#Customer Experience

#Customer Experience

Schaefer's book makes the case that people increasingly delegate their thinking and decision-making to AI. He illustrates this point with a simple yet powerful analogy: If you're in the diaper business, babies are the end users, but they are not the decision-makers. Decision-makers are the caregivers responsible for the end users. Therefore, diaper companies know to market to the caregiver responsible for the baby, not the baby.

We want guests to see, to feel, Target

That uniform wasn't just a coincidence; it was a deliberate part of the experience. It likely projected competence, professionalism, and trust before the employee ever said a word. In today's competitive market, a company's image is one of its most valuable assets. We spend thousands on branding, websites, and marketing, but often overlook one of the most powerful and consistent brand touchpoints: our own team.

When brands believe technology will mitigate their need to intimately understand their audience, they will undoubtedly lose in the battle for attention. As search becomes more complex with a true understanding of voice and context being needed, surfacing content will not be the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge will be about creating an experience and narrative that people truly want to engage with.

I want to shop at your store. You're (kinda) local and you employ a ton of Portlanders and buy from local farms and breweries and wineries and bakeries. You have a great variety of local seasonal organic stuff, and also regular stuff like Triscuits and Cheerios. You have beautiful flowers and the people at the register are nice. I want to shop there.

Maybe you were at a coffee shop and when your turn came, you opened your payment app, tapped your phone on the payment device, grabbed your cappuccino, and were done. Quick and easy. Maybe too quick and easy. Did the coffee shop miss a chance to engage with you? Did Mastercard miss an opportunity to show how their brand made this "priceless" moment possible? Did you miss an opportunity to teach your 8-year-old daughter a lesson on the value of money?

This bifurcation, according to Stern, is at the separation of commodity buying and experience-based shopping. On the one hand, if someone wants a commodity item or a widely available brand, almost any store will do. A shopper might ask ChatGPT to order more Tide laundry detergent, and not care who sells it. What matters is getting Tide delivered quickly at a low price.

It all started back in the early 1990s at a meeting with our travel agent advisory board. This was a group of about a dozen standout travel advisors from across the country chosen by our sales team not just for their sales volume but for their creativity and sharp business instincts. They came from a variety of backgrounds, brought different perspectives to the table, and had all built successful businesses from the ground up. Most importantly, each was seen as savvy and articulate.

As enterprises expand AI adoption across both internal teams and end consumers, agentic AI stands out for its potential to elevate customer experience through autonomous and semi-autonomous actions. By enabling faster, more personalized interactions, agentic AI is driving demand for practical ways to deploy it at scale. The proof is in the investments. The global autonomous agents market is valued at $4.35 billion in 2025 and is forecast to surpass $100 billion by 2034 - a compound annual growth rate of more than 42%.

Today's customers don't separate their lives into channels, and they don't expect brands to either. They want experiences that feel relevant and personal, whether that's confirming a delivery, getting a reminder about an appointment, or receiving an offer they actually care about. Imagine a shopper who adds items to their cart but never checks out. Hours later, the reminder email arrives, but by then it's buried in a crowded inbox. The opportunity to recapture their attention has passed.

Offense, meanwhile, involves anticipating needs and planning for various scenarios. Defense looks like sitting still. Defense looks like reacting to rates, [and it] looks like expanding and contracting to every market term. So we're not necessarily just in a turbulent market right now. Our market and our industry are evolving faster than any of us can really reorganize our orgs to keep up. So what offense looks like is trying to anticipate those needs and being ready for anything, Snow said.

Getting ready for a new business year is a crucial time. It presents the opportunity to reflect and make a list of a strategic changes to the way your company works. Small and simple tweaks in your approach can set your business up for sustainable growth and success. With so much in the pipeline and a lot to play for, it's worth getting the early preparations off to a strong start.

Now, Honig is bringing her innovation-first mindset to Samsung in the newly created role that puts her at the helm of the tech giant's customer experience and AI transformation. Her remit? Help customers understand how they can use AI more day-to-day. "I believe we are going through the most exciting phases of change in our history," she adds. "The AI revolution is one of the most important technological shifts we'll experience in our lifetime."