The times have changed & customer experience (CX) is a major source of income and growth for businesses around the world. As the discipline has increased in relevance and legitimacy, so has the number of people working in it. At family dinners, CX is no longer relegated to the kids' table; it has taken its proper place at the head of the table. Customers have high expectations, and businesses understand the value of investing in CX. Here are some interesting statistics that will boost your excitement for CX.

To get the most out of AI and ML to better meet changing customer needs, enterprises need to start integrating their business units, operations and datasets into a more consolidated entity. This is according to Archana Arakkal, Machine Learning Engineer at Synthesis, who was speaking ahead of a webinar on the Customer Service of the Future, to be hosted by Synthesis, AWS and Salesforce next month. Every engagement between the customer and the brand is part of the overall customer experience, and customers expect a great deal more of this experience than they did 10 years ago, says Arakkal. "For example, traditional marketing and advertising has had to evolve beyond the old'spray and pray' approach, since customers now expect hyper-personalisation," she says. "Marketing is getting smarter about targeting customers based on their personal needs, their digital footprint, what platforms they use at what time of day. Customers aren't blind – they know brands have customer data on what they have bought before, their location and interests, so there is an inherent expectation that when they are targeted with a product, it will be a product that makes sense to them." While marketing and advertising are becoming better at personalising offers, there often remains a gap in their understanding of the customer – in the silos of data within the various brand business units, Arakkal says.

Most companies, if not all, are heavily investing in creating data and analytics teams and running numerous experimental Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases. Some AI cases could be clearly linked to the forecasted returns and can have pretty straightforward Return-of-Investment (ROI) calculations. Other applications providing better customer experience (CX) are more complex and unpredictable, making it difficult to use typical ROI calculation methods. After all, CX is subjective and largely based on perception. For instance, using facial recognition for payments could provide a seamless customer experience for shoppers by reducing the checkout time and aiding the value proposition for more self-checkout lanes.

Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and speech recognition, are changing experiences. For better or worse, these technologies have arrived, and customer expectations are rising because of them. Starcom's Future of Connected Living research project, which took existing homes and transformed them into connected smart homes over a period of six weeks earlier this year, observed the resulting changes to behaviour of the inhabitants. It saw consumer expectations rise exponentially when living in a connected home. And like it or not, emerging tech will only increase customer expectations for better experiences from here.

In the digital era, customers expect contextual, intuitive and experiential engagement with businesses across touchpoints. As expectations rise, contact centers have evolved from voice telephony to proactive, agent-less, self-enabling hubs that deliver personalized, omni-channel customer experiences. By 2020, Digital 2.0 technologies such as machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), biometrics and robotic process automation (RPA) will extend the capabilities of contact centers by enabling convergence of systems for digital efficiencies, self-service capabilities and zero-UI. Although business leaders realize the need for digital CX, there is only minimal integration among various functions within the organization. Thus breaking the silos is a critical task for leaders in providing superior CX.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been there for several decades now but has followed hype cycles of renewed'springs' and cold'winters'. For one very simple reason – we, as consumers, want to do more with less. We want our lives to be easier. Omnipresent smart devices coupled with improved technology of AI promises to deliver that panacea. But are enterprises maximizing on this opportunity to deliver a better customer experience? Many organizations are indeed investing in AI to enhance their CX or to make their product & services smarter and more efficient.

Stop thinking about AI, IoT, and blockchain as buzzwords or scary disruptive challenges you need to overcome. It's time to get down to the practical, tangible, amazing things they can do for you right now.

Here are three trends that bear watching for the second half of 2017. Over the last six weeks, I have attended or spoken at seven industry events in the U.S. and Canada. If that doesn't cover the ground, I don't know what does. After a while, it's all a blur, and that's why I take lots of notes. With that much immersion in and around collaboration, it's a good time to pause and share three trends I think bear watching for the second half of 2017.