Customer Experience Management Now a Core Differentiator
Posted by Brian Koma on Mon, Nov 16, 2009
Interest in Customer Experience rose dramatically across organizations we surveyed as part of our Vovici CE IQ study, increasing from 47% of respondents stating that Customer Experience Management (CEM) was very important to them in 2008 to 63% in 2009. Clearly the global economic contraction focused many organizations more tightly on understanding how customers are interacting with them, and this has put a dramatic new emphasis on CEM.
In fact, much to our surprise, more than half, or 55%, of respondents say that customer experience is a core differentiator that distinguishes their business from others in their market. Customer experience has arrived, and is now as important as traditional differentiators such as quality, service and staff capabilities. Despite the global economic contraction, price was not frequently cited as a core differentiator (18%).
When asked to assess the current benefits of CEM, customer satisfaction and loyalty were the most important, cited by 52% of respondents. Next was providing greater positive word of mouth (50%) and excellence in customer service (42%).
Leading the areas where organizations could do better, providing greater consistency of experience at every customer touch point was mentioned by only 36% of respondents. This is an area for improvement, as excellence in Customer Experience Management should drive such behavior. Top-line and bottom-line benefits from CEM are currently experienced by only about a third of respondents (35% and 29% respectively).
With organizations acknowledging how important CEM is to distinguish themselves from competitors, it is more important than ever to focus on those CEM best practices that build customer loyalty.
Note: The survey of over 200 organizations around the world is based on a convenience sample designed to identify the impact of CE best practices on loyalty, in order to prioritize those best practices. These results are illustrative and are not representative of any wider population of organizations. For more on the methodology, see Customer Experience Study Findings.
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