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CEM Trends 2016: Hitting the Restart Button

Every year, the blogosphere, social networks, web sites and e-mail threads fill up with all sorts of predictions, trends and forecasts about every technology imaginable. After working in this business for any length of time, analysts become accustomed to the annual cadence of writing about trends at the end of one year and the start of the next. Here’s our latest look into the crystal ball for Customer Experience Management 2016.

This year’s trends are, however, a departure from historical approaches to predicting what’s next.

Usually analysts address such things as, say, how a hypothetical, fast growing technology is destined to take off, or how this or that forecast will slow appreciably because of x, y and z factors lurking around the corner. Instead, our trends for 2016 focus on the need for all participants in the CEM ecosystem to take a deep breath and do a reset. Why?

The short answer is that it’s much harder to succeed at CEM projects and initiatives than customer experience leaders initially expected. For example, several firms we’ve talked with have lost more than a year on projects because they didn’t fully appreciate the organizational resistance involved, or the difficulty in breaking down organizational silos to better serve customers while working more efficiently.

For DCG’s different perspective on this hot topic, take a look at Trends 2016: The Year of Starting Over with Customer Experience Management. And at the same time, see what we say about the role of CEM buyers, vendors and service providers. After all, successful projects require a strategic combination of those three key players. If resets are in order, then all three groups must think through the ramifications and determine what they can do to help make the resets succeed. This may not be as emotionally compelling as explosive growth markets or vendor drama, but it’s definitely on the agenda for 2016.


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