In a recent study, 95% of business leaders saw the “customer experience” as the next competitive battleground. (Source: Beyond Philosophy)
Quality, price and features are no longer the most important factors in a customer’s decision to buy or return. Instead, studies show the customer experience is paramount. It is also the most crucial builder of customer loyalty – and thus of profit.
Customer experience covers not only the company’s core offering, but also the quality of any other contact - through advertisements, telephone contact and store visits to aftersales service, billing and dealing with customer feedback; even car parking and toilets at company locations.
80% of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree. (Source: Bain & Co.)
Like a product or a service, the customer experience can be optimised and designed, improving customer perceptions of your company. The results are positive for customer satisfaction and loyalty, for staff motivation, and for the bottom line:
Benefits to financial performance
Companies which focused on “customer experience” outperformed the market by a factor of 10 to 1 – and they even outperformed operationally excellent companies almost four-fold. (Source: Peer Insight)
A company that improves customer satisfaction by 1% a year during five successive years will on average accumulate an increase of 11.5% return on investment over the same period. (Source: Hitachi Consulting)
Benefits to customer loyalty
Satisfied Starbucks customers are 14 times more valuable per year (at $3,000) than dissatisfied customers (at $200) (Source: Wharton)
61% of users claim to have never returned to a particular site as a result of poor customer experience. (Source: Zendor)
Benefits to staff motivation
Over five years, companies rated as “a good place to work” showed 25 per cent growth in share and dividend returns, compared to an average return of only 6.3 per cent. (Source: Sunday Times Great Places To Work Survey)
