WABAN, Mass., Jan. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Bruce Temkin, widely recognized as a customer experience visionary, has released his annual listing of customer experience trends to watch. Headlining the list for 2014 is Temkin's call to name 2014 "The Year of Empathy."

"As companies increasingly focus on customer experience in 2014, they will recognize that their organizations lack a deep understanding and appreciation for their customers," states Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of Temkin Group. "In 2014, we'll hear more executives talking about the need to build 'empathy' for customers, making 'empathy' THE CX word for 2014."

Here are some additional highlights from Temkin's list of customer experience trends for 2014:

• Renovation of voice of the customer (VoC) Programs. Only one out of five organizations has reached Temkin Group's two highest levels of voice of the customer (VoC) maturity. In 2014, many companies will scrap expensive and burdensome surveys, relying less on multiple-choice questions and more on text analytics of unstructured data.
• More Anticipatory Service. As companies apply analytics to more deeply understand customers, they will develop more individualized customer experiences, including the routing of callers to the phone agents who are most likely to help them and proactively recovering from issues before customers complain.
• Experience Infused into Product Development. More companies will create products with customer experience embedded throughout the entire development process. Product teams will define usability requirements, set minimum experience thresholds for product launch, and design the entire service lifecycle.
• Contact Centers Morph into Relationship Hubs. Driven by a shift in technology capabilities and consumer behavior, companies will refocus contact centers from handling individual calls to building customer loyalty.
• Deeper Appreciation of Employee Assets. Engaged employees are more than twice as likely to stay late at work if something needs to be done, help someone at work even if they're not asked, and do something that is good for the company even if it's not expected of them. We'll see more companies concentrate on employee engagement.
• Mobile, Mobile, Mobile: Retail-Digital Integration. Companies will increasingly integrate mobile with other channels, particularly focusing on combining desktop applications with mobile apps being used in physical stores.
• CX Certification Accelerates CX Education. The Customer Experience Professionals Association's newly launched Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) certification will spur demand for more CX training.

This full listing of the 14 trends can be accessed from the blog, Customer Experience Matters®, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com.

For more information about Temkin Group, visit www.TemkinGroup.com.

About Temkin Group: Temkin Group is widely recognized as a leading customer experience research and consulting firm. Many of the world's largest brands rely on its insights and advice to steer their transformational journeys. Temkin Group combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of organizations to help accelerate results. Rather than layering on cosmetic changes, Temkin Group helps companies embed practices within their culture by building four critical competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement, Compelling Brand Values, and Customer Connectedness. The firm's ongoing research identifies leading and emerging best practices across a wide range of activities for engaging the hearts and minds of customers, employees, and partners. Temkin Group also publishes Temkin Ratings (www.TemkinRatings.com), an annual evaluation of companies based on consumer feedback. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or send an email.

About Bruce Temkin: Bruce Temkin is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters (ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com). Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

Customer experience matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group.

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SOURCE Temkin Group