What's next for customer experience in 2025?

The last few years have been a transformative time for customer experience. So, what does a compelling customer experience look like in the evolving digital world? And what emerging trends can we expect to see over the next 12 months? Read on to find out.

No one needs to be told that the world has faced immense challenges in recent years. Economic instability, technological disruption, and shifting customer expectations continue to redefine the way businesses operate. The effect has been catastrophic for some businesses, particularly for those slow to embrace digital transformation. Others, however, have leveraged the opportunity to build online communities based on digital interactions.  

As the business landscape continues to shift, creating and maintaining strong relationships with customers should be a key priority – and understanding the complex mixture of emotions your customers are experiencing is an essential place to start.

The effect of uncertainty

When things go wrong unexpectedly, it is completely natural for people to experience uncertainty. We all go through different emotional states – from panic, denial, frustration, and anger, to apathy and confusion. There are several interpretations of the ‘change curve’, a model originally developed in the 1960s by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross to explain the grieving process. It has been widely utilised as a method of helping people understand their reactions to significant change or upheaval – a powerful tool for understanding today’s landscape. 

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the way businesses adapt and respond defines them both now and in the future.

Understanding how humans transition through these emotional states is extremely important for businesses. Customers and employees are all human, and the more adept businesses are at understanding these emotions, the better they will be at not reacting to challenges, but adapting and responding with agility and empathy. 

The fundamentals of customer experience

The customer experience contains three component parts – the functional, accessible and emotional: 

• The functional component represents an organisation’s products and services. 
• The accessible component represents how easy it is for customers to interact with those products and services. 
• The emotional component represents how the experience makes a customer feel. The way an experience makes a customer feel is what they are most likely to remember, and this is why this third component is the most important of the three.  

Customers will remember one of three outcomes from their experiences– the very good, the very bad, or nothing at all. As businesses continue to evolve, those that create positive emotional connections will be the ones that thrive.

The importance of collaboration

It is more important than ever for businesses – shareholders and employees alike – to work together. Work together to listen, learn, understand, and respond to customer needs in a way that leaves a lasting positive impression.  

The most important underlying principle of customer experience is empathy. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another is a core driver of sustainable business growth. Empathy builds advocacy, turning customers into loyal fans, and ultimately unlocking more revenue opportunities and driving long-term success.

Five things businesses should focus on

So, with the principle of empathy in mind, here are five key areas businesses should focus on to enhance the customer experience in the year ahead, and beyond:

1. Have a simple, clear message

What are you doing as a business and what do you want the experience for your customers and employees to be? Are you clearly communicating the message in a way that fits into the changing lives of your stakeholders?

2. Focus on your employees first

If you want your people to deliver an experience that leaves customers remembering you for the right reasons, you must consider how you are enabling your employees to do so. You cannot expect your people to treat your customers well if you are not treating them well.

3. Give your people time to think

To show empathy, employees need to be able to think and act in the interests of the customer. This may mean giving them greater flexibility to do what is right rather than sticking rigidly to pre-defined processes. If employees are only allowed to ‘do what they are told’, they will be less likely to empathise with customers. This will not only negatively affect the customer experience, but also the employee experience.

4. Listen more and talk less

This is not a time to dictate, this is a time to listen. Customers and employees need reassurance, security, and trust in the businesses they interact with. Listening to their needs, wants and concerns – and acting accordingly – will significantly impact the emotional outcomes of their experiences.

5. Close the loop

If we are listening, we should also be acting on what we hear. Far too many organisations fail to act on the feedback they capture from customers. This is an opportunity to demonstrate empathy, authenticity and sincerity, by showing customers how their feedback has influenced decisions and improvements.

What’s next?

Over the next year, we can expect an increasing emphasis on hyper-personalisation, ethical AI, and seamless omnichannel experiences.  

Customers will continue to seek convenience, but they also crave authenticity and meaningful interactions. Businesses must go beyond digital efficiencies to create truly human-centred experiences, whether online or in-person. The challenge is to balance technological advancements with a human touch.  

Change is inevitable. The world in 2120 will be vastly different, just as today’s world is unrecognisable from 1920. While the path forward may sometimes be challenging, how businesses choose to adapt, innovate, and respond to change will determine their long-term success.