Customer experience trends 2025: Six analysts share their predictions

The world of customer experience has continued to evolve at breakneck speed in 2024, and there's no sign of it slowing down anytime soon. As the year draws to a close and all of us at Zoom reflect on 2024 and look forward to 2025, we thought it would be a great opportunity to check in with some CX experts. We asked six analysts to share what they think is on the horizon for CX as we move into the new year.

Of course, the past two years have all been about AIas it's taken root across the business world. Arguably the contact center space has been the most prevalent use case for Generative AI and has felt its impact most significantly. Although there is immense value to be found, the implementation of AIis not always straightforward for CX leaders, however. What will change in 2025? Where will we see the impact of AI in the contact centerin the new year? What do companies need to know to be successful in the CX space in 2025?

Let's dive into each prediction.

Autonomous AI agents set to transform CX, driving hyper-personalization and efficiency

Mila D'Antonio, Omdia

AI agents will become commonplace in CX, integrated within customer engagement platforms and handling low-value tasks autonomously. By reducing customer hold times and providing hyper-personalized support, agentic AI* agents will redefine digital customer service, creating a more fluid, responsive CX. They will free up teams to focus on what matters-creating meaningful customer connections.They will also bring hyper-personalization to the table, offering faster, more tailored support.

CCaaS + UCaaS decisions become hybrid work platform decisions

Sheila McGee-Smith, McGee-Smith Analytics

Organizations with contact center software on premises systems continue their migration to the cloud - to CCaaS. But as companies begin their research on cloud solutions, the handling of voice interactions - historically, a key requirement in a premise communications decision - has become just one part of a much larger set of criteria.As AI becomes an increasingly essential element in delivering quality customer experience, CCaaS and UCaaS have become inexorably linked with data, digital and social engagement, workforce engagement management, and analytics applications.

Companies that have traditionally been supported by unified communications and a contact center in a single premises solution are looking for a single, open platform. Zoom's Total Experiencemessage will certainly resonate with these companies as the transition to the cloud holds the promise of maximizing unstructured data collection and analysis for CX and EX AI use cases.

A customer-led approach to the application of AI will become critical in boosting customer satisfaction

Robin Gareiss, Metrigy

In 2024, when companies used any type of AI for their customer interactions, they saw CSAT improve by 22.3%, according to Metrigy's CX Optimization 2024-25global study of 544 companies. As companies expand and fine-tune their AI deployments, they will see improvements in CSAT. However, they need to evaluate and react to consumer feedback. For example, 40% of consumers avoid AI-powered chatbots because the bots don't understand what they're asking and don't have the answers. Customers get stuck in a loop. Businesses must leverage Generative AI and make sure AI agents are trained properly, using them only where appropriate. What's more, they should accelerate the deployment of agent assist** to improve the response quality and speed of addressing customer issues.

Customers will start to prefer AI agents over humans to solve simple issues

Zeus Kerravala, ZK Research

With all technology transitions, there is a period of pushback when most people believe the old way is the better way. Think back to the early days of online banking; it was common to hear, "I'll always prefer to go to the bank". People believed the old way was more secure and provided a better experience. Fast forward to today, and there isn't a bank around that does not support online and mobile banking. It's become the preference for the majority of bank-related transactions. Employees are still in brick-and-mortar branches to help with more complex transactions, but the ease and accuracy of online banking have proven to be superior for many use cases.

This will happen with virtual contact center agents. Today, many people echo the sentiment that they'll always prefer a person, but that's because the 1.0 experience of bots and virtual agents was terrible. Today, because of generative and agentic AI, a virtual agent is indistinguishable from a human with two notable exceptions: you're never on hold, and they always come back with an answer, generally the correct one, right away.

In 2025, we will see a shift in consumer preference, with consumers preferring AI agents over humans for simple tasks. This means brands that do not offer this as a contact center channel will be at a competitive disadvantage and may see some erosion of loyalty. AI agents are here to stay, and they will only get better from here.

A shift from improving agent engagement to upskilling agents, as brand loyalty continues to be a top business priority

Alpa Shah, Frost & Sullivan

Our 2024 CX customer survey revealed that for the first time, improving brand loyalty and brand awareness is the top business priority for 75% of businesses across all major sectors. This finally gives contact center leaders "a seat at the table". Businesses recognize that to retain and attain new customers, all customer-facing employees must be more aligned. This means ensuring agents always have valuable and relevant information available at their fingertips.

This focus on arming agents with the right information to ensure seamless interactions and boost loyalty will result in a shift from improving agent engagement to upskilling agents.Frost & Sullivan is coining the term 'professional agents' because, with AI-infused self-service tools handling most of the easier tasks, customers will be more likely to call only when they have complex questions. Agents will not only need to know their products/services and contact center technologies well to handle calls, but they will also need to be empathetic and learn how to stay calm when customers lash out. Customers are not likely to remember details of a conversation with an agent, but they do remember how they felt during the interaction, in particular at the end of the conversation. Driving brand loyalty means ensuring customers "feel" they have been taken care of and hang up with a positive attitude towards the company.

Proactive outreach has the potential to boost loyalty with a more integrated, AI-driven approach

Dave Michels, Talking Pointz

Proactive outreach has never met its potential, but that's about to change. Today, the bar is as low as a simple notification that triggers a "no-reply" email when a package has been shipped. Why settle for mildly useful? As CX continues to integrate with more systems there is an opportunity to reduce stress, save time, and increase loyalty.For example, today, airlines, hotels, and car rental companies don't talk. Most airport car rental companies ask for a customer's flight details. With this information, they have the opportunity to deliver a far superior service. Let's say a flight is delayed, the car rental firm could not only be aware of it but proactively notify the customer that they've pushed back the rental pick-up time. It's obvious and simple, but it's been beyond the capability of most contact centers - until now.

A final note

As we look toward 2025, it's clear from the transformative trends these CX analysts shared that AI will continue to play a pivotal role in customer experience. From enabling hyper-personalized interactions with autonomous agents to driving customer satisfaction through smarter, customer-led AI applications, AI will help make customer experience a central focus of the modern enterprise.

Contact center platformswill continue evolving into integrated, data-driven ecosystems, empowering agents with enhanced tools and insights while streamlining self-service for customers. Proactive, AI-driven outreach and a focus on upskilling agents will help businesses foster brand loyalty in an increasingly competitive market. When harnessed correctly, these trends promise a more seamless, efficient, and customer-centric CX landscape in the year ahead.

Read Zoom's AI predictions for 2025 here: 10 technology and AI trends that will shape the New Year.

Looking for ways to harness AI in all the right ways in 2025? Watch this conversation with Amy Roberge, head of global CX solutions at Zoom and Robin Gareiss, CEO and principal strategist at Metrigy for insights and tips as you move into the new year.

*Agentic AI is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can make decisions and perform tasks with limited human supervision. Agentic AI systems are designed to be autonomous, adaptable, and able to achieve complex goals.

**Agent assist is a type of AI-powered software that helps customer service representatives by providing real-time guidance and assistance during customer interactions.