Retail in 2022 was a year of rebounding, rebuilding and invigorating customer experience strategies to pull consumers back into brick-and-mortar stores while at the same time enhancing the digital shopping channels consumers tapped heavily during two years of COVID-19.

The year was also one in which the metaverse began to take root, revealing yet another way for retailers to engage, entertain and sell, of course, to young consumers eager for greater digital experiences.

As 2022 comes to a close, RetailCustomerExperience reached out to industry watchers, retail experts and leaders to get insight on what's to come in the new year regarding overall retail customer experience trends and strategies.

Isaac Krakovsky, EY Americas Retail Leader:

Looking toward 2023, consumers are worrying about financial hardships brought on by the current state of our economy, including cost of living and rising inflation. While retailers need to respond to the world we live in today, they also need to anticipate the demands and desires that these emerging challenges will create tomorrow.

As a result of these economic challenges, 26% of U.S. consumers surveyed in the EY 11th Future Consumer Index report that they've embraced frugality as a way of life. And 94% of U.S. consumers are concerned about the U.S. economy, with 44% expecting it to worsen in the next six months. Normally, all this worry would mean the consumer would slow down spending and brace for impact, but that's not necessarily the case.

What will grow in 2023 is this gap between feelings and actions for the American consumer. Though Americans seem to be adapting practices like spending less on non-essentials (49%) and switching from brands to private label (30%), when you really break it down, we found that rising costs and price sensitivity have not really changed buying habits. In fact, 43% of Americans have not changed their product purchases on clothes, shoes and accessories as a result of price increases and 57% haven't changed their purchases on fresh/packaged food despite inflation and the economic outlook.

The real battle retailers will face is that consumers will be more discerning about how and where they choose to spend. 2023 will be a year all about creating consumer value. Retailers and brands can provide value by providing connected experiences, catering to individual consumers and focusing on actually delivering on promises of a personalized experience. It's up to retailers and brands to understand the consumer response to challenging times and find a way to provide value.

Elaine Coffman, SVP of human resources at Majorel:

The skills expected from customer service providers will change. Customers will have a greater need for consultative services to enhance the customer experience, replacing traditional transactional offerings, which will be replaced by robotic process automation and AI.

More will be asked of front-line agents. Those working on the front lines in call centers will need to hone their conceptual thinking skills as their jobs change to be more client/customer partners in continuous improvement.

Contact center workforce structures will evolve beyond the traditional supervisor and agent breakdown. The supervisor-to-agent ratio structures will change as front-line agents evolve into more independent contributors.

Cybersecurity in contact centers will become more important than ever. Work from home will continue to be the norm, requiring contact centers to figure out how to solve for safety and security risks that are inherent when working outside of the office.

David Naumann, marketing strategy lead and resident retail industry expert at Verizon:

Retailers are recession proofing. Retailers are paying closer attention to supply chain challenges and in 2023 are working on reducing their own fixed costs in order to weather the unknown economic circumstances ahead.

Neil Costa, founder and CEO of HireClix:

The looming recession will not stop hiring needs in healthcare, transportation and retail. As boomers retire, they leave the workforce expecting to travel more, eat out more and need more healthcare services. This will create plenty of opportunities in these categories for younger generations to find jobs. The main street storefronts and the logistics behind getting products to their destinations will be critical and generate countless jobs, even in a tight economy.

We expect in-person hiring events to come back with a vengeance in 2023. As we see more distance between the world and the peak of the pandemic, we anticipate everyone will want more face time when it comes to making one of the biggest decisions anyone can make in their lives — getting a new job. We believe that both employers and candidates will want to get the in-person time to get a real, genuine look into cultural fit.

As most employers will continue to offer flexibility and work from home accommodations, employers need in-person time to find candidates that will turn into high quality employees. No one really screened employees for this ability to be productive while working from home, but assessing that ability now will be part of the interview and screening processes.

Sanjay Mehta, head of industry and commerce at Lucidworks:

While traditionally more prevalent in B2B commerce, more consumers are demanding product personalization and sellers will follow suit. This will lead to supporting technology adoption such as 3D printing. The enablement of privacy regulations such as CCPA and GDPR will move the focus of personalization away from using explicit consumer data to more predicted approaches such as neural- and vector-based approaches. These approaches leverage anonymous data points such as context and behavior to form hyper relevant experiences.

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