Reducing friction to build connections: 7 CX trends to prepare for in 2024

That’s according to Sören Stamer, CEO and co-founder, CoreMedia, who was put in the hotseat and tasked with sharing seven trends in seven minutes that will reshape the customer experience in 2024. Watch ‘The no BS guide to CX in 2024: 7 trends in 7 minutes’ video above.

When trends are evolving at speed, it’s clear that “whatever we do today, tomorrow, next year or years from now, is not enough anymore,” he says. “Even the best customer experience today will feel awkward and cumbersome in two years because there’s so much innovation happening.”

But if marketers can remove friction for the customer, that’s when they will see more success. With that in mind, Stamer shares seven trends that will define the customer experience in 2024:

1. More immersive experiences

From the Sphere in Las Vegas to the upcoming release of the Apple Vision Pro, marketers are going to have a “lot more screen space to create experiences that are very different.” The same thing is happening on a smaller scale with the in-store experience, where there will be more opportunities to adjust the whole experience in store to the customer, personalized and in real-time.

2. More conversational interactions

With the mass adoption of ChatGPT and the launch of Microsoft’s Copilot, customers are understanding there’s something on the other side that understands them and can respond. “We will see more customer facing experiences for brands, because now you can create experiences that are conversational to help find the answers that customers are looking for.”

3. More automated processes

AI will also help to speed up processes and take friction away from the customer experience, in a way that is much more simplified. From translating content and tone of voice for different target audiences and in different languages, and the more technical marketing and business tasks, AI can do that very effectively. “AI will be used massively in the background to automate things and optimize the understanding of customer conversations to propose the next best action.”

4. More relevant content

A lot of brands want to personalize and want to have more information – but there’s often a bottleneck in the production of that content. “What we see in the future is investment in AI to create much more content that is evergreen and relevant for different target audiences in the moment that they have certain requirements or want to solve a problem.”

5. More personalized experiences

Customers expect a personalized experience and get frustrated with offers and emails that aren’t relevant to them – but in the future there will be more opportunity to do exactly what the customer needs in the moment they need to figure it out. “This idea of having a customer experience from start to finish – from the first contact to being a loyal customer – that can be personalized is what customers want; experiences that make sense for the buyers, in their context, in their moment.”

6. More seamless journeys

The customer experience isn’t happening in one place anymore – it’s happening everywhere at the same point in time. “You have to synchronize all these different touchpoints in the moment with the same consistency that customers can switch between or use in parallel. Even the in-store experience should be in sync with the rest to be consistently the same.”

7. The human touch in digital experiences

“You can use AI masterfully to automate things but if you sprinkle human interaction on top, you have so much more conversion and a better experience, because people partly crave that experience to talk to someone who really helps them in the moment – and AI is not there yet,” says Stamer.

Just look at what Apple has done with the retail experience it has created in-store and online with its Genius experts. “You can have a digital experience in one click and you can talk to a human who helps you out in the moment – that makes a difference, and we see amazing numbers when you blend these two things together.”

To help companies address these CX trends and rising customer expectations, CoreMedia extended its CMS and DXP offerings with a Cloud Contact Center to facilitate automated personalized conversations with a human touch, from one single platform. Get a demo to learn more.