-Press Release
Organizations must unlock the new paradigm of personalized, empathetic experiences at scale to build customer relationships and growth amid changing consumer preferences and increasing expectations
Bangalore: Poor customer experiences are threatening brand loyalty, with nearly one-third (31%) of consumers opting to take their business elsewhere after a dissatisfactory interaction last year. New research today from Genesys, a global cloud leader in experience orchestration, also reveals the No. 1 challenge for organizations is keeping up with rising consumer expectations — putting their bottom line at risk as they struggle to deliver relationship-building experiences.
Bad Experiences Kill Customer Loyalty
Expectations about what makes a great customer experience (CX) are rising faster than most organizations can keep up with — and consumers aren’t afraid to walk away when their needs aren’t met.
- The majority of consumers (86%) believe a company is only as good as its service — a staggering 16-percentage points increase from 2021. But only 13% of businesses have the tools and technology in place to deliver the experiences people want today.
- Less than half (43%) of consumers have felt highly valued after a call, while a quarter of consumers have lost their temper; some (12%) had experiences so bad that they were driven to tears.
- These bad experiences are worse than frustrating — they’re loyalty killers: 77% of consumers will switch brands after five or fewer negative interactions with a brand’s customer service.
“Consumers today have little tolerance for fragmented, inefficient and transactional interactions, which they’re demonstrating by leaving for the competition,” said Barbara Holzapfel, Chief Marketing Officer at Genesys. “The most innovative organizations are proactively addressing these rapidly changing expectations by redefining what’s possible using digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). For organizations, this study underscores the importance of strengthening customer and employee relationships by orchestrating personalized, empathetic experiences at scale.”
Earn Loyalty by Understanding Customer Generational Dynamics and Personalization Preferences
For organizations to meet the increasing expectations of consumers, it’s imperative to understand the preferences and motivations that are driving their behaviors.
- The experience and values-driven generations: Gen Z and millennials’ loyalty is won and lost in the experience. These generations are quick to stop doing business with a company after a poor customer experience: 34% of Gen Z consumers switched brands last year, compared to just 25% of baby boomers. But those younger consumers are even quicker to become brand ambassadors for companies that provide excellent customer service: 43% — an increase of 13 percentage points from 2021 — will recommend to their network, compared to less than 33% of baby boomers.
- Strategic personalization drives loyalty and revenue: Marketing deals are less important to consumers (16%) than receiving a personalized experience for services when they need them on the channel they want (62%). Organizations that get it right have the potential to unlock new revenue opportunities: More than 80% of consumers say they would purchase additional items from companies that consistently personalize the customer service experience — an increase of 10 percentage points from 2017.
- Response time and issue resolution efficacy: More than 50% of those surveyed ranked fast responses and having their issue solved during the first interaction as the most valuable elements of customer experience.
- Dropped calls and dead-end automation: In contrast, consumers reported dropped calls as the most frustrating thing that can happen while engaging with customer service, followed closely by the inability to reach a live agent from a chatbot or reaching a dead-end from a phone menu.
CX Excellence Requires Seamless Experiences and an Investment in Employees
Across industries, many companies are rethinking their approach to customer service—with plans to increase their related budgets by 25% in 2023. Key spending priorities focus on enabling end-to-end experience orchestration to improve engagement across channels, systems and departments. In addition, businesses are recognizing the intrinsic connection between their customers and employees. According to nearly half of CX leaders surveyed (47%), the No. 1 CX priority is investing in technology or connecting systems that improve the employee experience. Key focus areas over the next one to two years include simplifying the employee user experience and helping them better respond to customer needs with enhanced knowledge management capabilities.
The State of Customer Experience report from Genesys reinforces that for organizations to succeed today, they must take a people-centric, unified approach to customer and employee experiences. Organizations that leverage digital and AI technology to deliver the power of personalization and empathy in every experience will stay ahead of competitors by building loyalty while managing business costs.
What the partners think?
Pranay Anand, Vice President, NTT Global, one of the leading channel partners of Genesys says, customer experience and employee experience are two critical aspects of organizations. He firmly believes that organizations focussing on both customer experience and employee experience are more likely to retain the customers. “Slowly employee experience is becoming one of the essential elements. At the end of the day, happy employees deliver happy service. A good CX delivers revenue and proper EX delivers margins. The genuine benefits that grow all over the business are spread wide. A good employee experience is in the balancing way of managing the art and science together. With an exceptional employee experience and the right workforce management in place, employees will become brand ambassadors. Not being satisfied with the product or brand, it will be hard for the employees to sell. It is imperative to create emotional connections with the employees and delight them.”, he says.
Speaking on the way ahead with newer opportunities getting generated in the market, Nick Parmar, Vice President – Cloud Communications, Tata Communications, another leading channel partner in the cloud segment feels, latest technologies including the AI can enhance the customer experience. “We are seeing tremendous opportunities for AI-powered collaboration applications and chatbots across different industries. In sectors that have direct interactions with end-customers such as BFSI, retail, e-commence etc., such apps can help organisations deliver personalised experiences to the customers, provide on-the-go response to their queries and give them offers as per their buying behaviour. In the manufacturing sector, intelligent applications can help understand the machine’s behaviour and anticipate technical glitches before they occur, ensure secure, timely and automated software updates with always-on connectivity.”
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