Fixing CX: An Interview with Michael Lowenstein, Founding Principal, The Linkage Group

Agencies have reached a cross-roads. Fees have been squeezed by clients  to the point where the business model has become unsustainable. The only salvation, argues longtime industry sage Michael Farmer, is for agencies to get paid according to defined deliverables and outcomes that contribute meaningfully to client growth.

Marketers are counting on AI to streamline their campaign workflows and speed up production work through the use of autonomous agents. But before that can happen, warns Salesforce's Martin Kihn, they need to rethink how the work gets done, learn how to build and deploy agents, and build a unified data infrastructure that can be trusted.

Many consumer buying choices are now known to be ruled by subconscious emotions rather than rational thought and those decisions often get made in the "blink of an eye". Design expert Jean Pierre Lacroix calls this the "Blink Factor" and he believes brands need to own the single emotion that triggers consumer choice in their category.

Where brands almost always go wrong is assuming customers are more loyal than they are, rewarding them solely on the basis of their repeat buying behaviour. But customers who are truly loyal don't need incentives to buy - they just need confirmation that their trust and belief in the brand will be reciprocated, says loyalty expert Aaron Dauphinee.

AI is paving the way for marketing to finally usher in an era of true one-to-one marketing. As the technology evolves, it should free up marketers to give greater creative thought to making customers happy, believes Jim Sterne, who has helped steer marketers through successive waves of innovation ever since the advent of the worldwide web.

The old "give-to-get" loyalty model has grown stale. Loyalty fatigue has set in, as members tire of programs that all look the same. To break out of this sameness trap, loyalty programs need to go beyond rewards and offer members greater value to stay engaged, according to the latest edition of the Antavo Global Loyalty Report.

Too many companies today still think that improving CX is all about fixing what's broken. But for CX to make a meaningful difference in the health and success of a business, management should strive to make the everyday lives of customers better. That's why the concept of "Helpfulness" should be adopted as a core enterprise operating principle, says CX pioneer Tom DeWitt.

Despite a massive body of loyalty research over the years, there are still many unsolved puzzles, according to top researcher Dr. Yuping Liu-Thompkins, whose Loyalty Science Lab is dedicated to helping marketers find the answers they need.

Most companies today still give lip service to the idea of putting customers first. They resist making the transformational changes required to truly improve CX quality. Until they are willing to become more stakeholder centric, argues renowned CX expert Michael Lowenstein, they will struggle to win greater customer trust.

Brands still operate today as though media coverage and reach are all that matter, even as customers make every effort to evade their messaging. A new playbook is needed, according to CX expert Christina Garnett, which fosters communal spaces called "brandoms" where relationship building and brand building intersect.