Happy Friday! We’re bringing you the latest roundup of industry news. This week, we’re looking at Zendesk’s newest integration, Amazon Prime changes, and the recent Gartner survey.
Key news
- Alida introduced its newest Summer 2022 product release – Customer Journeys – as well as 15 new features to the Total Experience Management platform
- NICE has been recognised as a leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Unilever set to raise prices by 11% due to the global issue of inflation. Increased advertising will follow parallel to tackle this hike.
- Shopify have laid off 10% (roughly 1000 individuals) of its workforce, as the dust from the pandemic starts to settle
GetFeedback and Zendesk integration
GetFeedback and Zendesk are integrating to combine customer feedback with customer data. This is to cover blind spots in customer interactions and create a single source of insights for joint customers.
Recent research shows that more than half (61%) of CX professionals say that real-time customer insights are very important, but only a third (32%) strongly believe their current CX solution can meet their needs.
Key features of the integration include:
- Automatically send surveys after every solved ticket. Customers can send branded surveys after every interaction, personalised with Zendesk customer information without manual effort.
- Better understand customers with contextual insights. Customers will fuse GetFeedback data with Zendesk’s operational and customer data. This will measure sentiment and unlock actionable information across channels, segments, agents, and more.
- Improve every customer support interaction. With a holistic view of the customer, support and service teams can make better-informed decisions and improve customer satisfaction and engagement.
- Empower teams to be informed decision-makers. Customers will see Zendesk ticket data, KPIs, and metrics in GetFeedback for analysis and action.
Amazon to increase Prime membership price within the year
E-commerce conglomerate Amazon are set to increase its Prime membership subscription across Europe. The price hike will come in September, and will work out to up to 43% a year across the continent.
The subscription price for the UK is set to increase by 20%, from £79 to £95 yearly. This will be the first Prime price increase in the UK. Amazon have commented that this is a result of increased inflation and operating costs.
Here we have comment from Hugh Fletcher, Global Head of Thought Leadership and Innovation at Wunderman Thompson Commerce:
- “This proposition could mean Amazon – much like its Netflix counterpart – scares away subscribers despite its grip on the eCommerce subscriber market. As people’s overall costs went up, Netflix and other forms of entertainment became easy luxuries to cut down on. In Amazon’s case, shoppers can leverage its range of services and actually end up saving money, whether that’s by accessing Prime Day sales early or taking advantage of same day grocery delivery.”
In a similar vein, Netflix recently announced its loss of a million subscribers despite its biggest debut ever, Stranger Things 4, with 286.7 million hours viewed. Netflix and Amazon Prime will have to fight for users’ attention globally with new strategies.
Sacrificing small pleasures to cover bills is the sad reality we are currently facing. How subscription models develop will vary from country to country and local economies. If you had to cut your entertainment subscription this month, what would you pick and why? How is the economic downturn impacting this aspect of your life? This is now about considering where consumers’ priorities lie.
Gartner survey: chatbots to become primary customer service channel
With chatbot investment on the rise, Gartner’s recent survey has found that by 2027, they will become a primary customer service channel for an estimated 25% of organisations.
A Gartner customer service and support (CSS) survey of 50 respondents conducted online in January and February 2022 revealed 54% of respondents are using some form of chatbot, VCA or other conversational AI platform for customer-facing applications.
- In the next 2 years, chatbots are expected to have the greatest rise in value and level of deployment across organisations – Gartner research shows 50% of enterprises will spend more per fiscal year on bot and chatbot creation than traditional mobile app development
- Simultaneously, chatbot deployments continue to fall short due to a lack of actionable chatbot metrics and the maturity of chatbot infrastructure
There are many debates where it comes to the AI-ification of customer service, including that of customers missing out on human experiences. While it may be more efficient on the business side of the picture, we must also consider consumer attitudes. This is especially prevalent in the case of data privacy.
In a previous CXM article, this topic was covered; with the writer, Jeff Epstein, sharing that “Trust is key to building customer loyalty, and companies’ success depends on delivering a customer experience that is efficient and secure.”
Thanks for tuning into CXM’s weekly roundup of industry news. Check back next Friday for the latest updates of the week!