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The customer experience includes all of the interactions that a customer has with a brand across all of its channels. This includes a brand’s social media presence, mobile apps, websites, customer service chat, voice calls and brick-and-mortar storefronts. Customers today expect there to be a seamless, exceptional experience across all of these mediums.

“Yeezy needs to make these decisions with its customers in mind first,” said Kristin Dorsey, vp of marketing at Linc, a retail CX platform that works with large retailers like Levi’s and Pacsun. “Are the core consumers of the Yeezy brand demanding the easy availability of an in-store experience or more of an exclusive, VIP feel? [Even] if so, expanding too quickly can kill the ‘cool’ factor of the unavailable.”

PacSun’s investments in its customer service capabilities are paying off as the apparel brand and retailer leverages the benefits of natural language processing (NLP). The company had earlier partnered with customer experience automation provider Linc for its returns management, and it expanded the relationship with Linc to include chatbots using NLP.

The opt-out email is very much in. After the pandemic’s emotional toll, brands are searching for different ways to connect with shoppers. That’s led companies spanning crafts marketplace Etsy to skincare maker Aesop to give customers the chance to not receive promotional messages for events like Mother’s Day that might rehash painful memories.

Meaningful interactions are a priceless part of creating customers for life. This is why making returns as customer-friendly as every other point in the buying journey gives you a massive competitive advantage over rivals that stick with slow, convoluted processes.

“Discord is a huge opportunity, from a customer experience perspective, for brands to stay engaged with current customers, reach new audiences and build highly engaged communities,” said Kristin Dorsey, vp of marketing at CX automation platform Linc. “Discord did start in gaming and early users were tech-savvy, but through word-of-mouth, it has grown into a way for all sorts of people with similar interests to meet up and socialize.”

Online shopping has seen an incredible rise because of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns. Indeed, total e-commerce sales for 2021 were estimated at $870.8 billion, an increase of 14%, according to the Commerce Department. But not all stores are faring the same and consumers are very particular in terms of what makes an online shopping experience worth their time and money.

Draper James’ success will ultimately come down to being prepared to connect meaningfully with all the new customers Kohl’s will provide,” said Kristin Dorsey, vp of marketing at customer experience company Linc. “If a smaller brand can provide a great customer experience to a much broader new customer base, it can retain the customers they’ll be working so hard to acquire.

While the holiday season has always delivered an influx of customer inquiries, this year’s inventory issues and delivery delays had call centers and support teams seeing an unprecedented increase in outreach. This rise in activity, coupled with a severe worker shortage, had many businesses on the ropes as they desperately tried to maintain an acceptable level of customer service.

Your customers want detailed, dynamic, always-accessible information on their order from the moment they confirm it until they have their purchase in hand. They also demand the ability to engage with you about their order when and how they want. Here’s how your brand can optimize your order support capabilities to deliver that best-in-class customer experience.

Black Friday 2020 broke records, representing the second biggest e-commerce spending day in U.S. history. With 2021 likely to offer more of the same, competition for wallet-share has never been higher and the margin for customer experience (CX) errors never thinner. Retailers looking to gain an edge should focus on how they can upgrade their CX strategy for the coming holiday season.

Whether building your chatbot or outsourcing development, these five chatbot features can aid in successfully implementing bots. Even when a tool on your shortlist supports a given feature, it’s worth considering how easy it is for developers to work with it in practice. While some chatbot platforms can support all the features on this list, some require workarounds and kludging to adapt to your specific needs.