Businesses are missing out on a significant opportunity to fix internal processes and address the root causes of customer experience issues in the wake of the pandemic, research from enterprise software specialist IFS shows.
Censuswide collected data in February 2021, surveying more than 1,700 executives and 12,000 consumers in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, France, Germany and the Nordics.
Findings show that the majority (66%) of companies are investing upwards of $250,000 each year evaluating the customer experience through Net Promoter Scores, reviews, and customer satisfaction surveys.
Despite that, 82% were unable to recall a single positive example of a recent frictionless customer experience — showing current customer experience processes do little more than wallpaper over the cracks.
While much attention is paid to customer service, the inflection points that occur throughout the lifecycle of an operation and encompass processes, technology solutions, and human coordination are even more important to business outcomes, yet even more frequently overlooked.
Only by careful orchestration of these components can companies deliver a quality “moment of service,” in which everything comes together to create a positive result for a customer.
However, while 79% of businesses have invested time and resources in identifying where these inflection points are or when problems are identified, nearly a third (29%) of managers admitted to reporting them but not taking action.
Further, 18% of respondents revealed they were too busy to report issues unless urgent, while just 15% said they proactively look to pre-empt problems.
With 90% of businesses stating they have reengineered or are reengineering their business to ensure customer touchpoints and stages come together for better moments of service, it is vital that companies ensure processes are optimised across each of these inflection points to mitigate issues and fuel growth.
A quarter of consumer respondents stated they would never engage with a brand again after just one bad experience, while over half (52%) would abandon a company after two to three.
Also, 58% of consumers are very likely or somewhat likely to share their negative perceptions with their network, highlighting how easily a bad interaction can be amplified.
Still, over half (52%) of consumers are inclined to leave a positive review, underscoring just how much can be gained by keeping an open dialog with customers and focusing on delivering an exceptional brand experience.
“As more and more businesses look to service provision as a key competitive differentiator, running the right enterprise software —engineered for the moment of service and capable of orchestrating a multitude of people, assets and customers — will separate the winners from the losers,” said IFS chief customer officer Michael Ouissi.
“To achieve this, enterprises must rethink how they architect their operations, and become a ‘composable enterprise’ that harnesses a combination of packaged functions and technologies to deliver outcomes and adapts to the pace of business,” said Ouissi.
