Customer experience can literally make or break your business.
One bad experience for a customer can set off a chain reaction that leaves your company putting out a lot of fires. The horror stories you hear about of a bad experience with a brand going viral across social media is a great example of this.
Leaders in innovation are tasked with driving changes that will enable their company to gain and maintain a competitive edge. If you need any convincing that customer experience is an area to pay attention to, here are eight eye opening customer experience stats you need to know.
In the U.S., the estimated cost of customers switching due to poor service is $1.6 Trillion.
Source: Accenture
1.6 trillion. To put this number into perspective, it would take the highest paid NBA player, LeBron James, over 30,000 years just to reach one trillion in total earnings at his current annual salary of $31 million.
Customer churn isn’t good for employee morale, investor relations, or your company’s bottom line.
95% of consumers talk about poor customer service experiences with other people.
Source: American Express
When you have a bad customer experience what’s the first thing you do? You tell someone about it. And now a days with the reach of social media, that someone could turn into thousands of people instantly.
Word of mouth can be your greatest ally or your worst nightmare. It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C, people talk. And when they talk, others listen.
75% of online customers expect help within 5 minutes.
Source: Mckinsey & Company
Do you enjoy waiting on the phone or in an online queue for a customer service rep to help you? Probably not.
With the advances in technology we have at our disposal today, customers expect speedy response times from companies. It doesn’t matter if they’re having an issue with a product or service, or seeking more information about new offerings, they expect speed.
40% of customers begin purchasing from a competitor because of their reputation for great customer service.
Source: Zendesk
According to data curated by Zendesk, 40% of customers purchase from competitors because of their reputation for taking care of their customers.
In other words, 4 out of 10 of your customers will elect to go to a competitor simply because they’ve heard they provide a better customer service. Even if their product or service is inferior.
Companies that excel at customer experience grow revenues 4-8% above the market.
Source: Bain and Company
Piggybacking off of the previous stat, Bain and Company found that companies who provide a stellar customer experience grow revenues by 4-8%. If this isn’t incentive enough to make customer experience a top priority, I don’t know what is.
66% of consumers say they are likely to switch brands if they are treated like a number instead of an individual.
Source: Salesforce
In a survey of over 7,000 global consumers and business buyers, Salesforce uncovered a statistic that isn’t surprising. If consumers don’t receive the type of experience they expect as a paying customer, they won’t hesitate to find another company to buy from. Your competitors will thank you for this.
64% of consumers (B2C) and 80% of business buyers (B2B) expect real time communication with companies.
Source: Salesforce
In the same survey, Salesforce found similar results as Mckinsey and Company in an earlier stat.
Consumers absolutely expect real time communication whether that’s on a company website or through social networks like Twitter. This goes back to consumer demand for speed when it comes to interacting with companies.
75% of companies said their top objective for 2016 was to improve the customer experience.
Source: Spigit’s 2016 Crowdsourced Innovation Benchmark Study
The research Planview IdeaPlace conducted for our 2016 Crowdsourced Innovation Benchmark Study uncovered some interesting insights. One of which was 75% of Planview IdeaPlace customers listed improving the customer experience as their top objective in 2016.
With 2017 in full swing, prioritizing the customer experience shows no signs of slowing down. And as we learned in Planview IdeaPlace’s Voice of the Customer webinar, companies who put the customer experience first set themselves up for success.
Final thoughts
It’s easy to get lost in the numbers.
You may understand the importance of customer experience, but have no idea where to start or what areas to focus on to make the biggest impact.
Despite that, there’s good news.
There’s an old saying goes like this: no one knows more than everyone.
You have everything you need to identify opportunities that could improve the customer experience. And it’s right in front of you: employees.
