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CXToday.com

News and Insights for Today, and Tomorrow CX Today reports on the latest customer experience technology news and marketplace trends. Every day our tech journalists uncover the hottest topics and vendor innovations shaping the future of work.  Our coverage is fully digital offering our audience authentic news and insights on the channel of their choice. We offer daily news, weekly features, video conversations and authority content aligned to the needs of business leaders in today's world.For industry professionals, our weekly newsletter offers a range of popular stories hand-picked by our editorial team.  Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.If you're seeking editorial coverage, connect with our news desk.

  1. 2d ago

    Can AI Make Shopping Easier Without Taking Control?

    TikTok product designer Zhengyang Yang discusses using AI to turn product discovery into purchase confidence, without adding friction or taking choice away from the shopper.  AI-assisted shopping is moving beyond product recommendations and chatbots.  It is beginning to help customers compare products, interpret reviews, find the right size, and decide whether an item is actually right for them. But there is a risk: adding AI to every stage of the shopping journey can create more clicks, more uncertainty, and another interface customers need to learn.  In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Zhengyang Yang, a product designer at TikTok, about the product decisions that determine whether shopping AI helps customers make a confident decision or gets in their way.  Yang explains why AI should move customers from inspiration to confidence, reduce cognitive load, and fit into familiar shopping behaviors such as search, product pages, carts, and checkout.  The conversation covers:  How AI can help customers move from product discovery to purchase confidence  Why shopping AI should reduce cognitive load, rather than add more clicks  Where AI is most useful in the shopping journey  Why retailers should not force customers into unfamiliar AI-first flows  How “progressive assistance” can improve familiar search, browse, cart, and product-page experiences  Why customers need to see the evidence behind AI summaries and recommendations  How shoppers should be able to challenge or correct AI-generated guidance  Why a good AI shopping assistant knows when to help, when to step back, and when to let the customer exit  Yang was interviewed in a personal capacity. His views do not represent official TikTok policy or product plans.

  2. 6d ago

    Why AI Handoffs Still Make Customers Repeat Themselves

    Twilio’s Sam Richardson explains why customer context, identity, and reassurance must travel between AI, human agents, and channels.  AI customer service may be getting faster and more conversational, but too many customers are still being forced to repeat themselves when they move between bots, agents, and channels.  In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Sam Richardson, Director of Executive Engagement at Twilio, about the real challenge behind AI handoffs: ensuring that customer context, conversation history, identity, and trust travel with the interaction.  Twilio research found that 74% of consumers have to repeat information to AI assistants at least some of the time.  Richardson explains why this is not simply an AI-model problem. It can stem from fragmented customer data, disconnected systems, incomplete CRM and knowledge-base integration, and the growing complexity of identity verification and fraud prevention.  The conversation explores:  Why customers still repeat information after an AI interaction  The data and system challenges behind failed AI-to-human handoffs  Why identity verification can make continuity harder  What a “warm handoff” should look like in the AI era  Why acknowledgment and reassurance matter during service transfers  When slower AI deployment can protect customer trust  Why businesses and customers often judge the same AI experience differently  The key question for contact center leaders is simple: when an AI interaction ends, does the next person or channel know what has already happened, or does the customer have to start again?

  3. Oct 21

    Has Salesforce Bought Its Missing Engagement Engine?

    Constellation Research’s Liz Miller explains why Salesforce’s $5.66B Braze deal is about the execution layer behind data, AI, content, and customer engagement.  Salesforce has agreed to acquire Braze for $5.66B. The deal adds Braze’s real-time, cross-channel customer engagement and decisioning capabilities to Salesforce’s growing stack of CRM, data, AI, and content tools.  But, according to Liz Miller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, this is about more than another acquisition.  Salesforce has spent years building out Customer 360, Data 360, Agentforce, and, more recently, Contentful. The missing piece was how brands actually execute engagement at scale: delivering a major product announcement to millions while also managing personalized, timely communication with individual customers.  In this CX Today interview, Miller discusses whether Braze gives Salesforce the engine it needed to turn customer data and AI into real-time customer engagement.  The conversation covers:  Why Salesforce’s Braze acquisition was not a surprise  The engagement execution gap in Salesforce’s wider strategy  Why data and AI are only useful when brands can act on them  The challenge of balancing mass brand communication with one-to-one engagement  What the acquisition could mean for Salesforce Marketing Cloud  Why Braze customers may be concerned about cost, simplicity, and innovation  Where Data 360, Contentful, Braze, and Agentforce could fit together  The integration risks that could define the deal’s success

  4. Oct 19

    Is Contact Center AI Making Customer Service Worse?

    Contact centers are under pressure to automate, cut costs, and reduce customer contact. But are efficiency targets improving service, or simply making it harder for customers to get help?  In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Natalie Beckerman, Chief Business Officer at iQor and author of When Did You Stop Caring?, about the “caring recession” she believes has taken hold in customer service.  Beckerman explains why containment, deflection, and average handle time can hide unresolved customer problems, repeat contacts, and declining trust.  She also shares where automation can genuinely improve the customer experience, when it becomes a barrier to human support, and why agents should be involved in journey and technology design.  The conversation covers:  Why reducing contact is not always the same as improving CX  The customer-service risks hidden behind containment and deflection rates  Why repeat contact can expose a failed self-service journey  Where AI and automation genuinely make service easier  How automation can trap customers in loops and block human help  Why frontline agents should shape service and technology decisions  The metrics leaders should use alongside efficiency measures  Natalie Beckerman’s book, When Did You Stop Caring? Reignite Humanity in a World Obsessed with Efficiency, explores how businesses can restore care to customer and employee experiences.

  5. Oct 16

    Why Customer Engagement Is Still Too Slow to Be Personal

    Brands have more customer data, dashboards, and campaign tools than ever. Yet turning a useful customer signal into the right action can still take too long.  In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher speaks with Kabir Shahani, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Amperity, about Pér, Amperity’s new customer data agent.  Shahani explains why customer engagement often slows down after a business spots the signal, as information passes between analytics, marketing, service, and activation teams.  He also shares an early MacKenzie-Childs use case, where Pér analyzed survey feedback to identify customers connected to wedding and registry purchases and proposed a possible engagement journey.  The conversation explores:  Why fragmented customer data still creates slow decision-making  How Pér moves from investigation to recommendation and approval  The difference between generic AI tools and specialized customer-data intelligence  Why brands need evidence, permissions, and human approval before acting  How to avoid intrusive outreach, including promotions during unresolved service issues  When personalization is useful and when restraint is the better customer experience

  6. Oct 12

    NRG CX Chief: Churn Is a Warning Sign, Not Just a Retention Number

    In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher, Associate Editor at CX Today, speaks with Suzie Dieth, VP and Chief Experience Officer at NRG, about why churn should concern every customer experience leader. In deregulated energy markets, customers have plenty of options and can switch providers with relative ease. Dieth explains why the decision to leave often starts much earlier, and what businesses can do to spot the warning signs before it is too late. A customer switching provider is rarely a single-moment decision. In competitive energy markets, a higher-than-expected bill, a home move, poor communication, or an uninspiring renewal offer can all become reasons to look elsewhere. For Dieth, churn is not simply a number to reduce; it is a signal that customers may no longer feel the value or connection needed to stay. In this CX Today interview, Dieth discusses: 🔴 The moments most likely to trigger churn, including bill shock, relocation, and contract renewal, and why these points demand proactive customer support. 🔴 How NRG seeks to build trust through tailored support, payment assistance, competitive renewal plans, and weekly usage updates that help customers avoid surprises. 🔴 Why NPS and CSAT are only useful when connected to retention, customer behavior, revenue, and the operational changes teams need to make. 🔴 Why employee experience and AI both matter, but neither can replace the human judgment needed to understand customer needs and act on them. For more Customer Experience tech news visit https://www.cxtoday.com

  7. Oct 9

    Retailers Are Moving to WhatsApp. Can They Avoid Turning It into Spam?

    In this CX Today interview, Rhys Fisher, Associate Editor at CX Today, speaks with Kim Johal, Retail Specialist at Infobip, about WhatsApp’s growing role in UK retail customer engagement.  Infobip’s research points to a shift away from one-way notifications and toward richer conversations across service, shopping, loyalty, and returns. Johal explains why the next challenge for retailers is not sending more messages, but making every interaction feel relevant enough to deserve a place in a customer’s inbox.  WhatsApp is already in shoppers’ pockets. Retailers are now racing to make it part of the customer journey.  But there is a fine line between a useful conversation and another message a customer wants to mute.  Johal discusses why WhatsApp is gaining traction across UK retail, and how AI, customer data, and rich messaging channels could reshape everything from product discovery to returns.  They cover:  • Why consumers are moving away from phone calls and toward conversational channels that support text, images, updates, and real-time service.  • Why personalization needs to go beyond “Hi, first name,” using consented behavioral data to make a message timely and useful.  • How agentic AI can support product availability, sizing questions, store locations, returns, and purchase decisions without forcing customers through a rigid chatbot flow.  • Why future retail engagement may be driven by customer preference across WhatsApp, Apple Business Messenger, and RCS, rather than a brand deciding where the conversation happens.  Johal also explains why returns are becoming an important AI use case. Better sizing, product guidance, and purchase support can help customers make more confident choices before they buy.  For retail and CX leaders, start by identifying where customers already ask for help, then connect those moments across service, commerce, and loyalty.

  8. Oct 8

    Twilio: Voice Is CX’s Next Breaking Point

    Are customer experiences becoming too clunky for the way people now want to communicate? In this CX Today interview, Rob Wilkinson speaks with Peter Bell, VP of Marketing, EMEA at Twilio, about how voice is changing the way consumers interact with technology, and what that means for brands designing the next generation of digital customer journeys. Peter explores Twilio research showing that almost a quarter of Brits now talk more than they type when using technology, rising to 33 percent among Gen Z. He explains why voice is becoming a more natural interface for customers, where it can reduce friction, and why brands should avoid treating it as a one-size-fits-all solution. The conversation also covers the importance of context, sentiment, and conversational intelligence in customer engagement. Peter shares why businesses need to design processes around the customer first, then apply the right technology, rather than recreating old IVR frustrations with newer tools. The discussion also looks at voice as part of brand identity, from tone and personality to the long-term emotional associations customers build with a company’s service experience. Watch the full interview to learn how voice, AI, and communications infrastructure are reshaping customer engagement.

    Twilio: Voice Is CX’s Next Breaking Point
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About

News and Insights for Today, and Tomorrow CX Today reports on the latest customer experience technology news and marketplace trends. Every day our tech journalists uncover the hottest topics and vendor innovations shaping the future of work.  Our coverage is fully digital offering our audience authentic news and insights on the channel of their choice. We offer daily news, weekly features, video conversations and authority content aligned to the needs of business leaders in today's world.For industry professionals, our weekly newsletter offers a range of popular stories hand-picked by our editorial team.  Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.If you're seeking editorial coverage, connect with our news desk.

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  • Creator
    CXToday.com
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    558
  • Rating
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    © 2026 Today Digital Ltd - CX Today
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