Future trends in customer experience
What does the future of customer experience really look like? In this episode of CX Minutes, we sit down with Zack Hamilton, SVP of Growth Strategy & Head of PPX Institute at parcelLab. Zack brings bold insights from his years in retail and customer experience leadership—sharing the same no-nonsense, actionable style he’s known for in his newsletter and podcast, Unf*cking Your CX. In this conversation, he shares what modern CX leaders must do to stay ahead.
CX Minutes with Zack Hamilton, parcelLab and our host Sabina Persson, Custellence.
What’s covered in this episode
Guest insights
- Zack’s journey from retail to radical CX thinking
- How post-purchase experiences drive lifetime value
- AI’s role in predicting—not reacting—to behavior
- Why behavioral orchestration beats feedback loops
- Zack’s bold vision of agentic AI teams
- A wake-up call: stop worshiping NPS
Quick links
Zack’s journey from retail to radical CX thinking
Career journeys in CX leadership often start in unexpected places. “I never had my heart set on a CX career,” Zack admits. Originally rooted in retail operations and e-commerce, he now leads parcelLab’s global strategies to create better post-purchase experiences. His frustration with the industry led him to launch Unf*cking Your CX —a bold newsletter and podcast challenging outdated CX norms.
His newsletter and podcast, Unf*cking Your CX, continue to challenge outdated CX thinking and push the industry toward real change.
How post-purchase experiences drive lifetime value
According to Zack, most brands “check out at checkout” —leaving crucial post-purchase experiences in third-party hands. This gap damages engagement and delays the next purchase.
“Customer lifetime value is king. It’s the north star—the one metric that should guide every decision you make as a CX leader.”–Zack
Instead, brands must personalize, communicate, and orchestrate the waiting period after checkout to accelerate loyalty and revenue growth.
Related: Redefining customer experience at CDON
AI’s role in predicting—not reacting
CX traditionally reacts to feedback—slowly. Zack highlights that with AI, we can now predict customer behavior in real time. Rather than waiting months to redesign experiences, AI allows modern CX teams to proactively adapt to changing behaviors.
More insights: Using AI to track how customers feel — In real time (Harvard Business Review)
Why behavioral orchestration beats feedback loops
“Stop relying solely on feedback,” Zack warns. Top brands are now moving toward behavioral orchestration: designing experiences based on real-time behaviors instead of slow, reactive surveys. Instead of reacting to what customers say, leading companies are interpreting what customers do—unlocking much faster and more relevant improvements.
“If you’re sitting around waiting for feedback—you’re way too slow. Customer expectations evolve by the minute, and if you rely solely on survey data, you’re already behind.”
Behavioral insights give brands a dynamic edge, allowing them to predict needs and shape journeys before a customer ever fills out a survey.
More like this: Watch CX Minutes #4 with Johan Salzmann.
Zack’s bold vision of agentic AI teams
Fast forward three years—not ten: Zack predicts that CX teams will largely consist of agentic AI bots focused on specific outcomes like lifetime value and retention, while human leaders calibrate and guide. These agents will work independently toward revenue and loyalty targets, drastically accelerating CX operations while freeing up human teams for strategy and oversight.
Rather than replacing humans, Zack envisions AI agents handling complex behavioral analysis and pattern detection in real time, allowing CX leaders to focus on higher-level orchestration and innovation.
A wake-up call: Stop worshiping NPS
In his final advice, Zack doesn’t mince words: ditch vanity metrics like NPS, OSAT, and CES if they don’t drive tangible business results.
Deep insights: How To Scale Up By Understanding Customer Lifetime Value (Forbes)
Key takeaways from Zack
- Prioritize post-purchase experiences to maximize customer lifetime value.
- Use AI to predict and adapt to consumer behavior — not just react.
- Design experiences around behavior patterns rather than feedback.
- Prepare for AI agents to run major parts of CX operations.
- Report on real business impact, not vanity metrics.
“Customer lifetime value must be your true north.” — Zack Hamilton
👉 Want to learn more? Watch the full Episode #7 with Zack Hamilton here.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Why did Zack launch Unf*cking Your CX?
He was frustrated with CX leaders “complaining about the same things” without creating real change.
How fast does Zack believe AI will reshape CX?
Much sooner than people think—within two and a half to three years.
What should CX teams measure instead of NPS?
Actions and metrics that causally link to customer lifetime value.
Final thoughts
Zack Hamilton brings a much-needed dose of urgency, strategy, and optimism to the future of customer experience. From building AI-first CX teams to redefining KPIs around customer lifetime value, his advice challenges all of us to move faster and think bigger. The future isn’t ten years away—it’s already here.
AI Summary
In this value-packed CX Minutes episode, Zack Hamilton from parcelLab explains why modern CX leaders must stop waiting for feedback, start designing around real-time behavior, and embrace AI-driven strategies. He urges a shift from vanity metrics to customer lifetime value as the ultimate success measure
Read the transcript
Intro
0:09 Sabina Persson:
Hi everyone I am Sabina Persson from Custellence and you are so welcome to the videocast CX Minutes.
It’s six questions, six minutes and it’s all about customer experience. So this is a series of episodes where we try to bring you actionable insights, practical know-how, and personal stories from top professionals.
And all in just six minutes, that’s the ambition. And with me today I have Zack Hamilton from parcelLab.
Welcome
0:38 Sabina:
Welcome Zack! How are you?
0:42 Zack Hamilton:
Hi Sabina, I’m great! Thank you for having me on, I’m so excited to be with you today.
0:49 Sabina:
Likewise I can’t wait to start! So we’re going to talk about the future of customer experience.
Who are you and what do you do?
0:56 Sabina:
But first, let me just ask you, you know, who are you and what do you do?
1:05 Zack:
Yeah, so Zack Hamilton. I always say I’m a retailer at heart, I was born and bred in retail, from operations to e-commerce and then I fell into CX. I never had my heart set on a career in customer experience. Which has now led me to, you know, at parcelLab, I lead our entire kind of customer value realization.
So, I help brands globally, strategically think about how they deliver better post-purchase experiences. And then I also lead up our post-purchase experience institute.
1:42 Sabina:
Got it, but you also do something else right?
1:48 Zack:
Yeah something else. Recently I’ve been really, I’ll just be honest, I’ve been really annoyed with CX practitioners and thought leaders complaining about the same thing on LinkedIn. So I started the Unf*cking Your CX newsletter. And now it’s turned into a podcast as well.
So it’s really just a challenge, the industry challenge. Your thinking very radical, punch you in the face kind of gut you, I think all CX practitioners need, especially if they’re going to be here and be part of the future of CX.
What role does customer experience play in your work?
2:20 Sabina:
I really recommend both the newsletter and the pod. So what role does customer experience play in your work?
2:30 Zack:
So I’ll say in my work, if we really think about kind of retail and kind of that digital shopping experiences. Most brands check out at checkout. So we spend billions of dollars trying to acquire a customer and once that customer gets through the digital funnel, they finish digital shopping, they check out and ultimately brands just leave basically that post-purchase experience or that last mile fulfillment, in the hands of a third party.
And so ultimately if we really think about customer lifetime value and we think about kind of that equation. The next purchase and time to repeat purchase is so important. And ultimately what I do, is I help brands strategically think about how do we keep your customers engaged, while they’re waiting for their merchandise or product to be delivered.
How do we leverage your personalization engine, all these different things to really drive just incredible engagement. Which then ultimately leads to repeat purchases and customer lifetime value.
3:12 Sabina:
And customer lifetime value is key here isn’t it?
3:16 Zack:
Yeah it’s the king, customer lifetime value king.
How do you see AI shaping the future of customer experience?
3:45 Sabina:
So this is supposed to be a quick question but it’s big I know. So how do you see AI shaping the future of customer experience?
3:52 Zack:
Yeah, you know what’s really interesting is I’ve thought for such a long time, that the CX work, our CX work is so slow. We’re very reactive to customer feedback. So what’s coming over in our surveys, or you know we’re scraping feedback online. And essentially, yes we can be very reactive and quick when it comes to closing the inner loop right, so following up on a bad experience.
But ultimately, if we think about that outer loop and really redesigning experiences. I know just from my own experience, that could take 9 to 12 months, as we think about really understanding what the experience is that we need to redesign, customer expectations and then going and getting executive approval.
So ultimately with AI, AI is going to be the tool that’s going to help us keep up, and ahead of consumer behavior. Consumer behavior changes so rapidly and so quickly, we’re always behind and reactive in CX, and now AI is going to be the tool that helps us, one stay up with consumer behavior, but also predict consumer behavior, so we actually get ahead of it.
What’s one overlooked CX trend you think people should pay more attention to right now?
5:07 Sabina:
And in your opinion, what is one customer, okay aside from AI, what is one customer experience trend that you think people should pay attention to right now?
5:14 Zack:
It’s a good question. I think about, I think about more around experience orchestration. So too often we try to design experiences. And most of the time the experiences that we design are for us as a brand and what we’re trying to achieve, our brand goals. Versus really just allowing us as consumers and customers to be our authentic selves. That’s when you really drive that connection.
And so, I think about experience orchestration where we’re moving away from leveraging feedback, but more around behaviors. So behaviors are more predictive than what feedback is and so ultimately there’s a lot of brands, or I should say your leading brands are starting to move towards behavioral patterns, versus just feedback patterns.
A lot of people might say, well it’s—and you got to combine both. But if you’re sitting around and waiting for feedback, it’s way too slow.
6:13 Sabina:
Got it, yeah.
What’s one thing about CX that will look completely different in 10 years?
6:22 Sabina:
What if you were to, you know, imagine—sorry. What if you were to imagine 10 years from now? What’s one big change that you think we’ll see in customer experience?
6:29 Zack:
Yeah, this one’s so interesting. So I was at retail and I got the question a couple weeks ago, you know, if I were to go back into industry and start leading a CX strategy again for a retailer, what would I do? And my feedback was I would actually build a team of agentic AI bots or agents.
And really have them focused on, you know, one is just really focused on customer lifetime value, one’s focused on customer retention, you know and really assign them to revenue goals. And I’d have a very, very small CX team whose responsibility is more around calibration of the agents. Getting in feedback, looking at how accurate they are.
Because ultimately at the end of the day, we will never have large CX teams, and if you have to really—if you think about the CX role, it’s more about influencing cross-functional decisions and actions that be taken and it’s still too slow. So that’s what I would do, even if I would go back now. Because I think in 10 years from now, it is all going to be about agents.
I mean our retail brands are going to be run on agents.
7:47 Sabina:
And it might not even take 10 years, that’s my thought of it.
7:52 Zack:
I don’t think it will. I think it’s going to take probably two and a half, three years. I don’t think we will lose the human element, I think the humans will be there to, one ensure that there is human logic applied to the agents, I think we’re looking at the accuracy of agents and the action that they are taking.
But they can analyze, you know, consumer behavior patterns within seconds, versus it takes us hours to do that.
If you were to give one piece of advice, what would that be?
8:19 Sabina:
Yes, okay and final question. What is, you know, as we’ve been talking about the future CX. If you were to give one piece of advice, what would that be?
8:24 Zack:
So my, I’ll give immediate advice would be, stop reporting on net promoter score or vanity metrics. So NPS, CAT, OSAT, customer enquiry score. Quite frankly your executive team doesn’t give a shit. Like they act like they care, because that’s the only metric that they know.
But quite frankly your north star as a CX team should be customer lifetime value. That’s it! And if you are taking any actions or reporting on anything that doesn’t relate to, or have causation to customer lifetime value—not correlation, but causation—you are wasting your time and you should stop doing that, wasting your time.
Wrap-up
9:05 Sabina:
And amen to that I say! Thank you so much for these amazing advice and thoughts that you were so willing to share, Zack. It has been great speaking with you.
9:13 Zack:
Likewise, it was incredible, I love just the quick tips, and I’ve learned a lot from your previous guests as well.
9:20 Sabina:
Oh brilliant, thank you! And with that everyone, it’s a wrap and we thank you for watching and see you next time. Bye!
Check out other episodes of CX Minutes here.
By Tove Lundell
