Top Digital Customer Experience (CX) Trends for 2018

Another year has passed and Digital Customer Experience (CX) finds itself – once again – at the top of many business agendas. Not surprisingly however, considering many experts are calling CX ‘the new battlefield’. Dramatic, I know – but there is some truth in the expression. In fact, 2018 is the year Gartner predicted that more than 50% of organisations will redirect their investments towards customer experience innovations. So why is there such a high demand to provide a good digital customer experience? And as a result, what kinds of innovations and trends can we expect to see this year?

Today’s customers are in search of a seamless and integrated digital customer experience, which ties in multiple touchpoints, devices and interactions. Studies have even shown that 55% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience. This shift in CX is all thanks to factors such as new technology, changes in customer priorities and of course, companies such as Uber or ESPN who have set the bar high and shown customers what top-notch customer experience looks like.



So how do we achieve this seamless digital customer experience that our customers are after? We must find ways to streamline our approach for delivering an exceptional digital CX and do so by leveraging the proper solutions and technologies. And pay attention to the trends…

Here are the top 4 Digital Customer Experience trends for 2018, according to Mopinion.

1. Boosting mobile experience will be a priority

While mobile experience has already worked its way towards the ‘core’ of digital marketing, there is still plenty of room for improvement in this area. That’s right – customer experience experts are predicting that mobile will have an even more prominent role in digital CX in 2018, as businesses are looking to further enhance their web apps or native apps.



And with nearly 4.3 billion mobile phone users worldwide, this is a transition we expect will happen quite quickly…

According to a study carried out by WOW Local Marketing, more than half (52%) of customers are less likely to engage with a company due to a bad mobile experience. This often stems from factors such as poor design (e.g. difficult in-app navigation), missing content (e.g. customer support) or slow loading times.

But fear not! There are plenty of ways to improve and refine your mobile experience. One of the most effective being in-app feedback.

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2. Personalisation will gain more prominence

We are all very much aware of the term, personalisation. Some might even say it is one of the best marketing investments out there today. It gives customers exactly what they want, which are experiences, products and/or services that are truly relevant for them. In other words, it is no longer productive to ‘bombard’ our customers with irrelevant content and offers (nor does it make our customers very happy). We must now acquire a deeper understanding of our customers and cater to them on a much more personal level. What are their needs? What are their preferences? With this data, we can preemptively anticipate their needs and be there when they need us to – ensuring a positive customer experience that will keep them coming back.

81% of consumers want brands to get to know them and understand when to approach them and when not to

Accenture, 2017

Until now, personalisation hasn’t really been much of a priority among businesses. But this is definitely changing. More companies are hopping aboard the personalisation bandwagon and applying technologies that enable them to better serve their customers.



A good example of a technology that will contribute to your personalisation efforts is online customer feedback. Feedback analytics tools, such as Mopinion, enable marketers and analysts to uncover useful insights about how their customers experience the website and align these with customer profiles. This article illustrates perfectly how this works well in the travel industry.

3. Self-Service Analytics is on the rise

Perhaps this is a more ‘behind-the-scenes’ trend, but self-service analysis of customer experience data is becoming more popular as well. Why you ask? Organisations are increasingly making use of big data. This data helps them identify trends and preferences that will enable them to boost customer experiences. The problem is, although this data is in the hands of the organisation, it is not always accessible to everyone. The data is often siloed in particular departments, meaning it isn’t shared outside of those departments.



However, with the surge in self-service analytics tools, more roles (including non-technical employees) are able to get their hands on the data and ‘apply it for greater business insight and results’.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Home Devices will sprout up in more places

Artificial intelligence will play a major role in 2018 – especially as data sizes grow & require more real-time responses and interactions. This technology is also expected to automate more tasks in the area of customer experience, giving digital teams more time to focus on other more valuable tasks. It will also manage cloud complexity which has the potential to not only reduce costs but also provide better security and performance.

Additionally, home devices will become even more popular, which means that more consumers will be accustomed to centralised voice usage (as opposed to individual apps). And with high competition between several different brands, including Apple, Google and Amazon, the functionality of these devices will only improve further. Along with these changes however, there will be repercussions. For example, experts predict that this will also cause standalone apps to retreat as more consumers rely on their home devices for answers/service.

Let’s aim for a proactive 2018!

Obviously we cannot predict the future, but one thing is for sure – former strategies will not always fit with what the future holds. Digital CX is a rapidly evolving field, which means businesses must continue to improve upon their processes and make forward progress.