The Business of Feedback Ep 6: 2026 CX Predictions

0:05
Hi, thanks for joining us for the business of feedback.

0:08
I’m Bo Bandy, CMO here at Alkimer and you know my guest, Ryan Tamaga, SVP of Product and Services.

0:17
Today we are talking about predictions for 2026.

0:21
I think, you know, there’s a lot going on in the world of customer feedback and customer experience.

0:30
Let’s just jump right into it.

0:32
So I think we talk a lot about the idea of indirect and direct feedback and how companies should be considering all of it.

0:41
So maybe let’s start with what you think is going to happen there and maybe first a definition, some definitions.

0:48
So we’re all speaking the same language.

0:50
I think 1st 2026 is going to be exciting.

0:53
You know, I think the world is kind of settled coming out of post COVID.

0:57
I think everyone kind of got what they need from that experience and applying it to where they want to go over the next five years.

1:05
And what we’re hearing all over our customer base is we need to listen to more customers and more of the places that they’re talking about our company, brands, services and products.

1:18
You know, I think for a really long time, right, if you think about CX as an evolution out of market research, the context of survey has been super important because I have a question I want to ask, I have an answer, I’m trying to spine, I know who you are.

1:28
I’m going to ask you the question, you tell me what you think and we’re all going to be better off because I’m going to do something about the feedback that you provided to me.

1:35
You know, for a long time that’s carried CXA long ways, still super, super important.

1:41
But as the world of digital engagement has expanded over the last, you know, five years, the places where people are talking about you are becoming wildly different.

1:54
And we need the, you know, we need customers to be curious about what people are talking about all over the place.

2:01
And so you mentioned the concept of direct versus indirect feedback.

2:05
You know, direct being really focused on that survey concept or first party data where somebody’s telling you something directly.

2:13
Indirect refers to all of the places where people are talking about you, but you may not actually know.

2:19
So think rating ratings and review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp or the Apple Store or the Google Play Store, right?

2:28
These are places where they have the opportunity to engage and provide feedback, but in the context, it’s not solicited.

2:35
They’re actually just talking about you because they have the ability to.

2:39
And so with that much data growing every year, being able to ingest both of these data sources together and use them to understand, you know, what are the key themes that are coming out of your customer conversations And whatever venue they they choose to share about you continues to give you more and more insight into the things that really matter to the people who are either customers of yourselves, thinking about being a customer, maybe even just a customer of a competitor.

3:06
There’s a lot of insight there as well.

3:08
I think it’s so interesting to think about the breadth of customer experience and how that is changing, right?

3:14
I mean, to your point, surveys have always been really important and will be because if I need to know how somebody feels about chocolate sprinkles on their ice cream cone, like surveys, the best way to get to that specific topic, right?

3:29
But I think, you know, indirect feedback, the things people are saying about me when I’m not asking is so authentic.

3:36
And it’s in the voice of of the customer, truly in their voice, right?

3:40
Not in this like marketing term, but truly the things they’re thinking and saying, you know, and then you combine that into bigger programs.

3:48
I think it’s pretty amazing to watch.

3:52
You know, what do you think people are going to do this year with this kind of breath of feedback?

4:01
Well, what I hope they do is take it all seriously, right?

4:05
I think, I think what’s really interesting, and here’s an interesting example, you know, many of our customers use our direct feedback collection in their mobile apps or on their website.

4:17
What we find is almost exclusively they’re talking about the experience of using the app or the experiences that they’re engaging with through the digital context.

4:27
But when you look at what they’re talking about on the Google Play or App Store ratings review pages, it’s about the app experience and download or login or performance of the app.

4:39
And if you didn’t combine those two perspectives, you’d be missing out on some really valuable perspective.

4:45
And so, you know, what I’m hoping is that as people start to expand the channels of where they’re collecting their feedback, they’re seeing the value of the different places that talk about they where they talk about different concepts.

4:59
So they get a much more 360 view of how customers feel about their experience.

5:03
You know, I think one of the things that has been interesting to see over the last, you know, six years here at Alcamar is we used to be very prescriptive in surveys.

5:11
So you’d want to write the right methodology and ask the right questions in a non biased way to try to solicit the information that you’re you’re looking for your customer.

5:20
And so you have to be very specific about when I ask, what I ask and how I ask it.

5:25
With the advancement in AI and LLMS and, and kind of tools that help you make sense of data at scale, you don’t have to be quite as prescriptive anymore.

5:34
You can just ask for what that customer’s thinking about in the moment, which what you’ll find is if you do that at scale, you’re going to get all the emotion and you’re going to get the passion and you’re going to get the depth of what they think is the most important to them in the moment, which is the most valuable feedback they can provide.

5:49
And in a lot of cases, that’s coming on, you know, a third party website, like a ratings and review site where, you know, they’re coming off an experience and this is just the place where they can share it.

6:00
And so if you can bring all of this together and make sense of it, you get all of that energy from your customer base in a way that makes it easier for you to attack what to do that.

6:10
Yeah, I love your descriptor.

6:12
If you hope they take it seriously, because I think one of the things we talked about into your last comment of they can attack it and do that, I don’t know, maybe a faster, more efficient way than they have in the past.

6:25
I think the companies that take all of this feedback in and take it seriously are have such a competitive competitive advantage, right to to act more quickly maybe than others in their space.

6:38
OK, prediction topic #2 No surprise because if you are alive on planet Earth today, you are talking about the topic of AI.

6:49
So let’s talk about it in the context of what does AI mean for customer experience in 2026?

6:58
What are we going to see?

7:01
I think 1st and again, it’s kind of an alchemer approach to AI, but AI needs to be a technology that’s deployed to solve specific problems, right?

7:10
Like having a pragmatic approach that’s accessible for people in the mission of what you’re trying to go do is really important, right?

7:19
Technology trying to find a problem is makes AI kind of not as valuable.

7:26
And So what I think is especially for us, we’re going to continue to deploy technology to help solve problems.

7:32
And that the biggest problem that I have that I talk to our customers about is I think it’s easy to get to the anecdotal stories of what to do to improve your customer experience or learn more from your customers, right?

7:44
I think people get this mythology around, you know, the top five big themes, right?

7:49
Because there’s, there’s, there’s enough volume in the, the, the number of points of feedback or enough volume in the intensity of how people share feedback with you that it’s easy to get that top five.

8:00
It’s really hard to get to the next 5 and then it’s next to impossible to get to the next 5.

8:05
And So what I think AI is going to really rotate into in 26 is the ability to see deeper, faster and bring things forward that will inspire curiosity to go to that next level or two or three levels deeper to solve the problems that may or may not be like on the surface.

8:26
You know, I think again, one of the the challenges we have in CX is that there could be a really large issue with the with the product that couldn’t take a year to fix, right.

8:36
That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to help improve your customer experience, but being able to see deeper faster with this scale of feedback that’s coming through your indirect and direct channels gives you lots of options.

8:49
And when you tie that to operational data that comes through your integration capabilities or or however you’re trying to tie it back to a business result.

8:57
You know, I’ve always found that going and talking to your CFO about 10 ideas that you have is way better than having one idea because there’s flexibility in being able to talk through the business cases and the return cases on what you would do and why.

9:11
And I think the deeper you can get faster using AI just gives you an advantage because you can get so much depth so quickly that you can have a game plan for multiple different scenarios that gives you flexibility in how you go deploy those improvements.

9:28
I mean, I think as a marketer, I might say it differently or think about it differently in that it also gives me just better segmentation, right?

9:38
So if we identify, gosh, we have a lot of customer feedback around people don’t like the red sweater if I dig in, right?

9:48
I’m and I can suddenly fat much more quickly and easily understand that like, well, actually, you know what?

9:55
It’s the red sweater.

9:56
But in Miami they don’t need a red sweater.

9:59
So it’s actually not a problem with this customer segment.

10:01
And it turns out that it’s not a great fit for, I don’t know, teen girls, right?

10:07
So like that’s not my segment, right?

10:09
But if it can help me figure out my segments so much faster, I think there’s that’s just amazing potential, right to hit the right audience the first time, solve the problem the first time.

10:21
Well, again, like your your example, the red sweater.

10:25
If you don’t understand what’s driving the negative sentiment around the red sweater and the impact that you have on red setters Reddit sweater sales, you may actually be making the wrong decision.

10:36
So if you, if you’re selling red sweaters in the, there’s a whole bunch of negative feedback in Lansing or not Ann Arbor, MI about it.

10:45
Your sales may still be there because there’s a bunch of Ohio State fans that live in Ann Arbor, but all the people talking about it are Michigan fans.

10:53
They don’t like the color red.

10:54
So I think there’s context that needs to get put into the conversation where you can leverage tools like AI and LLMS to help you see the problem in different ways and cut the data differently so that you have all of the context to make the right decision to improve that experience that you’re focused on.

11:13
Love that.

11:13
I love that it’s going to, I mean, it’s going to solve lots of problems, right?

11:19
But it’s built to solve CX problems.

11:21
And I think that’s going to be fun to watch people grab hold of this year.

11:27
We have a big data complex.

11:28
We have a big data complexity issue at CX.

11:31
And this helps you sort through it at scale.

11:33
And again, it like helps you leapfrog in the maturity curve.

11:36
So instead of having to like dig through the data on your way up to an answer, it’s actually going to help expose more of the answers right up front, allow you to dig into the data receptive sort bottoms up.

11:47
Yep, I, I love that.

11:50
Should we talk about prediction #3 So the topic is consolidation, but I want to talk about it from two sides.

12:00
So I think first I’ll team both up, but first just in the CX vendor space.

12:07
Oh my gosh, like the second-half of 2025 was there’s been a lot going on, right?

12:14
Very few CX users, platform users, right have been UN unaffected by a change, right.

12:21
They’ve they’ve seen their vendor make some sort of a shift this year.

12:25
The other side of that is actually CX practitioners.

12:29
Even though as an industry we’re getting better at proving our value and showing the return on CX investment, there’s still budget pressure, right?

12:38
So there’s still pressure to consolidate tools.

12:42
So let’s start, let’s talk about consolidation, maybe start with the market and then tools.

12:48
Cool.

12:51
Well, I think what’s been interesting over the last two years, even three if you, if you include us, is there’s been a shift on the major players being owned by private equity firms.

12:59
And you know, we’re in that bucket as well.

13:03
Yep.

13:03
And what’s been interesting to watch is as the Magic Quadrant had 12 people in it three years ago and then it was 10 and now it’s, you know, somewhere between 6:00 and 8:00.

13:15
You know, the there’s, there’s a drive again, I think there’s a drive to provide some back to the indirect and direct.

13:21
There’s a drive to provide more capabilities within the single platform.

13:24
That is just.

13:26
What’s driving the consolidation in our space now the private equity backed business model means let’s go acquire those and bring them together and bring it best to breed the market.

13:34
And you’re seeing that with us and **** Eater, you’re seeing it with Prescani and Quarters for example.

13:41
And then obviously before that in Moment was purchased by Prescani.

13:45
So there’s the consolidation there as well.

13:47
But you know, we’re starting to see like you see in a lot of tech spaces is that a couple of big players are starting to emerge as they consolidate all of the players together into specific offerings for specific market segments.

13:58
So I think that’s going to drive a lot of it.

14:03
I before we go to tool consolidation, I want to ask a couple of questions on that.

14:07
So you mentioned Gardner’s Magic Quadrant, fewer vendors there, but you hit on a couple of big things that happened, right with first PG Forresta acquiring in moment and then Qualtrics now acquiring PG Forresta that that’s a lot of people that are that watch us TuneIn for subscribe.

14:27
What do the kids say?

14:28
I don’t know, but there’s a lot of people out there that use those tools and, and we know because right, some there are customers too, right?

14:36
We have a lot of customers that use multiple platforms.

14:38
If you’re in that seat and your platform has just been acquired by somebody else, are you are you considering a switch?

14:49
What, how do you approach it?

14:53
I think there’s going to be a lot of unexplained changes for a while, right?

14:57
Like you just don’t know what the fate’s going to be, right?

14:59
And, and I think if you’re on the kind of the major platform of the acquired consolidated business, you’re probably OK.

15:08
Now if you’re on one of the smaller platforms that got acquire, there’s going to be lots of change, right?

15:12
They’re going to try to consolidate you on a bigger platform.

15:15
There’s some synergy play there.

15:17
You know, there’s some things I think are working in some of these businesses that they’re going to double click on and there’s some things they might just let go of because they’re not not as valuable in the grand scheme of the broader business.

15:27
But there’s going to be some ambiguity while they try to figure out how to bring all these businesses together.

15:33
Well, because I guess I mean, in that example, these are all those were all pretty full-featured CX platforms, not a lot of differentiation from one to the next versus US acquiring chat meter.

15:47
We’re bringing a whole bunch of new capabilities to both customer sets, right.

15:51
It’s not a replacement a replacement.

15:54
It’s hey, we want you to have this and we want you to have this and like man you, you just got all of this.

16:02
So I think different that way.

16:04
I think if you have overlapping capability in the new landscape, I would be very inquisitive about what they’re thinking about doing with my product and what the plan is for me as the customer, right?

16:15
Are you expecting me to move or are you expecting, you know, there’s going to be contract changes that are associated with it.

16:20
There might be legacy deals that are going to get converted into kind of a new pricing motion.

16:24
So I think again, 26 is going to see a lot of change for a lot of people that are impacted through these acquisitions, especially when there’s overlapping products.

16:35
OK.

16:35
So that’ll be, let’s switch to the other topic of I have multiple tools, I have budget pressure or I’ve got to consolidate.

16:45
My choices might be driven by what’s happening out here in the market or they may not be.

16:50
So tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing on the budgets and tool side.

16:55
Well, I think any time you can buy more capabilities from a single vendor, the better, right?

17:00
Like having more stuff in the in the in the same box gives you a lot more capability for lots of reasons, right?

17:05
One, the capability matters.

17:08
2, going to have a single customer success and support organization makes it easier for you to maximize the usage of that product.

17:16
And then I think the third is the total cost of ownership of a single vendor is always better if you can make the work.

17:23
To your comment of like having one platform is always better.

17:27
You didn’t say this, but like, I mean, I know we’re getting to a world where AI agents across platforms will talk to each other.

17:34
But right now today for most practitioners, they’re going to use the AI that’s in the platform.

17:39
And so the more data that exists, the more tools and features you have in that platform, I got to imagine it’s better for your use of AI too.

17:48
Well, and and AI and I would go just the general employee experience as a whole, right?

17:53
Like if I’m, if I’m swivel sharing between a product that does A and a product that does B and I somehow need to like figure out, I do my own home grown cross product reporting.

18:03
Like that’s going to be a pain in the **** and it’s going to take time and resource.

18:06
And, and I think a lot of the time people think about the ownership of a software product as what I pay the vendor, right?

18:12
What do I pay Alkimer for my, my product, not what is my team doing?

18:16
What’s the value I’m getting out of it?

18:17
What could they be doing if they weren’t doing other things within the product?

18:20
And so, so I think there’s this nice blend of when, when you’re using a consolidated vendor that’s got more capability, it’s actually freeing you up to do more things with the data.

18:30
I mean, I would, what I would talk to our product team about all the time is how do we have our team spending our team spending less time building surveys and more time engaging in the data?

18:38
How do we spend more time figuring out how to push the data back into the systems and processes that run these businesses versus digging through and trying to understand what’s going on?

18:48
So if you can, you can shift the paradigm by bringing more data together, making it easier to engage with it, use technology like AI to, you know, go two or three layers deeper, faster, all of that energy.

19:01
That’s what that you used to spend doing those things.

19:04
You’re not spending on making things better.

19:06
And so, you know, I think a good rationalization of like what, what is your definition of total cost of ownership of your platform will help you see whether you know, you’re getting what you need out of your current provider or should you go explore, you know, because obviously change is hard too sometimes, but that change can be totally worth it if the return is more time with your customers.

19:24
Well, I think the other piece of total cost of ownership is also how reliant am I on resources outside of my team, right?

19:31
So like, if I got to put my data in ABI tool, but here, right, like I’m not our analyst, I don’t know how to set up any of those reports and do those things, right?

19:40
So I’m, I’m in his queue waiting, right.

19:43
And if I need it to go and set something up, do a configuration change, whatever I need, I’m now I’m in ITSQ.

19:50
And so, you know, the more people can live and operate in their platform.

19:55
Well, I mean, that’s kind of the promise of agentic AI, right?

19:58
Like agentic just basically means all of the manual tasks that you would go do yourself to analyze or you would get an analyst to go do for you.

20:06
The technology is doing at least that initial first list for you.

20:11
And so, you know, if you can get yourself in a position where you can leverage more of that capability, the same way you’re using AI to drill into the data and now you’re using it to manage and monitor and take action on certain things within, within a, you know, sphere control, you know, you’re way better off.

20:27
Not all of us are there yet.

20:28
But yes, I don’t get there it I, I mean, yes, it’s there and yes, it’ll get better.

20:35
I think my point is more that I think, and I’ll just say for myself, right, like I haven’t quite adopted AI fast enough to be ready for agents and to let all of that go.

20:46
But like AI moves really quickly.

20:49
So in the 2027 podcast prediction or predictions podcast, we may already be there.

20:55
And well, like I said, it’s got to be approachable.

20:58
It’s got to be accessible.

20:59
It’s got to be deployed to solve a problem because that’s the context that people engage with these tools, right?

21:04
So if I, if I just give you an AI tool and say this will help you and you’re like, help me do what?

21:08
Right, right.

21:09
It’s really hard to figure out how to go deploy it.

21:11
But if you were like, hey, you log into the front page of your product and on your dashboard page, there’s three questions that are like, we looked at your data.

21:20
Here are three things you might want to ask us.

21:22
Yeah, right.

21:23
Like it’s already inspiring you to go deeper because it’s doing that first level lift on what to go look at, and then it’s helping guide you through that investigation process.

21:31
Like that makes AI accessible and easy to use and builds it into your day-to-day experience.

21:36
For sure.

21:37
For sure.

21:38
Well, awesome.

21:39
We’ve covered 3 predictions for 2026, right?

21:42
We talked about how listening really is going to expand and encompass all different types of channels, whether that’s direct or indirect and play really important roles in feedback programs.

21:56
We talked about how AI is purpose built to solve a problem.

22:00
AI, we’re going to see more and more of that helping people, I think get to the things that matter faster.

22:07
And we’ve kind of talked about a lot of consolidation right at the market and IT tools and budgets.

22:14
Anything else for 26 you want to share?

22:17
I think the last thing is don’t overlook the importance of employee experience, right?

22:22
Like I think a lot of people focus CX on product and retail locations and, and you know, all the things that you know is that front level engagement of your, of your customer digital experience and such.

22:34
But the people that actually make all this possible for your customers, make it possible for your customers.

22:40
And so I think as you’re rationalizing your tools or you’re thinking about what do you want to go do from a CX perspective in 26, It’s also how do I leverage those same tools in the construct of engaging my employees where it matters to them to understand what’s working and not working?

22:56
Because again, at the end of the day, like people buy from people, right?

23:00
You’re engaging your customers every day in your stores or in your storefronts or in the digital cost of your designing things for their experience.

23:06
And if, if the employees don’t feel like they understand where they fit within the vision and strategy and how they’re delivering every day, right, that that lack of purpose shows to your customers, right?

23:16
That lack of passion shows up for your customers.

23:18
And I, so I think the, the companies that continue to focus on how do I engage feedback inside of my entire higher retire process are going to find way more lift because they can push it right directly into the people that are making a difference for their customers every day.

23:37
I mean, I love that for two reasons.

23:39
I love just to your point of like being employee experience directly impacts the customer experience.

23:46
And so understanding what that employee experience is, is so important.

23:53
And I think you also snuck in there a reference back to our budget and tools consolidation ’cause I heard you say use the same platform for customers and employees, which, you know, I, I love, right?

24:05
Like get more ROI out of your investment.

24:08
But I also think that probably means you’re, you can start to layer up your data too and understand those impacts.

24:16
And so I love how maybe the CX and EX journeys are going to get closer together this year.

24:24
If you’re a, if you’re a, you know, a quick service restaurant business or your hotel chain and you’re getting a ton of positive feedback on Yelper TripAdvisor about, you know, the people that are making the experience, the experience for you and your family.

24:37
For example, if you don’t have the ex data that makes that location special and like, what are they doing, right?

24:44
You’re not going to be able to propagate it across your brand, right?

24:48
And I think the only solve there is, right, It’s not a product problem, it’s not a location issue.

24:53
It’s not.

24:56
It’s really related to the product itself, which are your people and how do you improve the product If your people are your product and that’s you, learn from what you’re doing really, really well.

25:06
Learn from some of the mistakes you’re making and then find ways to propagate that across your employee base and deliver those experiences for your customers.

25:13
Well, and even just to make it simple because you know, I love to start simple, like being able to overlay your employee sentiment on top of your NPS by location, right?

25:24
And go, wow, my high performing locations, whether that’s by sales or NPSI also have a really high employee sentiment, right?

25:32
Like I think a lot of organizations are going to benefit from starting to look at their data that way.

25:39
Well, thank you for the bonus we got.

25:43
We got 4 predictions out of you.

25:45
We’ve covered end to end listening, We’ve covered AI, we’ve covered covered consolidation, and we’ve covered employee experience.

25:57
Thanks for joining us for this episode of The Business Feedback.