Temkin Group recently released its forecast of important customer experience trends to watch in 2013 and, based on previous research from the company, this year may prove to be one of the most active years in customer experience yet. This is because, by Temkin's estimations, there are more than 100,000 customer experience professionals in North America, which will likely drive customer experience practices in organizations going forward.

"We expect 2013 to be a very active year for customer experience," said Bruce Temkin, customer experience transformist and managing partner of Temkin Group, in a statement. "Many companies are evolving past the early stages of customer experience maturity and are beginning to drive organizational transformation. That's great news for their customers and for the bottom lines on those companies."

Key trends outlined by Temkin Group include a decline in surveys as companies rely less on multiple choice questions for customer feedback, instead turning to text analytics — from sources such as comments on surveys, calls into the contact center, social media conversations and chat sessions with agents — to garner insights. Big data too will play an important role as companies combine customer feedback with operational and customer data to predict consumer attitudes and behaviors.

This enhanced predictive capability will then, according to Temkin, lead to service issues being resolved prior to customer complaints. In fact, product development will itself become more experience infused with customer experience requirements through the entire development process, beginning with design.

Meanwhile, there will be a greater focus placed on long-term loyalty over short-term costs, leading to more on-shore contact centers, while employee engagement will likewise become a priority. In this same vein, Temkin expects companies to push toward eliminating conservative legal and compliance rules which lead to poor customer experience. Overall, we may see more companies recommitting to a core value set.

Lastly, mobile and cloud technologies will play a large role as ways to create a more customer-centric experience, while customer experience education will keep this trend going beyond 2013.

Temkin Group is a leading market research and consulting firm that helps organizations improve their customer experience. In December, the company released a research report entitled "What Happens After A Good or Bad Experience," which analyzes feedback and purchased behaviors after good and bad experiences.

Last April, Temkin Group released "The ROI of Customer Experience," which uncovers the connection between customer experience and loyalty for 272 companies in the U.S. and U.K.

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