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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Looking for an all-in-one customer experience solution that can compete with Birdeye? We've researched the best alternatives so you don't have to.

Birdeye is a marketing platform that businesses use to enhance their customer service experiences. It lets users automate customer review responses, add web chats to their websites, and manage their listings on third-party review sites. Together, these tools help large and small businesses alike learn more about their customer journeys.

Whether you're currently using the platform or in the process of scouting options, you may be wondering about what other customer feedback and CRM options are out there. Read on to learn more about the best reputation management software that leading companies use today.

Here are the main companies to consider when looking for alternatives to Birdeye:

Birdeye lets users conduct review monitoring and surveys to determine customer satisfaction, but it only sheds light on a small sliver of a company's online presence, customer experience, and audience behavior. The best alternative to Birdeye is:

As a media intelligence and social listening suite, we have to put ourselves in a class of our own. Pulling and integrating data from social media, online reviews, blogs, and other channels, Meltwater offers the depth of information companies and brands need to make data-driven business decisions. Plus crisis management features like spike alerts let brands proactively manage their online reputations so they can get ahead of any potential PR emergencies.

Meltwater is a robust, comprehensive, and integrated software option. While Birdeye helps businesses oversee their online reputations with tools geared to managing review and listing sites, our solutions give businesses insight on a wide range of channels for a more comprehensive overview. Our platforms also eliminate the need for labor- and time-intensive surveys with real-time, AI-powered insights on conversations about companies, brands, industries, and competitors.

When it comes to audience engagement, Birdeye offers web chats and a social media messaging platform. By contrast, our social media engagement platform lets businesses manage all social media functions from one place — messaging and posting and built-in performance analytics.

Meltwater's Social Media Management Solution

Meltwater is the number one alternative to Birdeye, but you have no shortage of other options to compare us to. Here is a closer look at some other reputation management, customer experience, and reviews software platforms. 

As its name implies, NiceJob is a cloud-based reputation management platform that helps businesses rake collect positive reviews. It lets users automate review invites and reminder emails. Plus, its integration with branded websites gives you a constant stream of SEO-boosting content.

Ease of use and the ability to automate social media posts using the positive reviews you collected makes NiceJob a competitive option against Birdeye. Ultimately, larger businesses may prefer Birdeye, but NiceJob is a solid choice for any that want to consolidate social media management tasks.

Operating in a parallel vein of customer feedback software, Olark's customizable chatbots and chat analytics set it apart from Birdeye.

Choosing between these two boils down to one question: Do you want reviews or live chats? You may very well want both, but those separate martech tools add up. In that case, consider switching to an all-in-one reputation monitoring platform instead.

ReviewInc lets users find and respond to customer reviews from across the web via a single platform.

G2 reviewers love ReviewInc's customer support. Otherwise, Birdeye offers a  wider range of features for businesses that want added marketing capabilities, like SMS and web chat.

Also a review and reputation management software, ReviewTrackers shines when it comes to its easy-to-read analytics dashboards.

ReviewTrackers' biggest downside is its lack of customer messaging options. If you're looking for a tool that can help you engage with customers as well as monitor your feedback, Birdeye may be a better bet.


Swell is a "headless" e-commerce and customer service platform that makes it simple for users to develop their backend. Its main features include integrated payment and appointment scheduling tools, webchats, and automated customer review requests.

According to software review site G2, Swell doesn't rate as high as Birdeye when it comes to media monitoring and online reputation management. Still, many users like that it is easy to set up and use.

Vendasta is an end-to-end e-commerce platform with tools like a built-in CRM, basic task manager, and third-party listings manager.

Vendasta is a platform that individuals can use as well as businesses and large enterprises. It also has a freemium model that offers access to features like one snapshot report and 50 free email sends a month at no cost. This is a reasonable option for small businesses willing to sacrifice the more thorough media monitoring and reputation management capabilities of software like Meltwater.

Yext is a search-as-a-service software that helps businesses manage their customer support services, as well as listings and reviews on third-party websites. 

Birdeye's only operates in English. Like Meltwater, Yext supports a range of languages including German, French, Swedish, and Simplified Chinese. 

Yotpo is an e-commerce platform geared toward customer feedback and user-generated content (UGC). It helps businesses and brands in four main realms: reviews and ratings, loyalty programs and referrals, SMS marketing, and visual UGC. 

Yotpo lacks Birdeye's keyword tracking and mobile-deployment capabilities. Luckily, it has a free version that you can try.

With Zendesk, a cloud-based CRM, users can manage sales, customize sales dashboards, offer mobile user support, and automate emails. Among Zendesk's features is its seamless integration with Meltwater through a dedicated connector. This empowers users to automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and achieve better collaboration between teams.

Looking for geo-targeting features and scalability? If so, Zendesk wins this head-to-head 


Still unsure which Birdeye alternative to turn to? Learn how Meltwater can save you the hassle of scouring endless review and listing sites by giving you audience insights in real-time. Try a demo today!

You can also get inspired by more Customer Experience Software & Platforms.

The Best Birdeye Alternatives 2025

Social media is filled with opinions and sentiment. Be it praise, a complaint, or a preference, there is no need for mind readers in the 21st century. We put all our inner thoughts out there in the digital sphere. And so, the skill and practice of sentiment analysis has become crucial for marketers everywhere. But what is it and how do you use it? This blog explains.

Due to our online nature, customer service has changed dramatically. Rather than writing or emailing directly, complaints and feedback are now scattered online across blogs, forums, reviews, and social media. 

Interactions with your customers, stakeholders and the general public are now much more visible. The ways you respond are now judged on a public stage. The prospect of a brand-damaging misstep is enough to keep even the most seasoned social media, PR, marketing and customer experience professionals awake at night.

Due to the noise and volume of our social media usage, it has become impossible to monitor feedback manually. 

Understanding how your consumers perceive your brand is integral, but attempting to track this using localized searches and traditional market research methods is a huge drain on your time and resources. The solution is understanding emotion, brand perception and opinion more quickly, by using sentiment analysis.

Sentiment Analysis Methods: Key Terms and Definitions

Why Do We Need To Understand Positive, Neutral and Negative Sentiment?

Why Are Sentiment Analysis Tools Important?

Adapting Marketing Strategies Through Innovation

"Sentiment" is a metric, designed to provide useful insight into how audiences feel about and perceive a brand, particularly on social media platforms and in editorial news media. This marketing metric helps brands manage and protect their reputations, while monitoring the online environment. 

But it doesn't stop there. Monitoring sentiment can also show you how your competitors are perceived by your target market or how people feel about your latest influencer campaign, in real-time. In fact, you can use it for everything from movie reviews to news coverage — anything covered on social networks.

Sentiment analysis determines whether text is positive, negative, or neutral by extracting particular words or phrases, through opinion mining — and serves as a key component of any advanced analytics. 

In a world where the media, and in particular social media insight, dominates — looking at a dataset like this can really help set your brand apart from the competition and drive your content strategy.

Tip: For more insights about brand sentiment, check out our dedicated blog.

Before we get into the why and how of sentiment tracking, let's take a look at a few key terms.

This is a system created from a combination of natural language processing and machine learning. It is pre-trained to analyze text and assign weighted scores to social media posts and other forms of content online.

This refers to analyzing sentiment from text phrases as opposed to the overall messaging. This content-based analysis can also be broken down into sentences.

Developers use these code languages to trigger specific tasks and reactions when users interact with a site or app. Some languages are specifically suited for AI environments. 

These tags are used to get specific about analyzing text. They filter out words based on their part of speech in a sentence, i.e. an adjective or negation - both of which are important in determining human feeling from expression. 

In short, semi-supervised classification can use unlabelled data from posts or content online to understand the opinions, feelings and views expressed. 

This model is used to analyze a text string and determine how the author feels, depending on the options you "give" it as classifications. For example, these types of models can determine whether users feel happy, sad or frustrated in an email - if the developer sets the classifications to happy, sad or frustrated based on certain criteria. 

Results are typically split into positive, neutral or negative words or phrases - but in some instances, you can extract data that's simply split into neutral responses or "polarity" responses because they greatly separate two types.

A sentiment score is typically based on a range of -1 to 1, with -1 indicating negativity, 0 - neutrality and 1 - positivity. 

Rule-based systems look at an initial set of rules and data specifics to perform certain actions in natural language processing, i.e. assigning a sentiment score during text analytics. 

These are the categories of words associated with different types of feelings or emotions, i.e. words like "great" would align with a positive category of terms. 

This advanced form of text analytics looks at sentiment associated with different aspects of a product or service, and during natural language processing, it automatically assigns sentiment to specific topics. Machine learning is part of what makes this possible. 

An Application Programming Interface (API) is the bridge between two applications that allows them to interact. It essentially allows them to speak to each other in order to perform complex tasks. So, for example, if you're using a social media app on your phone an API is the tool that allows you to interact with it on that interface. A sentiment analysis API like Meltwater's will provide you with all the sentiment data you need.

This model allows for looking at words in terms of their structure in NLP. So instead of looking at the grammar of a sentence, it can be used to pull out words that match tags and can help ascertain how often a word or sentiment type appears.

For social, marketing, communications and PR professionals, understanding your audience gives you the necessary context to create meaningful campaigns and prevent impending crises. As our primary task lies in engagement, persuasion and reputation management, sentiment analysis should be at the cornerstone of every content-based strategy. 

With conversations around brands happening primarily on social media, you have no choice but to stay on top of emerging trends in the virtual world. Plus, there's the added benefit of the rich psychographic and behavioral data you'll come across along the way. 

How your brand responds to an impending crisis could make or break your reputation. However, as we've touched on, most teams don't have the time or resources for opinion mining and running sentiment analyses, manually — and even if they did, it still wouldn't yield very accurate results. It takes time to filter various pieces of text, identify the type of sentiment associated with those texts, organize the data according to relevant criteria and finally produce a meaningful report.

This is why it’s important to use AI-powered sentiment analysis tools, to achieve a more efficient and insightful outcome. These make use of data science techniques, using algorithms that identify sentiment from a large dataset almost instantaneously. Also, the artificial intelligence (AI) technology that facilitates these actions in marketing is constantly improving and, combined with machine learning, has become a powerful mechanism for understanding human emotion online.

AI uses natural language processing (NLP) with a natural language API and machine learning techniques to automatically detect the sentiment of published text. NLP converts human language into a dataset that machines can understand. 

Machine learning then takes over to classify the text after it's been processed. Data patterns are identified in order to make meaningful predication as the software continuously "learns". It's trained to classify sentiment from text into different categories based on association (one method).

One practical application of how AI works can be seen in the buzz about UK’s most popular tabloid newspaper, Metro, wrongly captioning the names of two members of the Little Mix girl group. Needless to say, this conversation ended up on Twitter.

Once the public realized the mistake, the story began to take a life of its own under the #DoBetter hashtag, with social media users demanding an apology, particularly for mistaking two women from racial minorities for one another. The newspaper had to quickly apologize for the mishap.

With AI-based sentence-level sentiment analysis, Metro would have been automatically alerted in real-time, as soon as mentions began to increase in number and sentiment began to shift. In addition, they could also identify any other secondary issues that arose and aim to address them to avoid a future crisis.

As shown in the Metro example, one negative opinion of your brand can create an online storm that includes both an aspect of opinion and emotion. Regardless, it can be quite difficult to recover from, even if expertly managed by the best of PR teams. This is because of the ability of a negative tweet, for example, to go viral within a few minutes.

By using sentiment analysis tools to monitor how your audience feels, your organization can control the emotions and conversations around your brand more effectively. This way you won't be responding reactively by trying to douse flames at short notice, and can more methodically manage your brand perception on a day-to-day basis. 

Like it or not, your reputation is one of the most valuable assets your business has. As Warren Buffet once said:
 ”It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

The online world has millions of individuals continuously speaking about companies and their products and services. These discussions mainly happen on social networks, e-commerce and product review sites, blogs, and other discussion forums.

You can control the narrative much better with both detailed and overall sentiment analysis, making sure your brand is seen in a positive light.

Tip: Learn more about brand reputation measurement.

When it comes to products and services or your ability to provide a good customer experience, consumers are bound to have an opinion. If they have a negative experience in particular, there is a good chance that it will be shared online, usually social media.

Sentiment analysis helps you track reviews, on Google Business directories or individual product/service pages, and identifies the tone of the sentiment. Using this tool, your brand can address the complaints. On the other hand, positive experiences that are shared can give valuable feedback on what you are doing right, and provide extra marketing collateral.

Tip: Take a look at the top social listening tools, the best social media monitoring tools, and the top social media management tools on the market.

Crises usually occur when we least expect them, and with no contingency plan in hand too. With regular or constant sentiment analysis, you’re better prepared.

A dissatisfied customer voicing their negative opinion about your brand on social media can quickly get support by peers. Even worse, media outlets can pick up on negative sentiment before you do and before you know it, you’re trending online and the news. Sentiment analysis can alert you as soon as a potential crisis is lurking which allows you to address it in time.

Media monitoring tools filter trillions of datapoints, coming from the billions of Internet and social media users on a daily basis.

You can draw valuable insights from a large dataset on specific industry topics, consumer preferences, product features and competitors. One of the best parts about this is that the information is publicly available while accessing it from the comfort of your office chair (or couch, if you’re part of the work-from-home crew). This will, in turn, allow you to create more meaningful PR and marketing campaigns.

With tools like the Meltwater sentiment analysis API, sentiment analysis and other media monitoring solutions, you can cut out the need for endless filtering and hours spent creating reports and other forms of strategic documentation.

Moving away from document-based sentiment analysis to sentence-based sentiment is a more accurate way to gain useful marketing insights. This means each sentence of an article or post is evaluated individually and gets its own sentiment score (positive, negative, neutral communication).

Perfecting natural language processing with media intelligence

For the document-based sentiment, the sentiment is then calculated based on the sum of sentence sentiment.

Understanding Sentiment Analysis: A Complete Guide

Technologies that customers use in their everyday lives often become extensions of the way they do business. This sets a tough act for brands to follow, as customers may begin to create certain expectations based on their interactions with other companies. Because of this, being complacent about the customer experience you provide isn’t an option.

It’s important for businesses to keep up with customer experience trends (CX trends) so they can provide the best possible service to their customers. It’s the key to engaging your current customers, attracting new ones, and giving them what they want. When done well, your customer experience innovation may give you a competitive advantage compared to brands that have fallen behind the times.

Every year brings new advancements in technologies, as well as an evolution in consumer expectations and digital transformation.

Let’s explore some the 10 key CX trends to be aware of as we kick off 2024:

The Rise of Chatbots for 24/7 Customer Service

Predictive Analytics for Turning Data Into Insights

Virtual Assistants to Address CX Talent Shortages

Data-Driven Marketing for Hyper-Personalized Experiences

The Metaverse as a Battleground for Customer Experience

The path of the customer journey is becoming less predictable; it’s no longer a linear progression. Customers are likely to have multiple touchpoints with a business before making a final decision. Some of these touchpoints are self-guided, while others involve direct contact with a business.

No matter how, where, or when customers choose to engage, companies need to ensure their experience is as seamless as possible. This is the heart of an omnichannel customer experience — a key piece of digital transformation.

For example, let’s say a customer discovers you on social media, then clicks through to your website. They start shopping, maybe even adding an item to the cart. But when they pick up their session on their desktop computer at home, the item is no longer there. What’s more, the customer has to dismiss the multitude of website pop-ups before they can continue their journey.

Making the customer journey more omnichannel-friendly helps to address inconsistencies like these. 

Take Google’s cross device capabilities, for example. When logged into a Google account, customers can sync their browsing history and activity across all their devices. They can even access tabs on their smartphone that they left open on their laptop.

For brands to get omnichannel right, they first need a deeper understanding of their customers' journeys and all of the touchpoints within them. From there, you can look at how you engage customers at each touchpoint, find inconsistencies, and work backward to solve them.

Service as a competitive advantage is becoming a hot topic in CX. One way many brands are competing is by offering customer service support around the clock. Chatbots provide a viable solution as they can engage with a brand's customer base at scale at all hours.

Companies are already putting chatbots to work to create positive customer experiences. They are using chatbots to:

Chatbots can also use artificial intelligence technologies like natural language processing (NPL) to analyze customer sentiment during interactions. This may provide brands with a deeper understanding of how their customers are feeling about their support options and the problems they’re trying to solve.

Chatbots are already showing great promise in customer experience digital transformation. Data shows that about two out of three global consumers have had an interaction with a chatbot within the last year. What’s more, more than 87% of those experiences are either positive or neutral, indicating customers are receptive to this up-and-coming technology.

Reading tips: Social Media Bots 101 - All You Need to Know, All you Need to Know About Conversational Marketing, learn how to use chatbots to improve your sales

A growing population of consumers says they prefer self-service support options over human contact. They want quick answers to their questions or needs without having to wait on hold or reach out to support. That's why this is considered to be another emerging customer experience trend.

What’s more, 70% of consumers say they expect some form of self-service support on company websites. This can take the form of FAQs, knowledge bases, customer discussion forums, or similar resources.

Part of creating a standout customer experience means giving customers what they want. The future of customer experience needs to include self-guided resources, especially when those resources can provide faster resolution than real-time engagement.

Predictive Analytics for Turning Data into Insights

Predictive analytics is a form of artificial intelligence that makes predictions about unknown future events. Predictive analytics uses many techniques from data mining, statistics, modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to analyze current data and make predictions about the future. 

By making accurate predictions about future events, businesses can make better decisions and take proactive actions to improve their performance.

Today’s businesses have access to an overwhelming amount of data. One of the most promising digital customer experience trends is to find new ways to tap into this data and turn it into insights, which will result in hyper-personalized customer experiences.

Data shows that 73% of customers expect brands to understand their needs and deliver personalization in ways that matter. What’s more, 62% of customers say they expect companies to anticipate their needs.

Predictive analytics will check both of these boxes, helping to raise the bar on the future of customer experience.

Reading tips: How AI-driven customer personalization is driving the top line, The Power of Personalised PR: Top Tips for Comms Pros

The effects of the Great Resignation continue to linger. Companies still struggle to fill key roles that will allow them to support their customers and deliver on customer expectations. Having a lack of key personnel where they’re most needed can bring your CX strategy to a grinding halt, leaving customers lacking the help and connection they expect.

One potential way to fill the talent gap is to lean on the expertise and support of a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants take on a variety of tasks, from customer support to social media management to research and more.

Specifically for customer experience, companies can tap into this remote resource as a way to pick up where chatbots and self-service options leave off. It allows companies to remain competitive by having enough staff available to provide support when and where it’s needed.

What’s more, many virtual assistants have a background in customer service and support and can easily step into these roles as needed.

Augmented reality (AR) has been around for several years, but its potential in CX continues to be explored. As part of the digital transformation of the customer experience, AR technologies will help to add context to products and services both in-person and online.

For example, makeup brand L’Oreal is deploying AR with its Makeup Genius app. Shoppers can “try on” shades of makeup before purchasing. Magnolia Market takes a similar approach by letting customers see how furniture will look in their homes.

Ultimately, AR aims to help consumers make better buying decisions and “try” products before they buy. This can lead to fewer returns, happier customers, and even referrals and recommendations.

Analytics and data are playing increasingly important roles in marketing and the creation of hyper-personalization. 

Data is the key to understanding what your customers need and want from you. Knowing this, you can improve your customer experiences to meet their expectations. Better experiences can lead to increases in customer engagement, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction. 

With cookies going away and data privacy laws tightening, marketers will lean more than ever on their own data and publicly available sources to create composite customer profiles. Using third-party tools for social listening and a consumer insights platform can help companies fill gaps in their own data and learn about their customers beyond their purchase history and demographics.

Loyal customers aren’t just repeat buyers. They’re also advocates for your brand and become some of your most powerful word-of-mouth marketing partners. The more they promote you, the more cost-effective your marketing efforts become.

According to the Pareto Principle, about 20% of your customers fall into this category and drive about 80% of your sales. The probability of selling to an existing customer is about 60-70%, plus they tend to spend more than the average customer. In fact, a loyal customer is usually worth 10x more than their initial purchase!

What keeps customers coming back is all about their experience. However, a bad experience can drive even your most loyal customers away. Companies that continue to invest in loyalty stand to gain the most. Making sure your loyalty program meets customers' needs, is easy to take advantage of, and provides real value can make all the difference.

Reading tips: How To Build & Maintain Customer Loyalty, Retaining Customers in the Age of Dying Brand Loyalty, Brand Attachment vs. Brand Loyalty: Let's Talk Ice Cream

As part of the digital customer experience, customers expect the companies they do business with to be good stewards of their personal data. This not only includes contact and payment details, but also things like purchase history. What’s more, they also care about how you handle situations in which their data may become compromised.

One survey found that 35% of consumers would stop shopping at a store altogether if their data was hacked. However, 33% of customers say they’re more likely to shop with retailers when they know their data is secured.

Technology to combat data breaches continues to grow in sophistication. But breaches and hacks continue to threaten data integrity across industries. Many companies are learning from others’ mistakes and data breaches by investing more into protecting consumer privacy and transparently communicating how their data is used.

The introduction of the metaverse provides brands with new ways to deliver experiences and develop transformation strategies. The stage might not be ready for branded experiences just yet, given its newness, but now is the time to start exploring and learning how others are engaging in the metaverse.

This can be considered an emerging customer experience trend.

Over time, CX leaders can learn how to build their presence here and meet customers wherever they are. It’s still too early to tell what a customer-centric strategy might look like, but it will be an interesting development in 2023 and the years to come.

The Meltwater Blog

The Best Birdeye Alternatives 2025

Understanding Sentiment Analysis: A Complete Guide

The Greatest Customer Experience (CX) Trends 2024

The Best eCommerce Podcasts to Listen to in 2025

5 Quick Tips for Social Video Content

What Are the Most Used Social Media Platforms in the Philippines 2025?

The Top Emojis of 2023

Influencer Marketing and Mental Health: Lessons From Maybelline

Top 8 Image Recognition Software (2025)

The 8 Top Chinese Social Media Apps, Sites & Platforms 2025

What Is Trend Forecasting? Trend Prediction Guide

The Influencer Payment Solution You’ve Been Waiting For