Investments in CX are Accelerating to Tackle COVID-19 Challenges in the Manufacturing Industry Businesses are often unable to keep up with the expectations of today’s sophisticated customers. Competition is a click away in this digital world, and social media can make or break a business. To compete in this environment, both B2C and B2B organizations must deliver more purposeful engagements to maintain brand loyalty. For companies that fail to meet customer expectations, reactions can be swift and painful. In a recent discussion, Alpa Shah (VP of CX at Frost & Sullivan) moderated an exceptional panel of CX thought leaders including Kevin Doyle (VP of Commercial Digital Solutions in the Industrial Group at Ecolab), Gabriele Masili (Global VP and Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft's Customer Experience & Success), Sudhir Nair (Chief Information and Technology Officer at loanDepot), and Tom Trounce (VP of Customer Experience at GNC) to discuss what's next in customer experience as the world begins to recover from the pandemic. This paper showcases best practices from these seasoned leaders about how to successfully deal with cultural shifts in the current environment, build trust and brand loyalty in a digital world, drive personalization in a meaningful way to customers, and engage with customers across their entire journey. Delivering excellent customer care became a greater challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the globe in 2020. The swift move to remote work; agent shortages; rise in the number of interactions, delays in the supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution; and, in many cases, tremendous business growth dramatically impacted customer contact organizations across industries. As a result, improving customer experience and satisfaction became a top business goal for 2021 across almost every industry. Other obstacles predate the pandemic: while providing holistic customer care has long been a goal across industries, only 29% of businesses have fully integrated their contact channels. In addition, the age-old problem of having difficulty integrating with legacy, enterprise-grade solutions continue to pose obstacles to creating a collaborative environment and eliminating silos. To tackle the above challenges, companies are prioritizing their digital transformation investments to adapt to new work modes. Improved collaboration is a crucial element of this strategy. Many companies also recognize how vital automation is for business continuity, investing in self-serve solutions and moving their capabilities to the cloud. Businesses are looking at ways to encourage customers to opt for (rather than be forced to use) automation, e-commerce, and other self-service tools. Ensuring customer trust and security as well as integrating digital channels are top of mind.