“Serving specific community niches, better integrating data and striking the right balance between digital and human service are among the strategic routes that take CX from being a synonym for good service to a true competitive differentiator.” If customer experience is not at the top of your list, it should be: Here then is a compilation of five customer experience trends banks and credit unions need to be prepared for in 2022, including more community involvement and personalization, and human connection. Read more.

Whether you choose to come back to the workplace, or are required to show up in person, your office space has probably changed since you were last there. As the article points out, “a layout that is largely devoted to people working at serried desks alongside the same colleagues each day all feels very 2019.” With an emphasis on collaboration, the workplaces of today have fewer desks and cubicles, more shared spaces, and even spaces devoted to socializing and events, in short, spaces where a company’s employees and clients can have “experiences”. Read more*.

*requires email registration

The “stay at home” versus “come back to the office” debate continues to roil and companies struggle to respond to the roller-coaster ride resulting from changing guidelines. Steelcase notes that “back to work” has impacted everything — people, places, buildings, travel, almost every interaction we have with other people. It’s impossible to look at only one piece of that system to make decisions. Understanding how their employees feel about how to return is at the heart of the company’s approach. Not surprisingly, not everyone is eager to come back, and those who are, are doing so for different reasons. Read more about how one company is accommodating everyone’s needs in a number of different areas including new protocols and behaviors, cleaning regimens, physical changes to the space, and communication and transparency.

We are all excited to get back out into the world of trade shows, conferences, and in person events but it won’t be back to the old normal for any of us. Marketers need to understand that customers and attendees alike are approaching events with a completely different mindset; do they still perceive your brand the same way or do they have different expectations now? The opportunity to share how the pandemic has shaped your business can help bridge a potential gap that may have developed after 2 years of not engaging with your customers in person. Now more than ever it is important to ask your customers for their business and to show your appreciation for sticking with you during a stressful time. Read more.

After investing considerable time, energy and dollars into your customer experience program, are you really sure it’s working for everyone? This article lays out some important considerations for CX testing that many retailers tend to overlook: accessibility, omni-channel experiences, and payments. Accessibility, the author argues, remains one of the primary barriers to ubiquitous great customer experiences. Further, many fail to map the customer journey in enough depth to ensure every interaction with your brand is smooth and seamless. This is especially important to the payment experience which, they say, can round out a great customer journey or ruin it. Read more.