For our second post in the series of statistics, let’s talk customer service trends for 2018, and how companies are changing the way they manage their customer’s experience for 2019.

If you’re just starting to focus on customer service and experience, there are few defining factors between the two. Customer service is mostly reactive and used when the customer is not satisfied with a product or service, and relies of specialized service teams. Although, the best support and service teams can be proactive by reaching out to clients. Customer experience includes the customer service team along with all the interactions between a customer and a business, from lead generation and nurturing, to closing a sale and providing service after a purchase. Although service plays an important role in the customer experience, it’s just a segment of the overall process that encompasses experience.

Forrester defines customer experience as, “How customers perceive their interactions with your company”. Forrester also states, “In a world where consumers have numerous opportunities to choose from, where digital content and products that they’re exposed to, have never been SO immaculately personalised, it’s vital for marketers to keep up with the latest digital and customer experience research.”

2018 being the “year of the customer” was a big year for companies looking to enhance the experience people have with their business. Previous Senior Vice President for Google Ads, Sridhar Ramaswamy stated, “Consumers have never been so hard to please and marketers have never had as many opportunities to please them.”

Well said, Sridhar. Today’s technology and awareness has allowed companies to drastically change the way they interact with customers.

We reached out to CX Journey Inc. Founder & CEO and one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” Annette Franz, to hear her side of the story for the current state of customer experience today based on her background.

Annette shares, “We’ve seen the usual companies continuing to innovate and do well, but there are far too many companies still struggling to figure out where to even begin to improve the customer experience.”

Just off these comments alone, it’s clear why so many companies are putting customers at the forefront of their strategy today, and how much room for improvement there really is in the customer experience.

Now, let’s show off some statistics to see what’s really going on behind the scenes!

44% of companies seem to have greater focus on customer acquisition (Invespcro)
There is a retention rate of 92% among companies with a well-crafted customer service approach. (Aberdeen)
70% of companies that deliver exceptional customer experience use customer feedback (ThinkJar)

Customer service and experience expert, and Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations, Shep Hyken expressed, “Understanding your customers, their buying habits, history with your company and more are essential to giving customers the experience they deserve.”

When interacting with a business for customer service and support, 78% of consumers use mobile devices. That number increases to 90% when working with millennials. (Genysys)
The Genesys State of Customer Experience research reveals that one in three consumers is willing to pay more to receive a higher level of service.
45% of businesses manage customer experience through their customer care organization, while 30% manage it through their marketing teams. (Genysys)
83% of consumers state that the ability to move from one channel to another, such as moving from web chat to a live conversation, is desirable, but only 50% of businesses support such cross-channel interactions. (Genysys)
Latest research from Target Marketing shows that over 74% of responders said it was important, fairly important or very important to have a cohesive omnichannel experience.
Around two-thirds of CMOs are accountable for customer experience for their organisation (Forrester)
32% of B2C CMOs see improving customer experience as a top three objective. The figure stands at 23%for B2B (Forrester)

CX Journey Inc. CEO, Annette Franz states, “The good news is that many executives now know that they need to “do CX,” but they are miles away from actually knowing what that means or how to execute.”

55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience (ThinkJar)

The report by Genysys also highlights a common problem in customer experience - no specific team deals solely with customer experience.

Marketing team, as they’re usually responsible for customer lead acquisition and overall brand perception.
Sales and business development teams, involved with selling the product.
The product or service delivery teams interact with customers when there are issues with the product.
Back-office teams, accepting payments or handling collection-related activities.
The IT department, which works to make the online usability experience as seamless as possible.

This report by Genysys explains, “Even though there are various different teams that play different roles across a customer’s journey, and therefore, their experience; they often end up working in silos, which highlights a common CX problem faced by many companies. It’s often difficult to distinguish clear lines of roles and responsibility.”

Conclusion:

As you can see, companies today are focusing heavily on enhancing the customer experience to keep an advantage over competitors. If done right, the results are astonishing; customers are willing to pay more for a higher level of customer service, retention rate is skyrocketing, and companies are seeing a major rise in ROI by using customer feedback to provide a better experience. Integrated tools like customer journey mapping are shaping the way companies are framing their customer service and experience.

Annette comments on the direction of the new year, “The trends I'm focusing on for next year are really the same as this year (and last year, and the year before that): ensuring that companies successfully design and deliver a better customer experience by first having several foundational elements in place. First and foremost, there must be CEO and executive commitment for the work that lies ahead; without that, the transformation journey ends pretty quickly. Beyond that, there must be a well-defined customer experience vision and strategy, a governance structure to provide guidelines and oversight for the work ahead, a focus on improving the employee experience along with recognition that employees drive the customer experience, and a people-first culture. And finally, companies must take the time to understand both employees and customers, act on what they learn and embrace outside-in thinking, weaving the customer and her perspective into all they do.”

Moving into 2019, companies are allocating specific teams to customer experience, gathering feedback from marketing, sales and business development, customer service and IT, and departments to focus solely on areas of improvement.

Annette also shares how companies can start implementing a customer-focused approach into their strategy, “Start by understanding your customers. Start by putting the “customer” into customer experience. That requires businesses to listen to customers, develop personas, and map customer journeys. You can’t really understand customers and their experiences today without doing that work first. And you can’t transform something you don’t understand. You’ll be working in a vacuum, perpetuating inside-out thinking if you don’t bring the voice of the customer into all you do. Without doing the work to understand your customers, your customer experience strategy will fall flat and fail to outline a plan to deliver an experience that not only meets your customers’ needs but may/will also delight them.”

Have you started looking for ways to provide a more authentic customer experience that creates brand advocates and loyal customers? Explore the tools available at JourneyFlow.com, built by GreenRope, that allows you to design beautifully crafted customer journey maps based on customer interactions with your brand.

About Annette Franz, CCXP:

Annette Franz is founder and CEO (Chief Experience Officer, of course!) of CX Journey Inc. She's got 25 years of experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience - so that, together, you can design a better experience for all constituents.

Annette is also co-founder of Insight Wave, a customer experience accelerator that helps customer experience professionals operationalize the customer experience strategy across their organizations.

Annette was named one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider and is regularly recognized by companies around the world as a top influencer in Customer Experience.

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Customer Experience & Customer Service Stats from 2018 and Predictions for 2019