Beyond Borders: Reimagining Global Customer Experience – with Dennis Wakayabashi

Have you ever had your favorite barista greet you by name before preparing your order from memory alone?

In a bustling city, this simple interaction might make a coffee shop unforgettable. Yet in a small mountain town, it's just another ordinary exchange – expected, even commonplace.

In today's world of AI, automation, and relentless innovation, these human touchpoints in customer experience have become increasingly precious – rare gems in a sea of digital transactions. This scarcity makes it more crucial than ever for brands to craft memorable customer interactions.

But customer experience isn't universal. It shifts and transforms across cultures and borders. Some societies prize swift, efficient service above all else. Others value a more leisurely, relationship-based approach.

The post-pandemic customer service landscape has only amplified these complexities. Global brands now face the intricate challenge of tailoring their CX offerings to match local expectations and cultural norms across diverse markets.

Where do they start?

With insights from the latest guest on Sprinklr’s CX-WISE podcast, Dennis Wakabayashi. Known as the global voice of CX, Wakabayashi sat down with our host, Nathan Bennet, to discuss the varying trends in CX around the world and how brands can keep up (with a little help from AI).

Let’s take a trip around the world of CX, shall we?

The human side of customer service: Lessons from Gugulethu

Wakabayashi takes us into Gugulethu, a township in Western Cape, South Africa. While known for its vibrant community and culture, Gugulethu faces stark challenges – including 73 murders recorded in just three months this year.

Against this backdrop of endemic violence, Wakabayashi poses a compelling question: "What does customer experience (CX) look like in a place like this? What motivates customer service agents working from here?"

It's a crucial inquiry. Customer service agents are the frontline ambassadors of any brand, bridging the gap between customer issues and solutions – whether those involve shipping, payments, or anything in between. Their effectiveness can mean the difference between earning the trust of a customer or losing them entirely. This makes agent security, training, and empowerment central to successful customer service operations.

A recent Salesforce study reveals that 82% of customer service agents report higher customer expectations compared to previous years. In this demanding environment, taking care of agents should be a top priority for global brands.

But what motivates agents who operate from challenging environments like Gugulethu? The cultural and socioeconomic gap between these agents and the customers they serve couldn’t be any wider. Through his research, Wakabayashi discovered something unexpected: agents in Gugulethu express gratitude for their role in the CX ecosystem. The job provides them with a stable livelihood and growth opportunities in an otherwise dangerous environment.

As Wakabayashi reflects, "Customer experience or the call center industry is an opportunity to repair the fabric of humanity where capitalism may have eroded some of our humanity."

Yet this noble mission comes with significant challenges in today's fast-paced customer service environment. While agents strive to create these meaningful human connections, they must simultaneously navigate a demanding operational landscape.

Managing complex customer issues, tight SLAs, and sometimes inadequate tools can leave agents mentally and emotionally exhausted. And McKinsey research shows that happy and engaged agents are 3.3 times more likely to feel empowered to resolve customer issues. Given how crucial agent experience is to business operations, brands must:

· Leverage AI to handle routine inquiries, freeing agents to focus on more complex issues

· Invest in agent empowerment tools and comprehensive training programs

· Create supportive work environments where agents feel valued and respected

With agent priorities and stakes this high, brands must step up their game to meet these challenges head-on.

What does CX look like around the world?

When Starbucks entered the Italian market in 2018, it faced immediate skepticism. In a country fiercely proud of its coffee culture – especially its espresso – customers worried this American brand would impose frothy lattes and Frappuccinos, making their traditional offerings seem outdated.

Instead of Americanizing Italian coffee, Starbucks chose to honor local coffee-drinking traditions by introducing smaller portion sizes and traditional espresso drinks. Rather than relying on familiar service models, it studied and adapted to local customer preferences.

This approach exemplifies a broader truth: while customers worldwide want convenient and personalized solutions, these needs vary significantly across cultures and traditions. When global brands enter new markets, understanding local customer behavior becomes crucial for success.

Wakabayashi's research illuminates how CX practices differ across borders:

In Switzerland, customer loyalty hangs by a thread – 70% of customers will abandon a brand after just one negative experience. This stands in stark contrast to global statistics, where only 17% of customers leave after a single poor interaction. For brands operating in Switzerland, flawless service delivery isn't just important – it's essential for survival.

Germany embraces automation as the cornerstone of customer experience. The country leads in self-service e-commerce. According to the Federal Statistical Office, AI adoption in customer service jumped from 11% in 2021 to 20% in 2023. Here, AI handles routine inquiries while human agents manage more complex issues.

South Africa demonstrates how product presentation can make or break success. Wakabayashi observed a telling example in the chocolate industry: while one manufacturer sold in bulk to intermediaries who repackaged for retail, a competitor gained market leadership by selling directly to consumers in convenient, bouillon-cube-sized pieces.

These examples highlight three crucial dimensions of customer experience: financial, user, and product experience. Each plays a vital role in global competition. Creating an effective global CX strategy requires deep understanding of local cultures, expectations, and behaviors.

For both large corporations and SMEs, success depends on adapting strategies through data analytics, mobile-first experiences, and local storytelling. Whether building trust through transparency in Switzerland, automating processes in Germany, or reimagining packaging in South Africa, CX approaches must align with local market values and needs.

Ethical AI in modern CX

The advent of AI in modern CX is undeniable. According to Sprinklr's IDC report, over 55% of organizations name CX as their top priority for AI implementation. Global organizations are adopting AI technology in diverse ways, including the reshaping of agent empowerment.

As the world embraces an AI-first model, finding the right balance between humanity, empathy, and AI becomes crucial.

Wakabayashi addresses the ethical implications of heavy AI reliance. Sustainable AI practices have become a central focus this year. The power demands for running and cooling AI server infrastructure, including those supporting chatbots, have skyrocketed. Questions are emerging about countries' capacity to generate sufficient electricity for widespread AI adoption and whether aging power grids can handle the increased load.

The sustainability challenge looms large: How can we handle this extreme power consumption while depending on AI for productivity?

We are a long way away from finding the answer, but perhaps it begins with striking the right balance between AI and human touch.

By emphasizing the humane aspects of customer service and stressing the importance of a personal touch approach, Wakabayashi advises organizations and brands to restore empathy to their operations.

Empathy: The route to ultimate CX

How well do brands really know their customers? What makes them tick? Why do they choose particular services, and what pain points drive them to seek solutions? These fundamental questions lie at the core of building customer trust and loyalty.

Today's digital, keyword-driven practices make this understanding more challenging. As Wakabayashi explains, "As we perfect go-to-market strategies using SEO and keywords, we start to funnel ourselves and lose the larger perspective on customers.”| Campaigns have around 100 keywords, optimize for 10 of the most effective ones, and slowly funnel themselves away from the customer's viewpoint. It has created focus but lost the aperture with the customer.

"It's essentially decreased any empathy we ever had for the customer in the journey," he notes.

The key to reconnecting? Social listening.

Understanding customer conversations online – their specific language, how they approach challenges, and the social issues that concern them – is crucial for relationship building. Nearly all social listening tools (99%) come equipped with backend tagging features that help discover online conversations through prompts and tags. By leveraging AI to identify key points of interest aligned with brand voice and values, organizations can meaningfully participate in relevant conversations and stand out in the digital landscape.

Social care and empathy are fundamental to successful CX. Strategic AI implementation helps organizations listen to customers, understand them in new ways, and serve them better.

As Wakabayashi emphasizes: "Social listening and care isn't just about problem-solving."

It's the heart of customer centricity where you listen to understand. You listen to understand your customer’s mindset, their motivations. You listen to understand that buying a new handbag isn't just about convenience – it may be someone's first luxury purchase after months of saving. It may be a milestone moment in their lives.

By focusing solely on keywords and numbers, brands start to pigeonhole themselves.

At the same time, inclusivity and diversity are equally crucial in the CX space. Take Mattel's Barbie, for example. Before its recent global film success, this brand with a phenomenal global presence sought to expand beyond stereotypical doll imagery. After all, almost every little girl in the world grew up with a barbie doll. Its extensive customer research revealed a strong market opportunity for more inclusive dolls. In 2016, it expanded its line to include diverse skin tones, eye colors, hair types, ethnicities, and body types.

Today, Barbie comes in 35 skin tones, 97 hair types, and nine body types. The company also introduced dolls representing people with physical and cognitive disabilities. Its Hispanic, red-haired Barbie became a bestseller, and according to Harvard Business Review, Barbie revenues increased 63% from 2015 to 2022.

Every voice needs a seat at the table. Barbie's success story is a testament to the fact that embracing diversity and representation is important for a brand's success

Conclusion

From the resilient agents of Gugulethu to the precision-focused Swiss market, from Starbucks' cultural adaptability in Italy to Mattel's inclusive evolution, modern customer experience demands a multifaceted approach. The most successful brands understand that exceptional CX isn't built on a single strategy but on a dynamic interplay of various factors: cultural sensitivity, technological innovation, and above all, human understanding.

The path forward requires careful balance. Brands should learn to navigate between AI efficiency and human empathy, between global scale and local relevance, between digital optimization and authentic connection. Social listening tools and AI can enhance our understanding of customer needs, but they must be deployed thoughtfully, with sustainability and ethics in mind.

True customer centricity emerges when brands look beyond transactions and metrics to see the human stories behind each interaction. Whether it's an agent working from a challenging environment, a customer making their first luxury purchase, or a child seeing themselves represented in a product for the first time – these moments define the real impact of customer experience.

In today's rapidly evolving marketplace, success belongs to organizations that can maintain this delicate equilibrium: staying true to their core values while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changing customer needs, cultural nuances, and technological advances.

The future of CX isn't about perfectly predicting what's next – it's about building the capacity to respond meaningfully when change is on the horizon.

For more game-changing CX trends, check out this report by Sprinklr, in collaboration with IDC