The evolution

of customer
experience…
a look ahead
to 2020

Celebrating 20 years
of the Global CX
Benchmarking Report
The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

Contents
1. Foreword 3

2. The evolution of an industry 4

3. How to stay relevant to 2020 and beyond 6

4. How to create a CX-centric business strategy 8

5. The basics of CX best practice 12

6. A glimpse into the future 20

7. Next steps 22

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

1. Foreword
Over the last 20 years, ensuring that ‘the customer is king’ has become
more significant than ever.

Meanwhile, the challenges facing businesses have
been exacerbated by growing cost pressures, siloed
behaviours, and the need to deliver tangible value.
Disruptive innovators have become the ‘prophets
of the new land’, and exceptional customer
experience (CX) is an undisputed differentiator in
the battleground of today’s digital world.
The last 20 years of CX benchmarking results trace
a profound acceleration of the rate of change in
customer behaviour, and their expectations are
frequently out-pacing boardroom decision making
and organisational execution.
The world has formed a digital skin. Digital
technologies are enabling information exchange
at unprecedented speeds. Social media, alongside
the always-on capability of ever-smarter devices,
have completely reinvented user attitudes and
consumer behaviours.
Changing channel choices need to be balanced
against effective deployments and necessitates
alignment between solution design and user needs.
Many established business processes weren’t
designed for, and struggle to understand, the
digital revolution. Adaptability and innovation are
key. To thrive, organisations must recognise that
exceptional CX is vital.
Successful CX demands agile organisations that can
operate in a fast-changing mobile, online, social,
and automated era. CX reputations and mistakes are
highly visible and the introduction of robotics and
game-changing Artificial Intelligence (AI) aren’t only
advancing customer expectations but require CX
journeys to be continuously re-engineered.
The goalposts are changing. What worked before
won’t necessarily meet your needs for the future.
At face value, contact resolution rates are worse
today than they were 20 years ago. But, today, we’re
not just measuring whether first contact resolution
occurred or not. We’re trying to understand whether
the agent added value in terms of the opportunity
the interaction presented.
Organisations often tend to interpret this service
evolution as an urgent and ongoing need to
implement new technologies.
However, as the Dimension Data Global CX
Benchmarking Report has proven in over 20 years of
research, successful CX is less about technology, and
more about adopting new business strategies and
customer-centric attitudes.
Today the CX landscape is complex and
sophisticated, both in design and in its impact
on the business. Its role is often misunderstood.
Frequently, it’s underplayed.
In this commentary, we’ll explore some of the
changes, challenges – and opportunities – that
you can adopt to make CX a source of competitive
advantage and improved customer loyalty and
profitability… and help you to prepare your
business as we look ahead to 2020 and beyond.

Rob Allman
Group Senior Vice President, CX at Dimension Data
Rob is a global practitioner and thought leader in CX. For over 20 years, he’s enabled
organisations to transform and grow the value of their customer relationships.

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

2. The evolution of an industry

First, let’s look at the findings from

Dimension Data’s research on the
transformation of the CX industry,
over the past two decades:

‘The customer transcends the

traditional profit and cost
centre paradigm, occupying
the central role in growth
strategies, productivity gains,
advocacy, and organisational
or brand reputation.’

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

Figure 1: The transformation of CX over the last two decades

20 years of benchmarking, call centre to customer experience

Transformation of CX

Broader channel access options. Consistent cross-channel AI enabled automation via

support for customers, via behavioural and profile
Birth of contact centre
integrated digital channels. personalisations.
2000s
Omnichannel is a top priority CX Robotics is the way forward
2016-2018 2018-2020

1990s 2010s 2017 >2020

Traditional call centres
Telephone replaced
face-to-face.
Multichannel the norm
Telephone and digital
improve customers’
channel options and an
ease of contact.
Proactive/custom CX Automated concierge
New trend towards pushed Life management services.
CX, tailored and enabled by Personalised portfolio and
analytics and technology. shared economy optimisation.

Telephone-primed CX Digital-primed CX

In the digital age, we’re seeing a return to the idea
that the customer is the most essential part of the
business; that he or she is the origin and driver of
business value, whether that’s defined as profit
or performance. Organisations committing their
entire existence to delivering a superior customer
experience are not only prospering, they’re
gaining market share. They’ve already changed
their customer experience irrevocably. They’re
setting the bar for customer experience, even for
organisations that aren’t their direct competitors,
or in the same market.
One of the seminal findings of the 2017 Global CX
Benchmarking Report was that once customers
are exposed to exceptional experience by one
organisation, they apply that yardstick to all other
organisations with which they interact.
Today, you’re not being compared to your peers;
you’re being compared to the best overall. You’re
not competing with your peers; you’re competing
with whoever has found the shortest digital route to
the customer’s sweet spot.
A constant we’ve observed – and predict will remain
ever present – is that achievement of the pinnacle of
CX is not a once-off, unique event. It’s possible only
through a culture-defining set of characteristics.
These characteristics are based on an understanding
that customer expectation and opportunity shifts go
hand in hand with the evolution of technologies and
fresh thinking from disruptive innovators. It’s clear
now that the ways in which we work, live, and play
will merge and increasingly be managed seamlessly
via aggregated data across multiple organisations.
There’s an explosive growth of voice user interface
devices in connecting organisations’ services, our
personal preferences, and the mechanics of our
day to day life. Automated personal concierge
capabilities represent a significant shift in how we
engage with organisations. More and more, people
are favouring organisations with the ability to
provide smart, integrated services.
The security of personal data is now paramount.
It must be an integral part of the new corporate
culture, as the value of such data increases
exponentially and people and governments become
emphatic about related rights and legislation.
In 2017, the Global CX Benchmarking Report found
that companies that have fully embraced digital
technology, and put the customer front and centre of
all their operations, are experiencing extraordinary
growth and profitability. In their case, the customer
is the source – not a by-product – of their success.

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

3. How to stay relevant to

2020 and beyond
What does this mean for
organisations that pre-date the
digital era, and have clawed their
way doggedly through the past
20 years of the evolution of call
centres into multichannel contact
centres, proactive automation,
and, now, into the future with
customer experience increasingly
enabled via robotics?

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

CX: why it matters • In response to public expectation, the average

Our latest research into this topic reveals some
interesting findings:
• Over 70% of executives recognise CX as their most
important strategic performance measure. Why?
Because, CX is proven to provide a bedrock for
organisational success.
number of supported channels has almost
doubled from 5 to 9 within the last five years.
By the end of 2018, it will be 11. By 2020, it may
be more. The mix offered and used will vary by
organisation, by customer, by transaction type.
• Of concern, however, is that only 10% consider
their digital business strategy to be optimised.

• Organisations committing to transforming their CX
and leveraging new digital capabilities, alongside
a human touch that’s available when necessary,
are demonstrating huge value. A staggering 91.6%
can evidence increased customer loyalty, while
84.4% report increased company profit/revenue
and 78.9% also experience a reduction in costs.
• Hardly surprising, then, that 81.4% of boardrooms
recognise CX as a competitive differentiator.
Figure 2: Digital transformation of CX in the next two years
• Some 36% don’t have a single manager
exclusively responsible for CX. Of those who do,
just 36% are at board level.
• Alarmingly, this lack of executive ownership of
CX comes at a time of unprecedented change, an
unequivocal need for digital transformation in
business, and an urgent need to evolve business
services at the pace at which digital is advancing
in our personal lives. The chart below indicates
the immediate evolution – and expansion areas –
of CX leading up to 2020.

Customer interaction levels are forecast to rise by 62% in the next two years.
71% anticipate increases to fully automated contact volumes, while 56% expect transaction via telephone to fall.

Digital assisted service volumes will... 78.2 10.6 2.4 8.8

Fully automated volumes will... 70.7 12.3 3.2 13.8

CX via social media will... 69.7 16.8 1.4 12.1

Overall interactions
62.3 21.8 9.0 6.9
(spanning all channels) will...

Proactive automation volumes will... 59.5 17.8 3.2 19.5

Headcount employed will... 25.0 35.3 33.8 5.9

Telephone volumes will... 15.7 23.8 56.4 4.1

Increase Stay the same Decrease Not applicable

Common questions that • How easy is it to combine existing tools with

those on the horizon, like AI, robotic automation,
arise include: machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and
the Internet of Devices (IoD), to restore customers
• W
 hat should be the basis of your operational
to their proper place as the organisation’s most
strategy? How far do you have to stretch to
important value centre?
keep up with the digital disruptors? Is there a
way to leapfrog the innovators that are redefining • And what are the implications on the cost
entire industries? to serve?
• If you maintain an approach that views the
organisation and its customers as separate
entities fighting for a share of the budget, can you
ever deliver a truly superb customer experience?

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

4. How to create a
CX-centric business strategy
There’s a tendency to misinterpret
the evolution of CX as the need
to simply implement new
technologies. Rather, it’s a need to
adopt new business strategies.

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
CX is core to digital transformation. Digitally-relevant
businesses are focusing on aligning system user
experiences, both internally and externally, to drive
positive disruption. This means not only changing
the CX with a new application or with improved
customer service but re-arranging the entire
organisation to become more agile and responsive
to customer needs. At face value, contact resolution
rates are worse today than they were 20 years ago.
But, today, we’re not just measuring whether first
contact resolution occurred or not. We’re trying to
understand whether the agent added value in terms
of the opportunity the interaction presented.
Beyond today’s appreciation that customers are
more demanding, better able to compare services,
and ahead of most organisations in their use of
technology, is your CX creating a differentiator
for the company and, by default, promoting the
company’s value proposition?
Deeper understanding of CX through customer
analytics has brought us to the realisation that the
opportunity areas arising from varying customer
contacts enable significant business advantage.
When the phone-based contact centre was devised
some 30 years ago, it was, in theory, a comparatively
simple concept, relatively easily executed.
In reality, it took on various different guises– many
of them criticised by the public and the media.
Some early technology-based approaches, such as
interactive voice recognition (IVR), that were based
on human interaction avoidance, created angry and
resentful public debate. Today the CX landscape is
complex and sophisticated.
CX strategies must encompass any point of
contact for a customer with the business.
It can be a physical high street location or
programmers maintaining fully automated web
channels (think smart apps or AI). To a large extent,
human advisors are still answering telephones,
although they’re now increasingly supporting
digitally based channel choices – from email and
web chats to social media liaisons.
This model will continue to evolve, and the splits
will vary by operation.
Whatever your organisational intent, though, CX
does mean doing things differently. You have to be
committed to putting the customer front and centre
of everything the organisation does. You need a
plan that is agile and will offer the solution flexibility
needed to stay in line with, indeed, ahead of market
forces. This will mean changing the organisation –
not just once but whenever the market shifts.
You may already have some of the components
needed to put in place these modern day
fundamentals. Recent history indicates, however,
that you’ll need to make adjustments to enable
them to properly serve your CX ambition.
New skills
As channel choices expand, so too does the role and
associated skill profile of the supporting customer
advisor. Ten years ago, just 18% of agents were
skilled across different contact channels. Today
almost one third (32.5%) are. Recruitment strategies
are having to change. People skilled at voice
interaction are not necessarily equally skilled at web
chat, and vice versa.
More integration
As new channels emerge, so do new challenges.
Organisations are being driven towards connecting
customer journeys. First appearing in the
benchmarking report in 2013, omnichannel
(the concept of facilitating users’ natural channel-
hopping behaviour to provide consistent customer
experiences), is one of today’s top business visions.
Yet, only 8.4% of organisations have all channels
connected. 79.8% are aiming to have most channels
– if not all – connected by the end of 2019. Almost a
quarter (23.9%) still have no channels connected.
Those providing an average of 11 channels are
most likely to be implementing a strategy to instead
connect relevant or core channels. The biggest
challenge to omnichannel, beyond technology
constraints, is disparate management of the
channels and the corresponding availability and
capture of valuable data. 58.5% of organisations say
their channels are managed in silos (with different
management agendas).
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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

Figure 3: An experience-centric business strategy

CX
Transformation
al Cust
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Reduce costs
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et
es Understand
in
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Sa

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Wo

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Omnic
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Grow revenues
Self-se

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Todays
expected CX Integrate
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vice

Pro
Dis

active service
vic
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Automate
tri

ut
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S Improve
b

io
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re
Fu

nt

m
lfi

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en ct
l

t Robotics & AI
nta
Co Optimise

Digitise business

Clearly, for CX to deliver the desired consistent results By 2017, staff productivity ranked just sixth, as
for both customers and the organisation, a common executive commitment to CX increased and
CX strategy must be used by every department. It also analytics showed a picture of customers and agents
means applying to digital options the management that didn’t match up with early contact centre ideas
basics used on live agent or telephone channels. about productivity.

Today the relationship between business results,

Different metrics employee engagement, and CX is better understood.
Organisations are seeking the correct balance of
As CX techniques and service models develop, so do services for their brand positioning. To achieve this
performance metrics. In 2008, 59.1% of organisations they need more effective, relevant measurements
viewed contact centres as a cost centre and their of ROI. Yet, ROI measurement is actually falling,
metrics were designed accordingly. The metrics when it should be the fuel to the engine and the
focused heavily on staff productivity. business vision. Without it, investments in, effective
deployment, and ongoing refinement of new
By 2013, although 71.6% agreed that CX was technology will be limited.
a differentiator, staff productivity was still
the second most important measurement of Proof of value is an emerging measure that
organisational performance. will become critical in CX transformation
measurement and investment.

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

New perspective on technology

A critical insight has been that customer experiences are becoming disjointed - largely because technology is
being applied in a disjointed way. Technology should be used to create excellence rather than purely for its own
sake. This understanding is particularly important as we stand on the brink of the robotics era. It will entirely
reshape service reality.

If you’re aiming for an experience-centric strategy, know that:

• CX transformation needs a strategy

• connected CX journeys need design informed by that strategy
• speed of change requires that the strategy be agile

‘Proof of value
is an emerging
measure that will
become critical in
CX transformation
measurement and
investment.’

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

5. The basics of CX best practice

To remain relevant in this complex,

changing environment you need to
understand, integrate, automate, and
optimise your customer experience
strategy, creating more value for your
customers and your business.

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Figure 4: How to create a customer experience-centric business strategy: understand, integrate, automate, and optimise
The 4 core capabilities of an experience-centric strategy
Customer Omnichannel
analytics CX
Understand Integrate
Let’s explore these fundamental elements of developing a customer-centric business strategy:
Customer analytics
Why customer analytics is key:
translation of customer personalisation and
strategy to customer differentiation
engagement
Analytics is the single most CX-empowering tool
organisations have at their disposal today.
This is because of three critical, accelerating CX
trends: personalisation, robotics, and automation.
Personalisation is impossible without the ability
to harness and understand mass data. Without
access to information, automation, and robotics
are disabled.
A decade ago, 72.7% of organisations had a
centralised system to collate data and generate
management information reports. Some 49%
could track and view customer interaction journeys.
Expansion of the scope of CX responsibilities
combined with the ever-widening spread of
channels creates complexity. Digital expansion
has actually seen tracking capability decline.
Full visibility of the end to end journey is now
at just 38.3%. This needs to change.
Despite last year’s Benchmarking Report
showing that the focus on big data has grown by
75%, business intelligence capability is below
The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
Robotics Workforce optimisation
and AI and employee engagement
Automate Optimise
provide better service; increase productivity revenue growth,
increase brand and reduce cost repeat business, and
advocacy and reduce customer retention
customer effort
expectations. Fewer than half of organisations
surveyed (48.1%) have customer analytic systems
in place. Just 18.6% believe their analytic systems
meet their future needs. This disparity indicates why
well-equipped organisations operating towards a
clear strategy are performing at levels up to 10 times
better than the average benchmark.
In 2008, 25.3% of organisations were fully
cooperating on processes at an organisation-wide
level. Some 24% had formal mechanisms to share
intelligence. These capabilities are now down
to 18% and 15.1% respectively. Poor design is
becoming the top hindrance to digital success.
Collaboration on intelligence is regressing when it
should be progressing. Without a shared consistency
on the collection and analytics of data, it’s
impossible for an organisation to deliver effective
and truly personalised experiences. There’s plenty
of data available, but you must be able to interpret it
and translate it to actionable insights.
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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

Omnichannel CX
Why omnichannel CX is important:

realigns and offers experience- provides better reduces customer drives new revenues
derives value
integrates your centric customer service, increases effort through
from holistic data
business to deliver a engagement that is brand advocacy relevance and
capture
better experience context-appropriate choice
and relevant

Omnichannel was first mentioned in the 2013
Benchmarking Report. It has since established
itself as the number one technology trend being
progressed by CX teams.
Yet the term is often misunderstood. Omnichannel’s
value isn’t limited to the connection of all channels.
It actually lies in the understanding and facilitation
of relevant real time data that reciprocally adds
value to the customer’s experience and the
organisation’s ability to be more productive and
grow the value of the relationship. The appropriate
connection of channels provides context – and
content – relevant to the experience to customers.
The evolution of multiple communication
touchpoints has now been enabled by the
application of valuable data and dynamic algorithm-
based intelligence. Some 79.8% of organisations are
aiming to have most, if not all, channels connected
by the end of 2019.
A decade back, some 69% of CX technology systems
were part of the enterprise architecture in some
form – versus 76.4% today. That said, in 2013,
58.8% of operations enjoyed more than a limited
involvement in the design of new CX technology
systems. Today it’s just 49.6%.
By definition when it comes to omnichannel,
involvement of the entire organisation is the only
way to achieve the desired CX outcomes.

‘Approximately 59% of
organisations say their
channels are managed
in silos (with different
management agendas).’

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

Robotics and AI
Why robotics and AI are important:

transformed customer reduction in agent increased brand increase sales and consistent
journey and operations cost and increase in perception and CX services resolution application of CX
productivity through ease of use through evaluation and strategy
knowledge capabilities

Despite the fact that the world has formed a digital
skin, levels of digital uptake by organisations have
slowed, affected by poor design, deployment, and
marketing. Customer demand for digital remains
high, but solutions fall short of customer needs.
This in spite of the fact that phone volumes have
dropped by 17% since 2015, and CX robotics has
reached its tipping point, and process automation,
AI, IoT, and IoD are creating a new reality. The
appetite for apps and social is rising as AI and IoD
focus intensifies.
In this context, the automation of customer service
is perhaps the most crucial evolution in CX today.
The effective use of automation and self-service has
redefined leading organisations’ value propositions
and created a leader/laggard dynamic. Simply
layering automation over legacy process and
dysfunctional organisational structures is not an
effective response to disruptive digital entrants.
Instead, organisations must think in terms of factors
such as the re-emergence of voice user interfaces,
now being enabled via the IoD (think Amazon Echo,
Apple’s Suri etc.) that make it possible to simplify,
serve, and enrich customer lifestyles.
Automation versus robotics
The explosion of new IoD consumer devices
underpinned by voice user interfaces (e.g. Amazon’s
Echo), combined with increasing consumer
use of messaging as a means of engaging with
organisations, means that we are primed for
exponential change in the way organisations engage
with customers. It also means that the elements that
form CX will change fundamentally.
Automation is one way of enabling an organisation
to keep pace with user shifts and demands.
However, errant use of automation can harm rather
than help the cause of CX. It can escalate frustration
to the point of disillusionment, resulting in loss of a
vast wealth of opportunity.
And, while the introduction of robotics and AI in
tandem with a human touch is critical for growing
CX at this juncture, bear in mind that the outward
focus of robotics and AI is well documented.
By contrast, the automation of tasks that increase
productivity of customer advisors offers the
opportunity for profound inwardly focused
efficiency gains, in tandem with increased employee
engagement. Inherently this will enhance CX. It also
constitutes lower risk for the organisation than a
fully cognitive self-service bot, for instance, because
it uses advances in technology to create pragmatic
value for both customers and organisations.

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
Taken in isolation, these additional demands make
the organisational CX landscape more complex and
costly. In fact, the use of digital channels to deliver
superior CX solutions is a highly effective way of
reducing cost and increasing productivity.
In 2013, just 36.4% of organisations considered
digital as a way to reduce cost. Today, 52.2% use
assisted service digital channels to reduce costs, and
56.3% see automated solutions as an additional cost
savings opportunity.
However, digital solutions do need to be designed,
managed, and maintained efficiently – and then
measured to ensure that they’re driving the correct
outcomes. Currently, just 44.3% of organisations
use return on investment as a key commercial
consideration in assessing new technology. It’s
resulting in most organisations failing to measure
costs per transaction on the vast majority of channels
they offer.
As has often been the case over the past 20 years,
the evolution of the cost savings belief has been
circular. A decade ago, in 2008, 15.8% were using
financial incentives to drive customers to lower
cost channels. They came at a lower cost precisely
Figure 5: What organisations want versus what they have
Digital transformation of CX in the next two years
Phone contacts dropped 17% from 2015, but the actual split of interactions fall way short of the desired model.
Digital uptake levels are losing momentum, as they are affected by poor deployments and unsatisfactory design and marketing.
Telephone
What is your desired split of customer interactions by channel grouping? n = 858
16
because they were digital. However, by 2013, 66.4%
of organisations believed self-service systems were
causing significant customer dissatisfaction.
Now, the top factor cited as hindering customer
usage of new channels is customer awareness and
functionality. Far from proactively driving customers
to digital offerings, organisations aren’t marketing or
effectively researching CX needs on new channels.
In 2013, the split of actual interactions was 66% for
telephone, 17% for assisted-service, and 17% for
automated channels. Progress has been made, with
the split reshaping to 54.7% (telephone), 25.2%
(assisted service), and 20.1% (automated). However,
the progress remains less than the desired position of
39.8%, 36.5% and 23.7% respectively.
While delivery on the digital vision has fallen short of
expectations, the attempts made so far have taught
us valuable lessons about uptake, and how to ensure
that solutions meet customer needs.
What we need to do now is apply the learnings to
AI and robotics, as the speed of transition is set to
intensify. Organisations that stall may not survive.
Assisted-service Automated channels
 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
How will robotics and AI evolve within CX?
Figure 6: Automated full-time equivalent (AFTE) evolution – the theory and art of the possible
Workflow based Platform specific
Complete AFTE framework
Platform based
Workflow /
macro based
• End-to-end
• Handles more
Rule based than one task
3 years ago Yesterday
If used appropriately, robotics and AI will
exponentially increase both CX and an
organisation’s productivity. They have a dual –
inside out and outside in – impact on CX.
Advances in automation have combined
machine-based learning, AI, and natural language
processing to offer powerful, highly intelligent
‘automated agents’. But, be aware, robotics and
AI deployed in a static way will not reflect the
ever changing world. We need to constantly use
‘bots’ to understand the effectiveness of customer
journeys and opportunities, while being aware of
‘bot mortality’.
Automation in general and the advances in
automation offered by robotics finally gives
organisations an all in one ability to differentiate
their services and add value to customers while
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
End-to-end AFTEs Configurable AFTEs Cognitive AFTEs (AiFTE)
• Configurable e2e AFTEs
• Quicker deployment
• Built-in analytical capability
• Machine learning
• NLP
• Object recognition
• Complete governance • Self-learning & healing
• Suggestion models
• Best practices
Today & tomorrow
reducing cost. Automated processes provide a
huge productivity gain by allowing customer
advisors to focus on their customers rather than
systems. Automation capability and intelligence
can also build up effectively, trained to be match
fit for customer-facing, AI-based self-service.
The cultural, man versus machine challenge
is profound. Managing change and concepts
such as automation anxiety for both customers
and employees is crucial to ensuring that digital
is an appropriate servant to your CX strategy
and that highly effective CX is harmonised
with the productivity benefits, cost, and growth
of automation.
The guiding star for this effort must be defining
the experience you want your customers to have.
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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
Workforce optimisation and employee engagement
Workforce optimisation and employee engagement is critical to:
grow revenues improve productivity reduce cost
The most intractable challenge of the digital era,
and the CX that it makes possible, appears to be the
difficulty of bridging a strategic desire to evolve and
address a siloed management operating model that
inherently hinders digital and workforce optimisation.
Efficiency levels are further impeded by the absence
or inconsistent use of core support technologies.
In spite of the fact that complexity levels are
growing and cost pressures are returning, many
organisations are operating without knowledge and
workforce management systems. Agent analytics
and a surge in e-learning techniques have emerged
as 2017’s top optimisation priorities. Employee skills
and experience are now at a premium.
Yet, because of increased complexity in the
workplace, agent absenteeism is twice that of
management – and has doubled since our first
report 20 years ago. If we don’t gauge engagement
levels properly, the roles imposed on agents
may become untenable and the industry will
hemorrhage experienced, high performing agents.
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breakdown improve staff
organisational silos retention and
acquisition
Emerging technologies are creating a platform for
unprecedented efficiency opportunities, both in
business and customer effort, but resources need
new skills to support the re-shaped environment.
These skills are not being provided for.
One very effective way of resolving these issues is to
view efficiency as a CX enabler.
If you’re serving the customer effectively, you’ll
automatically be highly productive. By definition,
you’ll be adapting your operating models to meet
future needs, reducing wasted effort that’s costly and
frustrating for employees and customers. You’ll be
using technology enablers to accelerate workforce
optimisation. All of which will provide a significant
return on investment in digital transformation.
 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
Engaged employees =
productive employees
In 2013, the top methods for promoting employee
engagement were clear goals and process alongside
proactive communications. Yet today, and five years
down the line, just 45% of organisations say that
employee engagement levels are at a promoter
level, and rating 8/10 or better.
Budget level brands and the public sector report
the lowest engagement levels. Our understandings
around role performance are also diminishing. Back
in 2008, 69.2% of organisations had agent analytics.
Disappointingly, this has dropped to 53.8%.
Measurement and data collection tools are often
available. They’re just not being applied effectively.
In 2013, just 27.2% of organisations were tracking
volume forecasts across all CX channels. Today, 72.5%
will endeavour to forecast telephone volume, but only
36% will do the same for assisted service volumes.
There’s little business logic behind this approach.
Critical to growing the value of CX and harnessing
the value of engaged people are current and
targeted operating models that demonstrate a clear
understanding of the need to harmonise self-service,
automation, and the value of the customer advisor.
Looking back over 20 years
Average CX team sizes have remained the
• 
same for the last two decades. The 1998
benchmark was 12 agents to one manager.
The 2008 benchmark was also 12. Today
we’re at 13.
• Two decades ago, just 69% of agents
enjoyed permanent contracts; by 2013
87% did. Most recent results have levelled
out to 82.5%.
Induction training allocations averaged
• 
18.7 days as recently as 2013; despite
increasing role complexity, allowances
have since dropped by 17% to 15.6%.
• Two decades ago, agents were receiving
22 days’ vacation per annum, and 16 days
of development training. Again, we see a
drop to today: 20.5 days vacation and 9.6
days formal development training.
• L
 ength of service was as much of
a problem twenty years ago as it is
today. Back then, the average tenure
for agents was just 29.3 months. In 2017,
it was 28.7 months.
• A
 gent attrition was the same level in 1998
as it is today (19.9%). It surged to 27.5% in
2013 before settling again.
Absenteeism has almost doubled from
• 
the 5.6% (agents) and 2.2% (manager)
recorded in 1998.
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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

6. A glimpse into the future

Organisations want to reduce costs,

grow revenues, improve CX, and
transform into digital businesses.
But, how?

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

There are some clear fundamentals on which you

must structure your strategy and deploy operations.

Market relevance depends on adopting an experience-centric business strategy

focused on understanding, integrating, automating, and optimising your customer
experience and, thereby, creating more value for your customers and your business.

Establishment of trust for customers is the leading driver of CX, followed by the matching of
service experiences to brand values. Change comes at a cost and the commercials will always
linger at front of mind. But customer-centric strategies need to see beyond that. The value that
can be derived and opportunity that can be gained is evidenced by those who have committed
to transform. Their returns on investment being powerfully evidenced by customer spend
increases, improved loyalty, and operational cost savings.

Think about CX as a value enabler. Delivered effectively, CX will grow the value of your
business rather than the business having to fund CX. Take full advantage of the digital
revolution. Reshape your business model by powering personalisation, automation,
and connected customer journeys with intelligence from analytics.

Most importantly, don’t hesitate. Disruptors have already given your customers’ expectations of
all organisations that you can’t meet with your old strategies, business models, or technologies.

New disruptors in the industry are proving that strategy is the real enabler of profitability,
performance, and sustainability. Commitment to CX, using digital tools, is what actually positions
you to transform your organisation into a 21st century brand.

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The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

7. Next steps

Optimising your CX strategy

isn’t easy, regardless of your
organisation’s size, industry,
location, or level of maturity.

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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report
Dimension Data has over 30 years of experience in helping our clients navigate the challenges we’ve outlined
in this paper. We offer a range of consulting, advisory, and benchmarking services to help set you up for
success. Some of our offerings include:
Get started with one of our advisory or benchmarking exercises
Customer Experience Omnichannel
Maturity Model Optimisation Workshop Benchmarking Services
About the Global CX
Benchmarking Report
The Report is an annual research study encapsulating
20 years of CX insights and trends frequently cited
by industry analysts and quoted by the media.
It’s widely acknowledged as the most useful,
authoritative, and comprehensive report of its kind.
It’s designed to provide a single point of reference
on key aspects affecting customer interaction
management within today’s CX industry. We believe
it’s the most extensive global overview of its type.
‘The annual release of the Dimension Data Global
CX Benchmarking Report is a highly-anticipated
event in the customer experience world. For 20
years now, it has offered the definitive global
view of how technology is changing CX for both
customers and companies. With the current
explosion of devices and interaction channels,
its insights are more valuable than ever for
companies seeking to understand how to plan
their next CX moves.’ – Sheila McGee-Smith (Analyst)
Emerging trends to look out for in the 2018 CX Benchmarking Report
Achieving omnichannel
How to use automation and new channels to
deliver omnichannel experience and reduce cost
Analysing the data
How they analyse transactions and use the
insight to design conscious journeys
Introduction of AI and Robotics
How best to implement virtual assistants and
manage a blend of FTEs and aFTEs
Look out for the 2019 Report, due to be published in January 2019
To learn more visit:
https://www.dimensiondata.com/
en/expertise/customer-experience
Comparative
Throughout its 20 years, the Report
has provided data that the industry
has used to:
• support business planning (and build strategy)
• pinpoint problems using data insights and spot
areas that are falling below competitor levels
(and close the gaps)
• identify best practices and benchmark company
performance against top quartile results (and
set targets aligned to the company’s vision on
performance)
• validate performance, trends and directions taken
by peers and develop objective yardsticks (and
compare results)
• get buy-in for change by using relevant reference
data to validate a business case, new spend, and/or
transformation to a CX capability (support change)
New operating models
The organisational ownership of CX and the
right operating model to deliver
Emerging security threats
Should they use blockchain-based technologies for
ID management, personal data, and security
Stricter compliance
GDPR compliance, and the right to be forgotten,
will be a key focus in coming year
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 The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020
Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

For contact details in your region please visit dimensiondata.com/globalpresence dimensiondata.com

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