From Alexander Graham Bell to an AI assistant guiding your customer journey, CX has come a long way (baby)!

In the past 150 years, more progress has been made in establishing and redefining the customer experience (CX) than in all of recorded human history. Technology innovation has been the chief catalyst.

After centuries of purely face-to-face and over-the-counter transactions, commercial interactions took a quantum leap forward in 1876. In that year, according to the US Library of Congress, the invention of the telephone ushered in the effective commencement of the modern era of customer service and the customer experience (CX). This marked the transition from face-to-face interactions to more convenient and ubiquitous voice-based communication.

The concept of modern call centers, the home of the CX, emerged almost 100 years later in the 1980s. Early versions utilized toll-free lines, typically 1-800 numbers, which allowed customers to contact brands at no cost, saving on expensive long-distance calls and garnering good will, another CX overture. These services employed live operators who handled messages, orders and service, and relayed information.

The proliferation of outsourced call centers in the 1990s ushered in the era of 24-hour, 7-day week, 365-day year support, ensuring an “always-on, always available” presence for customers in many industries. Technology advances in the late 1990s and 2000s brought powerful new interfaces often shared with customers over the web.

Customer service via social media channels was an additional significant development, bringing a sense of transparency and speed in resolving issues. This shift also altered consumer behavior, with customers expecting instant satisfaction and quick solutions to meet their needs.

In recent years, the digital transformation of customer service has reached new heights with the introduction of technologies such as co-browsing and session replays. Co-browsing enables customer service agents to view and interact with a customer’s web browser in real-time, enabling them to provide direct assistance by gaining control of a user’s browser screen and guiding them through solutions. Session replays also provide a boost by enabling agents to review a user’s session to relive their customer experience.

The future of customer service

As the future unfolds, customer service will continue to evolve, shaped by emerging technologies like generative AI and shifting consumer expectations. The future of customer service hinges on technological innovation that conveys a personalized touch that makes customers feel valued and understood.

Fast forward to 2024 and the most advanced contact centers are being launched by some of the largest organizations in the world such as Maximus, IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Gannett.  

The newest contact centers are designed to deliver trusted information and customer services to transform the CX with valuable insights and resources through intelligent automation.

Cutting-edge technology solutions such as Maximus TXM embodies the innovative customer experience of the future, integrating emerging technologies, advanced AI, and human-centered design principles — all in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness within contact center operations, such as reducing onboarding costs, improving quality performance, and decreasing employee turnover.

The next-generation CX integrates customer interactions and data insights about them and provides these in one seamless experience with secure connections to major cloud services such as AWS and Salesforce.

AI virtual agents become conversational and multi-language across web chat and voice channels. The human customer can either be fully serviced by the AI engines or be routed to a live agent with an accelerated path to resolution based on the bot’s analysis and intelligent routing methodology. Integration with CRM clouds like Salesforce allows for the storage, analysis, and annotation of each call or chat recording, within the context of other relevant information, enabling real-time intent, sentiment, and outcome analysis.   

AI and analytics provide agents with immediate guidance on recommended next best action to service callers in real-time while providing actionable insights and data to improve the caller experience in future interactions.

Continuous program improvement is a hallmark of the technologies driving next-generation contact centers that deliver the customer experience of the future. In addition to raising the expectations and satisfaction of customers, these new services enable contact center operators in commercial enterprise and government organizations to attract, hire, train, and empower employees to improve customer engagement.

In summary, from check-out counters and early voice communications all the way to artificial intelligence guiding humans through interactions, CX has come a long way since the first commercial telephone call.  Most major advances have occurred within the past 50 years. New thinking and capability have emerged every year in the last decade.

While automation, AI, and algorithms have transformed the experience, the human element remains at the heart of CX to keep the mission grounded in reality. In this process, humans must always feel valued with empathy and the sense that you “know” them. 

Industry leaders at innovative firms are working on some pretty amazing technologies that will further change the landscape and help us all continue to drive better and more efficient CX. The development of ever larger, large language models and more advanced generative AI will lead to a customer experience that will feel a bit like the amazing but yet unrealized vision for the Metaverse. Human-like AI agents and avatars — already in development and indistinguishable in speech patterns from humans — will welcome and guide you through your brand experience as high-powered agents who have awareness of your preferences and previous interactions stored and sorted. Your personalized brand assistant will anticipate the source of your inquiry and resolve it with upgrades as well as novel, helpful offers and suggestions. The future of CX is one in which AI will guide you through your customer journey, bringing you to easier decisions and making the entire CX far more productive and efficient for all.