We asked three top voices in commerce and retail what they think will matter most for CX strategy in 2023.
Johan Sommar, Chief Strategist at Avensia, and Jimmy Ekbäck, CTO & Co-founder of Occtoo, and Jacob Rastad, COO of Nordic Nest, share their favourite technologies, which companies inspire them, and what they will be focusing on to create better CX in 2023.
What do you think we will be the most important CX trends to focus on in 2023?
Jacob Rastad, Nordic Nest: The ability to offer your customers a truly personalized experience. I'm not talking about product recommendation engines, or similar, they've has been around for a while. I mean the true wow experience you can give a customer when you truly know them. Creating that capability at scale will be a high priority!
Johan Sommar, Avensia: Do more with what you already have! I think it’s time to start to use the data you already have about customers to increase value and relevance in the experience. It is also the time to do new things with the data you already have. Maybe you have built one app/experience using your data, how can you re-use it in a new context to add more value?
Jimmy Ekbäck, Occtoo: I believe that the online and offline retail experience will be merged more clearly into one experience. A digital experience that also has geographical reference is very interesting.
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What should Chief Digital Officers and Chief Technology Officers be focusing on if they want to deliver better CX in 2023?
Jacob Rastad, Nordic Nest: Breaking down obstacles that are in the way. The solution could be to move to a Composable architecture if you're currently stuck with tools that hinder you from moving forward, but it could also be to consolidate data from different silos and make it available for your CX teams to use. You need to empower the team with the right tools and access to data!
Johan Sommar, Avensia: You need to focus more on rapid experimentation. Today, speed is crucial and it’s so important to ship MVP’s and see how customers responds. Dependent on their feedback you can scale or kill the initiative. Make sure to invest in tools that help you do that. It shouldn’t be hard, expensive and painful, it should be fast, fun and loops with learning. Occtoo’s Experience Data Platform is really a good tool to enable rapid experimentation!
Jimmy Ekbäck, Occtoo: Create more customer interactions, digital screens, apps, in-store, widgets, etc. and in those interactions create more relevance.
What are your 3 go-to technology or software tools for building stronger customer experience?
Jacob Rastad, Nordic Nest: My favourites are Contentful and Voyado and then adding Occtoo on top. That really creates the perfect setup!
Jimmy Ekbäck, Occtoo: I think you need to put your data first and centre before you think about specific technology. You have to be on top of your Product and Customer data and how you activate these data assets to bring relevance into your experiences in all touchpoints.
Which company or thought-leader inspires you in the CX space and why?
Jacob Rastad, Nordic Nest: I really like Kjell & Company and Lyko. You really get inspired by how they are pushing CX to new levels but in different ways!
Jimmy Ekbäck, Occtoo: I love to see what Cartier does within the high-end luxury industry in terms of innovation and digitalization.