A massive gap exists. It widens every second between what customers expect and what many organizations can provide as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. If companies don't figure out what the future of their experience looks like pretty quickly, they face the grim reality that they will be watching from across a chasm as their profits and customer-driven growth fall into it in 2021.  Verint, the voice of customer experts for over 25 years, has recent research from respondents worldwide and across industries that indicates most companies are confused about what to do. Their respondents indicated that 82% believe the challenges of managing customer engagement and experience will get more difficult this year. The majority of them, 74 percent, didn't hire their planned new hires last year because of COVID and the related economic uncertainty. Moreover, only half say they are prepared for the rest of this year.  Verint's Nancy Porte, VP Global Customer Experience, CCXP, joins us in this episode to discuss the research. She explains what is happening, why this perfect storm of factors has backed organizations into a corner, and what they can do about it to join the few companies that have it figured out.  (Hint: Customer Science is important here.) Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience  Porte says Verint undertook this research because of several factors, not just the end of the pandemic. Before we ever heard of SARS-CoV-2, we were experiencing a digital disruption to business as usual. This disruption accelerated during the pandemic out of necessity, but not every company has succeeded. Also, many organizations saw a change in customer behavior to which they were not prepared to respond. Moreover, companies were experiencing changes in the workforce that were generational and compounded by a sudden work-from-home environment. All of these factors contributed to the environment organizations face today.  Here are a few critical moments in the discussion with Porte: 04:53     Porte shares some surprising statistics that emerged from the research about the state of companies today. 12:14     Porte explains why she thinks companies feel unprepared to meet customer expectations in the coming months.  14:48     We discuss the role technology can and should play in the future of Customer Experiences that meet customers’ expectations. 24:04     Colin talks about a critical and often over-looked aspect of choosing a technology partner for your CX design. 26:44     We talk about the pitfalls of data silos for the future of predictive analytics for customer behavior. 32:03      We share what you should do with this information to avoid letting all your success fall into the gap in 2021.  Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.  Customer Experience Information & Resources This podcast is sponsored by Verint. Verint helps the world’s most iconic brands build enduring customer relationships by connecting work, data, and experiences across the enterprise. The Verint Customer Engagement Cloud Platform draws on the latest advancements in AI and analytics, an open cloud architecture, and The Science of Customer Engagement to meet ever-increasing, ever-shifting consumer interactions and demands. Download the new Verint research report on the Engagement Capacity Gap, by visiting www.Verint.com/boundless  Customer engagement is critical to your success. Join this three-day, virtual conference to discover tools and techniques that can help you build enduring customer relationships. Register at www.Verint.com/engage LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years.