Customer experience is the new differentiator. 89 percent of businesses are soon expected to compete mainly on customer experience, meaning organizations that take customer experience seriously will stand out from the noise and win loyal customers over.
But are businesses organizing in a way that enables their company to create a great customer experience for their clients? Some innovate companies are creating new senior leadership roles (such as Chief Customer Officer or Chief Experience Officer) to take ownership over the full customer journey, but most are still struggling with how to best to meet this increased demand. For many businesses, the end-to-end client experience is everyone's job, and yet it's no one's job.
Do you think customer experience is part of your job? Do you have KPIs for your role that specifically tie to delivering on client/customer satisfaction? Is your company addressing the challenge in a unique way?
There are many good reasons for companies to think more holistically about the way they approach building a customer experience (CX) strategy:
Good customer experience retains business.
Companies with a social care program experience a 7.5 percent year-over-year increase in customer retention – those without only see a change of 2.9 percent according to an Aberdeen research study.
Customer experience can directly impact your bottom line.
86 percent of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, but only 1 percent of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations, says a recent CEI research study.
Your competitors are changing their priorities.
Improving the customer experience is a strategic priority for 73 percent of businesses, yet only 1 percent of companies deliver an excellent customer experience, according to the 2015 Forrester Research Customer Experience Index.
Technology is rapidly changing customer expectations.
By 2020, the customer will manage 85 percent of its relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human.
What can we all do to stay on top of industry trends, develop new skills, network, and learn from peers who are working on creating a better customer experience?
These trends show clearly that solid customer experience is at the heart of success. I'm working with a few awesome people to produce a very high-level customer experience summit in 2017. Please reach out if you'd like to speak, if you have an idea for a topic we should cover, or if you may want to attend or sponsor. We're in the early stages of putting together the full program so it would be great to connect!
