For years, delivering strong customer experience (CX) has been critical to an organization’s success—yet it’s still difficult to deliver on. Here’s how marketers need to think about CX success in 2021.

We recently spoke with Sarah Hodkinson, head of direct acquisition at NortonLifeLock, about the value of focusing on customer experience (CX), why organizations find it so difficult to implement, and how to measure CX success.

Bank of America’s digital channels and technologies such as Erica saw a significant rise in customer usage in Q1 2021—and the bank could augment the heightened interaction by providing more access to human representatives.

How impersonal interactions can cost companies

Critical as it is, customer experience (CX) wouldn’t offer competitive differentiation if every brand was successful at delivering strong CX.

After a turbulent year, customer expectations around experience have changed. While many organizations are making progress toward meeting these new demands, more are struggling to consistently deliver the best possible customer experience (CX).

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring ActionIQ's CMO, Leah Pope, along with panelists Ekta Chopra, chief digital officer at e.l.f. Beauty, Carrie Tharp, vice president, retail and consumer at Google Cloud, and Elizabeth Shaw, strategist and CMO Advisor. They discussed why marketers must unify external and internal silos to create a CX-centric organization.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Infutor Data Solutions' Zora Senat, senior vice president, marketing and partnerships, and Ross Epstein, vice president, new projects at SafeGraph, for this Tech-Talk Webinar. They discussed how first- and third-party data can be combined to increase customer engagement.

Amid pandemic-accelerated shifts, online communities have become an integral part of the consumer journey. According to Verto Analytics, Reddit users are informed, make fast, high-value purchases, and ultimately become strong brand advocates.

Now, increasing restrictions on data collection, changes to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), and the death of the third-party cookie will mean that winning brands must reduce their dependence on third parties, and place a greater focus on first-party data and owned channels. In short, they’ll need more direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing, and less (though still plenty) advertising.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Redpoint Global's Bill Porto, senior engineering analyst, and Steve Zisk, senior product marketing manager, for this Tech-Talk Webinar. They explored how machine learning can be applied to customer data to predict and adapt to changing trends, behaviors, and responses for every kind of journey.

From product-focused creative to augmented reality tools and a proprietary delivery service, furniture seller Article is dedicated to great customer experience every step of the way. Watch Industry Voices with Duncan Blair, vice president of marketing at Article, to learn how its white-glove strategy has introduced consumers to online furniture shopping over the past year.

Amid the carnage of bankruptcies, store closures, and massive layoffs in 2020, some retail companies actually fared very well. Adjustments to supply chains, product and service bundles, stocking and inventory, and customer service have been the keys to success for big-box retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Others, such as Apple, lululemon athletica, Nike, and Starbucks, are focusing on innovating and modifying store experiences through digital integration, frictionless shopping, and atmospherics modified for a “new normal” of social distancing and sanitization.

The top digital CX priorities for companies worldwide

Neustar senior vice president of product and general manager of customer experience Steve Silvers and eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin discuss some misconceptions about cookie deprecation, what marketers should do to prepare for the loss of third-party cookies and react to the loss of Identifiers for Advertisers (IDFAs), and more about future approaches to addressability.

eMarketer is pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Litmus' Cynthia Price, vice president of marketing, along with Epsilon’s Nicole Eaton, vice president, group accounts, and Proactiv’s Dave Sims, head of customer experience. They will discuss tried and tested strategies for creating high-performing email onboarding programs.

Affiliate commerce isn’t new for many publishers, nor is it for marketers. But more content publishers are entering the affiliate space, creating new opportunities for performance marketers to reach high-quality audiences through high-quality content. Meanwhile, the affiliate model itself is evolving. Some affiliate networks now offer marketers more ways to attribute sales to multiple publisher touchpoints along the path to purchase.

Though still in the early stages of rollout, 5G technology could bring about positive changes to the retail industry, as retailers seek to maintain their digital transformation efforts and bring consumers safely back into stores in 2021. Retailers will use their IT investments in 5G to enhance the customer experience, both in-store and online.

eMarketer was pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Salesforce Datorama's Rebecca Haly, director, customer success, Compare the Market’s Travis Naughton, head of marketing technology and analytics, and Grab’s Asha Gourinath, performance marketing and CRM lead, growth markets. They discussed how APAC marketers have had to pivot their strategies and accelerate digital transformation due to the coronavirus pandemic.