The Customer Has Spoken

With all the negative economic news roiling around you might have missed a pretty damning article in the Wall Street Journal recently (see link below) that shows just how far US companies have to go to deliver exceptional customer experience (CX).?

According to the just-published annual National Customer Rage Survey published by Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, the number of consumers who say they experienced a product or service problem in the past year grew to 74% (up from 66% in 2020 and 56% in 2017).

It seems that despite significantly increased awareness of the importance of, and investment in CX as a critical component of competitiveness and differentiation, a lot of companies are falling short and it looks like we’re actually going backwards. What’s going on??

In my view three things:

1. Companies largely remain organized in the same siloes that have defined them for decades. As a result, CX responsibilities get fractured and handed off from team to team, KPIs are misaligned, and the experience ‘enjoyed’ by a customer is subject to critical (and predictable) breakdowns. But it’s not just CX strategy that suffers when a company’s org design doesn’t support a serious focus on CX. It also leads to a friction-filled experience for employees who overwork to compensate for the impact of bad org design on customers. That puts companies in a position of spending more to deliver an experience that ultimately fails both employees and customers and limits their ability to grow market share.
2. Automation is being deployed to cut costs and solve staffing shortages. Of course automation can be a great route for making certain tasks and workflows more efficient, but it must be done with the goal of making the customer experience better. (Hands up everyone who has been subject to endless automated messages, or can’t even find an actual Customer Service phone number at all.)
3. The collection of critical data is not being organized, considered, or acted upon holistically across the organization. This is an outcome of Point 1, but until it’s solved there will never be consistent, quality CX delivered across the enterprise.

The numbers are in and customers are telling us we’re failing. Brands, consultants and agencies - we know we can do a better job. Let’s use this clear message to plant a flag and turn the situation around. Our businesses depend on it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-customer-problems-hit-a-record-high-more-people-seek-revenge-2ab8fc74