December 01, 2025
CXM’s November Catch-Up and December CX Events Roundup
November may have come grinding to a halt due to Thanksgiving, but there was still plenty of action earlier on, with lots coming in December to keep an eye on.
The highlight for the CXM team was definitely awards night for the International Customer Experience Awards in London.
They day saw teams, judges and individuals from around the world gather in London to celebrate the best that CX has to offer. We made new friends and collected plenty of insights over the day, with fresh perspectives from new judges, and a host of delighted feedback from the winners.
And before the Thames air had cleared our heads, it was a quick journey over to ExCel Arena for the Contact Centre Expo to interview the insiders, and powerful and up-and-coming brands of the customer service world.
Moving out of London, Birmingham’s Automotive Live event showed how the car sector is dealing with customer experience, and an onslaught of Chinese brands entering the UK market, with very customer-friendly showrooms on the way to shake up the incumbents.
Finally, after a summer lull, the CX Lore podcast is back, offering a cheery interview with David Neale, CEO of GBPO Solutions about the modern face of BPO.
The Big Stories From November
Black Friday is a ever-present inky smudge in November’s news. Skewing the story this year, vendors and analysts were interested in the growing role AI is playing in the need for relevant deals and greater personalisation. In December we expect to see some insights from these efforts and if there’s success in being different, rather than flogging the same old deals.
Related to Black Friday, the growing risk of friendly fraud, the perilous world of chargebacks, is crippling some businesses and making increasing headlines, from the CX perspective.
Beyond shopping, customer experience centres are a booming trend, with the likes of Mercedes Benz in Germany, and Newell Brands in the US opening up high-value experiences for retail partners and customers to learn more about their products.
And with AION cars planning to launch in the UK next year with their ultra-modern showrooms, there’s plenty of life in the physical retail experience.
On the vendor side, a fresh raft of AI updates from the likes of Freshworks see AI tools focused on vertical markets and deeper into the CX layer from Five9. They show how AI is gaining relevance within businesses looking for specific benefits rather than Hail Marys and spurious opportunities.
One place where AI seems to be missing is staff training, which risks workers using their own ad hoc lessons, rather than taking part in a structured approach.
Eyes on December’s News and Events
Yes, December will be a quieter month, with the British wing of CXM wondering (praying) if we’ll get snow, or just more rain. Everyone else gets to recharge their batteries for a furiously busy 2026.
We kick off today with AWS re:Invent 2025: Amazon Connect & Agentic AI, streaming for those who can’t make it to Las Vegas, and full of the latest in cloud services, agents in the workplace and much more over four days or presentations.
And tomorrow, Engage Customer is running a virtual event, “The New Era of Connection: Redefining the Contact Centre for 2026 and Beyond” taking a look at what customer engagement will look like. And how using contact centre data can shape an enterprise-wide CX strategy.
And, there’s still plenty to look forward to, with Customer Support Summit, London on this week, and Dubai’s CXO 2.0 Conference taking place under the theme of “Leadership That Walks The Talk.”
December is also time for endless predictions and reports season, we’ve already started capturing the essence of what’s to come in 2026, but LinkedIn and analyst pages will be full of big and smart ideas.
These are where some great CX stories hide, disguised as a stat or anecdote. And we’ll be taking notes to see how the predictions fare over 2026.
