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ICX Association honors cutting-edge customer experiences with Elevate Awards

The association recognized the agencies, technology suppliers and brands changing the face of the customer experience with its annual Elevate Awards at the opening night of this year's ICX Summit.

Association Director Christopher Hall gives the Best Restaurant ICX Award to Taco Bell's Rafik Hanna, center, and Rishi Gupta, left.

June 5, 2019 by Christopher Hall — director, ICX Association

Interactive customer experience technology is changing the face of brand-consumer interactions across the full spectrum of customer verticals. Online tools help shoppers design, order and build backyard storage sheds; mobile commerce platforms help shoppers use their phones to gas up their cars and go; and self-service kiosks help hungry diners make a faster run for the border at Taco Bell.

The Interactive Customer Experience Association recognized the agencies, technology suppliers and brands changing the face of the customer experience with its annual Elevate Awards at an awards ceremony during the opening night of this year's ICX Summit.

From Best Mobile ICX for a mobile commerce platform changing the way drivers fuel up at the pumps to an AI-based analytics platform that helps create customized, personalized experiences for customers, the awards recognized an array of technologies and technology deployments across customer-facing verticals.

This year's Elevate Award Winners were:

• Best Digital Signage ICX: PanoScape at Tulane University, by DesignCentrix and Tulane University;
• Best Mobile ICX: The My Phillips App, by P97 Networks and Phillips 66;
• Best Retail ICX: The Nu Skin Flagship Store Experience, by Nu Skin and Shikatani Lacroix Design;
• Best Restaurant ICX: Taco Bell All-Access Self-Order Kiosks, by Taco Bell and Elo;
• Best Hospitality ICX: The Ocean Guest Experience Platform, by Carnival Corp.
• Best Kiosk ICX: Bell Canada Smart City Kiosks, by Reality Interactive and CIVIQ Smartscapes;
• Best Omnichannel ICX: The Tuff Shed Configurator, by Tuff Shed and KBMax; and
• Best Emerging Technology in ICX: The Analytics Learning Platform Pro, by NEC Display Solutions.

"Taco Bell strives to stay relevant with customers' ever-changing preferences and we are honored that the ICX Association recognizes our efforts," said Rafik Hanna, senior director of IT for Taco Bell, in a press release. "By partnering with Elo, we have succeeded in delivering a frictionless experience to our customers while streamlining our operations. We have unlocked the ability for our fans to make their menu items more cheesy, beefy, crunchy and more, all with the tap of a finger."

Also this year, the Association renamed its ICXA Influencer of the Year award after longtime digital signage and place-based media analyst, consultant and advocate Lyle Bunn, who passed away last fall. The Lyle Bunn Influencer of the Year Award went to Carnival Corp. for its work re-inventing the hospitality experience on its cruise ships. Combining IoT, digital signage, wearable technologies and more, the brand's Ocean Guest Experience Platform puts the customer at the center of an array of experiential possibilities. Kyle Prestenback, vice president for experience and innovation design at Carnival, accepted the award and told attendees about the brand's efforts to reimagine the guest experience.

Before handing out the Lyle Bunn Award, Association Director Christopher Hall told the audience about Bunn's influence on the industry. Bunn was an important mentor for him as he got his footing in the digital signage and customer experience fields, Hall said. "I'd planned to one day give this award to Lyle," he said. "It is much to my chagrin that I never got to do so."

This year's awards represented an ongoing trend that is seeing more and more brands from an increasing range of verticals submitting themselves for Elevate Awards, Hall said. "This is just further evidence that the customer-facing technology end-users are buying into the idea that creating transcendent customer experiences is key to their future success," he said. "And we're thrilled to recognize the excellent work they're doing in the field."