Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.
This week, we’ve explored the rise of RCS and conversational commerce and retail’s biggest blind spots—from price hikes that risk loyalty to the hidden costs of poor scheduling and consumer resistance to tariff-driven markups.
We’re also discussing new updates from the European Central Bank, TTEC, and more.
Key news
- Rising living costs, gender inequality and uncertainty about the future are stopping young people from having as many children as they’d like, according to the UN’s latest State of World Population report. Money worries top the list, with nearly one in five of respondents across 14 countries – including Germany, Sweden, Italy, Hungary, the US, South Korea and Nigeria – citing them as the main barrier. In over half of these countries, which represent 37% of the global population, fertility rates have dropped below 2.1 births per birthing parent – the level for maintaining population size without migration.
- A newly created startup wants to snazz up overnight train travel across Europe by offering private-cabin-only tickets on more than 35 routes. Unlike most competitors, Berlin-based Nox Mobility will invest in a new fleet that should start operating from 2027. The trains, which will run from Luleå in the very north of Sweden to Reggio di Calabria in Italy’s deep south, will have individual rooms priced similar to air fares, co-founder Thibault Constant announced on LinkedIn. For night-train travel to really take off, however, railway journalist Jon Worth argues the EU should offer financial guarantees to firms to buy new carriages.
- Gold has become the second-favourite reserve asset worldwide, overtaking the euro, as central banks buy up bullion “at a record pace”, the European Central Bank writes in a new report. The US dollar remains unrivalled, accounting for 46% of global reserves, followed by gold (20%) and the euro (16%). Central bank stockpiles of gold are approaching levels last seen in the mid-1960s, resulting in a record price level of $3,500 per troy ounce. Gold is traditionally a popular asset to hold in times of geopolitical risk, while central banks have been keen to diversify away from the dollar, according to the Financial Times.
CXM news stories
Here’s the full news stories that CXM have reported on in the past week. Learn all about the latest news about Gen Z in the workplace, the impact of poor personalisation, overwhelmed shoppers, and more.
TTEC Taps Zendesk’s Agentic AI to Drive Smarter Omnichannel Engagement
TTEC Holdings has announced a significant expansion of its long-standing partnership with Zendesk. With hundreds of shared enterprise clients already benefiting from Zendesk’s tools, this enhanced collaboration deepens the integration between the two companies, unlocking new possibilities for CRM scalability, workflow efficiency, and omnichannel experience delivery.
“This expanded partnership enables TTEC to tap into the full spectrum of Zendesk capabilities for existing and new clients. Additionally, it opens up exciting opportunities to broaden our reach together with joint go-to-market strategies and solution development,” said Chris Brown, Chief of Staff, Office of Chairman and CEO, TTEC. “As the CX landscape becomes increasingly AI-driven, we have the deep technical expertise and the operational knowledge to create value for clients of all sizes and across multiple industries. We’re excited about this expanded partnership and look forward to bringing end-to-end digital transformation capabilities to the market together.”
A Unified Vision for Smarter, Seamless Customer Engagement
Under the new agreement, TTEC will serve as a comprehensive implementation and delivery partner across the full Zendesk ecosystem. This move positions TTEC to help organisations rapidly accelerate their customer experience transformation efforts, driving measurable improvements in operational performance, service delivery, and customer satisfaction.
The partnership takes advantage of TTEC’s deep expertise in Amazon Connect, integrating this capability directly into Zendesk deployments. The result is a more unified voice and data infrastructure that connects every customer touchpoint—phone, chat, email, or messaging—into a single, seamless omnichannel experience.
The two companies are enabling faster, smarter service at scale by pairing Zendesk’s advanced AI and workflow automation capabilities with TTEC’s decades of CX strategy and implementation know-how. TTEC will leverage this synergy to enhance agent performance, improve task automation, and streamline operations, giving businesses greater agility in adapting to evolving customer expectations.
Further, TTEC is developing a portfolio of vertical-specific solutions tailored to key industries such as healthcare, financial services, banking, and the public sector. Built on top of the Zendesk platform, these proprietary offerings are designed to address the unique regulatory, compliance, and customer needs of each sector, empowering organisations to launch purpose-built solutions with greater speed and confidence.