices

There are several measures that businesses can take to ensure the successful adoption of frictionless payments. 

“Customer experience leaders should prioritize three things: ease of use, security and integration,” Shniderman said. “People want convenience, but they also expect strong protection against fraud. Striking this balance is key, and tools like biometric authentication and AI-powered fraud detection can help.”

Integrating online, mobile and in-store payment systems is especially important to ensuring a predictable and smooth customer experience, especially for omnichannel retailers, experts say.

“Legacy systems can create roadblocks, so it’s essential to have the right infrastructure in place to support new technologies,” Shniderman said.

White label solutions can help ease the transition, Fagan said. Several third-party vendors offer products and services that provide a modern user experience, up-to-date technology, multiple payment options, and built-in privacy and security protections.

“For leaders considering frictionless payments, my advice is simple: Prioritize your customers’ experience while aligning with your business goals,” said Paul Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Integrity Turnkey Business Solutions. “Begin by identifying pain points in your current payment process — whether it’s speed, security or customer satisfaction — and seek solutions that address them holistically. Partner with a trusted payment processing provider who can offer scalable, innovative systems tailored to your needs.”

Customer education, data privacy and security investments, regular security audits, fraud detection systems, robust customer service and continuous monitoring of customer feedback are other measures that can help businesses get the most out of frictionless payments.

“Don’t view this as just a technological shift; it’s an investment in building stronger relationships with your customers,” Anderson said. “A seamless payment experience can be the difference between a one-time customer and a lifelong advocate for your business.”

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming customer service, helping contact centers improve efficiency, reduce costs and deliver personalized experiences. Let’s see what industry leaders are saying about how AI is shaping the future of contact centers.

AI-powered automation for efficiency

Shane Freeburg, Senior VP of Global Support Services at Dialpad, highlights how AI automates routine tasks, allowing human agents to focus on complex customer needs. AI-powered tools like AI Agents handle simple queries, while Real-Time Assist (RTA) Cards provide agents with contextual help during live calls. This reduces average handle time and improves first-contact resolution. 

As Shane explains, "With tools like our Ai Agent, which can automatically handle a wide range of customer queries and Real-Time Assist Cards that provide agents with instant, contextual guidance during live calls, we're able to create a more streamlined and efficient support experience.”

But the real value of AI in the contact center goes beyond just operational efficiency. By automating routine tasks and empowering agents with real-time insights, we're enabling them to focus on what matters most: delivering personalized, empathetic support to every customer.

When it comes to enhancing customer service, Andy Bissonette, Senior Marketing Director at Liquid Web, explains how AI-driven sentiment analysis helps prioritize support tickets. AI can detect frustration or urgency in customer messages, ensuring that high-priority issues receive immediate attention. This improves customer satisfaction, retention and even upselling opportunities.

Valentin Radu, CEO and Founder of Omniconvert, emphasizes the role of AI in personalization. Chatbots and virtual assistants can manage large volumes of inquiries: “For mid-market and enterprise clients, I've found that chatbots and virtual assistants are effective in handling high volumes of queries, leading to a notable increase in efficiency and cost reduction”.

Balancing AI with the human touch

It’s important for AI to complement–not replace–a people-first customer attention strategy. Brandy Hastings, SEO Strategist at SmartSites, points out that a successful contact center combines AI and human expertise. One example: AI chatbots handle simple requests via messaging, while voice assistants enhance live calls, but more complex questions can be handled by a human agent. 

Additionally, Natural Language Processing (NLP) helps contact centers gauge customer sentiment in real time, so businesses can respond to customer emotions, prioritize urgent cases and resolve frustrations before they escalate.

Michael Nemeroff, CEO of RushOrderTees, highlights how AI refines targeted marketing campaigns. AI identifies potential customers and personalizes outreach, making marketing more efficient and increasing conversions: “For us, AI-driven marketing campaigns have become a real backbone for growth. We used to rely on broad campaigns to reach new customers, but AI lets us narrow down the target.”

AI for automating routine tasks

Babu Jayaram, Head of Customer Success at Qualaroo, explains that natural language processing (NLP) can gauge customer sentiment mid-conversation. This real-time feedback lets agents address potential frustration before it escalates, improving satisfaction scores and reducing customer churn.

AI automates routine tasks like checking account status. As Shawn Plummer, CEO of The Annuity Expert, describes, this frees up human agents to focus on specialized tasks, such as financial consulting: “For example, we've used AI to handle basic customer questions like account status updates. This allowed our team to focus on more specialized financial advice”.

Another important aspect is that AI can help predict customer behavior by analyzing past interactions, known as “predictive AI.” In this case, AI helps businesses anticipate customer needs, prevent escalations and improve engagement rates.

Personalization and predictive AI

To meet customer dietary preferences, Lisa Richards, CEO and Creator of The Candida Diet, uses an AI-powered chatbot that delivers recipes tagged by dietary needs—vegan, gluten-free and more. This personalization not only resolves common questions instantly but also frees agents to handle high-value interactions.

Will Yang, Head of Growth at Instrumentl, emphasizes the importance of predictive analytics in anticipating customer needs. By analyzing past interactions, AI can predict common issues and proactively offer solutions, improving customer loyalty.

Jonathan Feniak, General Counsel at LLC Attorney, notes that AI’s predictive power allows contact centers to identify emerging issues and address them before they escalate, and “clients love that because it means fewer calls slipping through the cracks and customer satisfaction goes up”.

The future of AI in contact centers

For companies aiming to stay competitive, investing in AI-driven processes in the contact center is no longer optional, it’s vital. From automating mundane tasks to delivering real-time insights, AI empowers teams to focus on building meaningful relationships with customers. As AI implementations continue to evolve, expect even greater gains in performance, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

CVS Health introduced a mobile app that allows shoppers in a handful of stores to unlock secured display cabinets to access merchandise, the company announced in January. The feature is a test for now. 

With the app, which succeeds the retailer’s previous CVS Pharmacy app, shoppers can also access savings offers and pick up prescriptions in stores using personalized barcodes. Through partnerships with Everyday Health, Headspace and other companies, CVS app users will have access to a variety of health and wellness content.

The drugstore retailer also leaned into AI for the overhaul, integrating AI into its search functions to help shoppers locate products, services and information. It plans to add a conversational AI chatbot to answer questions about medication refills and order status later this year.

CVS’ unlocking feature follows shopper frustration with retailers securing inventory in stores as a way to deter retail crime.

Some drugstores and mass-market retailers, as well as beauty retailer Ulta, have turned to locking products behind glass to prevent theft, and staffing issues further deter shoppers from buying the products they want, experts told Retail Dive. While 62% of consumers will wait for assistance from a store staffer if they find a product locked up, 27% of shoppers will abandon their purchase or choose a different retailer, according to a survey from the data technology company Numerator. 

CVS’ app also includes features to manage shoppers’ healthcare needs, including vaccine scheduling and prescription management. The retailer will continue enhancing its mobile app this year with additional features, including personalized recommendations and educational content for patients with chronic medical conditions and efforts to connect them to cost savings and copay assistance programs. 

“As a company, we are super focused on improving the health care experience,” Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president at CVS Health, said in a statement. “The CVS Health app will make it easier for our customers to access and manage their health and care, save time and money, and make informed decisions about their health.”

The app upgrade comes a few months after CVS announced plans to lay off 2,900 employees, about 1% of its workforce, on the back of a plan released last summer to reduce expenses by $2 billion. Just weeks after the October layoffs, CVS named David Joyner as its chief executive officer, replacing Karen Lynch. 

Alongside its cost-cutting efforts, CVS has also invested in its product assortment, welcoming several new brands. Last July, the drugstore chain introduced tween period care brand Pinkie across more than 3,300 locations. Days later, the skin care brand Curology announced its expansion into 3,800 CVS locations. 

In a bid to improve efficiency and quality in its customer support, streaming services company Brightcove became an early adopter of Amazon Q, a generative AI–powered assistant for its in-house “Expert Bot.”

When approached by Amazon, Brightcove executives immediately saw the potential to better handle technical queries from its diverse range of global clients that include the SXSW conference, Consumer Technology Association, Cancer Treatment Centers of America and the Academy Awards.

Brightcove support agents field thousands of queries, from simple instructions to reset a password to more complex help like embedding video in a WordPress site that can require significant time.

“In the past, answering this question would require a support agent to manually search through documentation and provide a detailed response,” said Scott Levine, chief product officer at Brightcove.

With the new tool, the company says it is saving time and improving its already highly regarded customer service.

“The starting point for us was ‘Can we make it easier for us to answer every single one of those questions and make ourselves do better?’” Levine said.

Delivering value in the rush to adopt generative AI tools

The Brightcove example reflects a wider trend of organizations adopting generative AI across a range of business functions, showing they can deliver real business value, a 2024 McKinsey survey found.

To gain a genuine competitive advantage, however, businesses should focus on helping people do their current jobs better and lift productivity, according to the research firm.

If generative AI tools improve the way employees provide customer service and support, it can have a real impact on the business, according to some experts.

“How you service and support customers, whether your business offers a product or an interaction, is becoming more of a differentiator,” said Melissa Copeland, founder and principal of Blue Orbit Consulting, which specializes in customer experience design and technology adoption.

The challenge is applying the technology where it delivers a dividend, not just for automation or cost cutting.

“Organizations must find the opportunity to use technology to reduce friction for customers and reduce friction for agents,” Copeland said.

Copeland cites examples of businesses that have seen a minimum 25% to 35% return on investment in the form of decreased handling time or first call resolution when deploying generative AI customer support tools. The gains could expand beyond, too.

“Then there’s thinking about new metrics beyond the traditional ways. That’s what’s really exciting about the possibilities of these tools,” she said.

Build generative AI tools with guardrails to foster trust

To deliver on the promises of generative AI, organizations must ensure the accuracy of the model to build trust, according to McKinsey.

In Brightcove’s case, it took a cautious approach, setting well-defined guardrails around the use of customer information that require permissions, rigorously testing the system, and having in-house technical experts scrutinizing the output.

“It's not one person looking at it; it's 50 people looking at it,” Levine said.

The Amazon team worked closely with Brightcove staff, teaching them how to craft questions to get the most suitable answers and taking time to train the bot on its extensive library of documentation as the source for responses.

“Streaming is complex, and that creates a lot of information about how to do it the best way across thousands of customers,” Levine said.

The bot-generated answers also include citations that link to the Brightcove source information so if the answer doesn’t look right, human experts can verify the response and feed that back to the tool. It adds an important layer of trust and teaches the model to help improve its output as it processes more queries.

“We have a lot of very technical people here at Brightcove, and when we see answers that aren’t right, we call it on it,” he said.

The end result is that the bot provides customer and product support teams with responses to customer questions. Brightcove has found it’s not only reduced the response time but also improved the overall efficiency of the support team.

“It’s about giving our customers the information they need quickly and accurately, and continuously improving that process,” he said.

Avoiding the trap of one-off tools

To maximize the potential of generative AI, McKinsey recommends that organizations avoid one-off solutions and invest the time and resources into tools that will scale.

Copeland cautioned that organizations must think through the longevity of the platform they’ll be working with.

“Use as your base platform a known entity, such as a large outfit that already offers customer experience tools you’re using across the business,” Copeland said.

While organizations might want to experiment, they also need to avoid different internal groups building their own tools independently to ensure widest application of new tools.

“If you get one-off customizations, it’s difficult to pull together, and when things are done in bits and pieces without any kind of central coordination, it becomes a nightmare to centralize and scale,” Copeland said.

In the case of Brightcove, Levine sees ways to expand the company’s use of generative AI to address more complex tasks such as enhancing metadata management on video streams or automating translation services to convert a video into multiple languages.

“Our customers have footprints all around the world, and if we can enable them to translate content on the fly, that's another use case for generative AI,” Levine said.

Above all, Brightcove’s use of Amazon Q is meant to not only improving operational efficiency but also add value to its service for customers.

“Everything we do starts with that mindset and driving business value,” he said.

Nearly 3 in 5 consumers say they would be more likely to try a brand that incorporates voice technology in their customer service, according to a Telus Digital Experience survey of 1,000 people released in October. 

The top benefits of a voice-driven experience are speed, efficiency and convenience. More than one-third of respondents said speaking is faster than typing, and nearly one-third said voice commands are simpler than navigating menus.

Voice technology still has room for improvement, however. Two-thirds of respondents said their voice assistant has misunderstood their commands, and more than half want to see improved accuracy in responses.

The future of voice technology could see it blended into a unified customer service experience that spans websites, apps and live agents. More than two-thirds of consumers say they increased their use of voice tech, from assistants to smart speakers, in the past year.

Voice technology is best suited for resolving simple, uncontroversial issues like rescheduling appointments or paying bills, according to Thomas Randall, director of AI market research at Info-Tech Research Group. More complicated problems are better addressed by humans.

“Customers calling for service are often already emotionally charged, and having a voice option to tell them ‘they understand’ leads to an inauthentic experience and demand for a human agent, which defeats the purpose of investing in the voice option,” Randall told CX Dive in an email.

Companies may not want to discount the opportunities for an automation-to-human handoff, however.

For example, a customer seeking to change their airline ticket may start with an automated voice assistant on the airline’s app, said Tobias Dengel, president of Telus Digital Solutions. If any problems arise the conversation could continue with a live representative who is prepared to continue the conversation from where it left off.

“The primary shift that companies and brands need to make is to view the entire customer journey as a cohesive multimodal voice experience, rather than segmenting it into apps, bots and human interactions,” Dengel told CX Dive in an email. 

Another area where voice technology is falling short is accent recognition. Nearly half of respondents said voice tech should have a better understanding and interpretation of accents and dialects, according to Telus Digital Experience.

Generative AI is improving the power of voice technology when it comes to accent recognition, as well as other customer frustrations, according to Dengel and Randall.

“A sticking point for voice technology is the lag time in responses or misunderstanding accents or key phrases,” Randall said. “With larger datasets to draw on and quicker response times, voice technology can reach real-time performance for a seamless customer experience.”

Wedding planning can be a complicated, stressful experience that often spans more than a year and involves coordinating multiple merchants. In recognition, David’s Bridal has shifted its CX strategy to extend its services beyond dress shopping and into the entire planning process.

The average bride hires 14 different vendors for her wedding day, according to Elina Vilk, chief business officer at David's Bridal. Brides will likely meet with three times that number of vendors during the leadup as they try to find the best provider for their needs.

David’s Bridal aims to smooth out the experience through Pearl by David’s, an app that helps brides plan their wedding with a digital checklist to keep dates and deadlines in order. The company launched the app in January 2023 as an all-in-one planning tool.

Vilk, who joined David’s Bridal in September, is upgrading the app to do even more, with new features slated to go live in 2025. Vilk was charged with leading the growth and development of Pearl as the retailer continues to rebuild its business following its April 2023 bankruptcy.

Vilk said Pearl, and by extension David’s Bridal, can create better experiences for brides by evolving beyond a planning tool to become a digital assistant that offers inspiration, simplifies scheduling and provides timely reminders.

“The way we're enhancing the experience is moving from being a checklist to being a copilot,” Vilk told CX Dive.

What is Pearl?

Pearl, a mobile app for wedding planning, delivers four major features. Brides can start using the app by answering a few questions about the kind of wedding they want. Pearl uses this information to create a vision board that offers advice on topics from dresses to floral arrangements.

From there, brides can create a checklist to help track what needs to be done and when. The app has options to design a wedding registry, including room-by-room inspiration for gift ideas, as well as templates for building a wedding website.

Pearl also ties directly into David’s Bridal’s loyalty program, Diamond. The two apps share login information to make swapping between the two easy, according to Vilk. Many vendors on Pearl also offer discounts for Diamond members.

Making booking vendors as easy as restaurant reservations

One of the most important considerations when upgrading a piece of software like Pearl is understanding how new technology impacts customers, according to Vilk, who comes from a B2B background, with more than 25 years spent at roles in tech companies including Hootsuite, WooCommerce and Meta. New tech that just looks more elegant isn’t very useful — it needs to improve the actual user experience.

With this in mind, the first thing Vilk did after joining David’s Bridal was map out the customer journey to understand the pain points brides face during the planning process. From there, Vilk pinpointed the biggest points of friction and began thinking about how Pearl could help.

“What are the different things she does at different points in time, and how do we enhance that experience from A to Z?” Vilk said.

One of these pain points was vendor booking. While Pearl can currently help brides find vendors and track meetings, Vilk sees room for improvement. 

Appointment bookings are one of the upgrades slated to launch in 2025, according to Vilk. The goal is that brides can not only discover vendors through Pearl, but also use the app to set up meetings and add them to the calendar. 

“It really shouldn't be any different than getting a reservation for a restaurant,” Vilk said.

Improving the local experience

Pearl aims to improve customer experience for third-party vendors, too.

Weddings are very personal and usually very local. A bride in Florida may be thinking about beaches and seek out vendors ready to cater to a sandy wedding, while a Midwestern bride likely has a completely different aesthetic in mind.

“National appeal is important, but it's also about the local and distinct thing I'm doing in a specific city,” Vilk said. “There's going to be local restaurants, local businesses, local photographers, etc., that understand that city better than anyone else does.”

However, many of these local businesses lack the budget to offer their clients a great experience from discovery to the wedding day. Pearl wants to fill that gap, according to Vilk.

“I think when looking at the pain points for the brides, I'm also looking at the pain points for the businesses,” Vilk said. “How can we start to connect the two dots? How do we become the Match.com for brides and businesses?”

Wedding planning involves far more than finding and meeting with vendors, and there are other ways Pearl aims to assist brides.

David’s Bridal is exploring using AI to suggest due dates for different tasks, adding features to help brides manage their budgets, and expanding its digital marketplace. For now, Vilk is prioritizing solutions for the biggest pain points David’s Bridal customers are facing.

“There are so many things I want to solve that I see in the process,” Vilk said. “I'll think, ‘I wish I could just tackle this right now,’ but you have to prioritize, and you have to say ‘no’ to a lot of really good ideas.”

Nearly 2 in 5 senior contact center and CX decision-makers would like to see organizational leadership use customer experience data to make better, data-led decisions around the adoption of new technologies, according to a survey of 700 senior leaders released by CallMiner in September.

However, nearly half of respondents said there is lack of communication between departments, and 2 in 5 said there is a lack of clarity on how to act on data insights when aligning CX feedback across the business.

It’s up to CX leaders to fix this gap in communication, according to Deborah Alvord, VP analyst with Gartner's global customer service and support research group. Cross-department coordination breaks down when CX teams aren't collecting or conveying the data other teams need.

Customer experience teams can influence the rest of the company by learning to communicate how their data can assist other business leaders.

CX teams can start by understanding the priorities of different functions within the organization, according to Alvord. Aspects to look at include the outcomes other teams are held accountable for, the performance metrics they track, and the basis for their bonus pay.

From there, the CX department can examine its data and find where it aligns with other teams’ needs. They can pay special attention to any gaps in the data that CX metrics can fill.

“You collect the CX data that aligns to their priorities and their needs, that aligns to the gaps that they have, and you present that to them,” Alvord said. “Then you follow up to ensure that action was taken on the data.”

The result of this process is a tangible measurement of how the CX team’s data impacted other departments, from marketing to supply chain, according to Alvord. Leaders need to present results, including the return on investment for the data presented, to help others understand what CX teams need and can provide in return.

For example, product teams tend to be more focused on getting a new item out of the door than collecting sales data. They may not think about the “gold mine” of feedback the customer service team is collecting from Voice of the Customer data, according to Alvord.

“Many times the product team is so focused they’ve got blinders on, and they don't think about it,” Alvord said. “They’re just on the receiving end of the data.”

Product teams aren’t unique. The onus is on CX teams to reach out to other departments and learn about their needs. Customer experience is a valuable source of feedback and insight — provided leaders can help the rest of the business understand its value.