I haven’t seen a holographic customer service agent yet but if they can’t be far away.  In the meantime, Northridge Group reports that 93% of business leaders think their company makes it easy for consumers to solve problems but just 66% of consumers agree.  Live chat and phone are the most effective channels, while 24/7 availability and better agent training are the top targets for improvement.

This Altimeter report on digital transformation offers particularly rich insights into what successful companies do differently.  Topping the list are a focus on employee engagement, use of AI to optimize customer journeys, and putting digital marketing teams in charge of CX.  Worth a look.

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.