16 Statistics that Drive Home the Value of Customer Experience

We know that focusing on the customer experience is important. However, sometimes, it feels like we’re dealing in intangibles. After all, customers form their opinions based on a whole host of factors—from specific interactions and products to the way others talk about your brand and general “vibes.”

So, how do you quantify the business value of customer experience? In other words, how can you measure it?

We can do this by looking at customer feedback, behavioral data, and other data points. Then, we can run those insights against hard sales metrics.

In this article, we’ll look at 16 compelling statistics that demonstrate the value of the customer experience from different angles. Here’s what we found:

CX & Customer Expectations

The customer experience is the impression you leave on your customers, which shapes their opinion of your brand. Understanding these customer expectations—and exceeding them—has become “table stakes” for brands to remain competitive.

1. Close to 70% of CX experts say they “strongly believe” customer expectations are rising, and more than 40% say customers are becoming less patient when brands fall short. (CX Network)
2. A total of 82% of US consumers want more human-to-human interaction in the future, while 54% say most companies need to improve their CX strategy. (PwC)
3. Roughly 66% of customers expect businesses to understand their unique needs and expectations, but 66% say they’re generally treated like numbers. (Martech Alliance)
4. All of 51% of customers say most businesses fall short of their expectations for a great customer experience. (Salesforce)

What Does it Mean?

Expectations are a moving target—they always have been. Today, however, expectations and the forces shaping them evolve at a break-neck pace.

Brands must respond by continuously monitoring feedback channels and responding to new needs as they emerge. Whether that’s updating their product lineup, offering support on new channels, or simply being empathetic to new challenges as the COVID situation continues to evolve.

At the same time, meeting new expectations is also about understanding what consumers want from support channels and brand communications. As such, your strategy should consider the human side of new needs and respond in a way that makes sense given the context.

CX & Digital Transformation

Digital transformation, as it is related to the value of CX, involves identifying and converting current manual processes into digital ones with the goal of reducing customer friction, lowering wait times, decreasing expenditures, and streamlining processes.

However, in order to avoid making technology investments without fully understanding your customers’ motivations and desires, it’s critical to map out processes that are based on customer expectations instead of asking customers to alter their behaviors to fit a new corporate initiative.

Ultimately, your transformation strategy should center around improving customer outcomes. It might mean having the right number of support channels you provide, streamlining back office inefficiencies, or solving new problems.

A few stats that back us up:

5. A significant percentage of customers, 88% to be exact, expect brands to ramp up digital transformation efforts due to the pandemic. With 54% wanting to see brands expand engagement methods and roll out new products/services. (Salesforce)
6. A total of 56% of CEOs say that digital improvements have led to revenue growth. (Gartner)
7. Approximately 34% of companies have already undergone a digital transformation. (Smart Insights)
8. The digital transformation market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 23% from 2019 to $3.3 trillion by 2025. (Research and Market)

What does it all mean?

At the end of the day, customers don’t care about innovation unless it impacts them. They don’t care whether your accounting team spends less time on data entry or how your sales team qualifies leads.

Customers want innovative products and services, new ways to engage, faster resolution times—essentially, anything that removes friction from the experience, makes it more enjoyable, or addresses a pain point.

Translated, it means that any “transformative solutions” you invest in should support the customer experience. Internally, that might mean automating manual processes that waste employees’ time or improving your self-service options (e.g., maybe you’ll add a chatbot “guide” to your knowledge base or launch an AR (augmented reality) try-on app). On the customer-facing side, it might mean developing products that specifically support digital meetings or remote learning.

The Value of Aligning with Customer Values

It wasn’t that long ago when companies focused their creative and messaging efforts solely around a brand promise or the specific product or service they were selling.

Today’s consumers, however, expect more from their favorite brands. When examining what is the value of CX, it’s not enough to just sell a product or service anymore—consumers want them to stand for something and champion the causes they care about most.

A few stats to consider:

9. As of August 2020, 86% of customers say brands’ role in society is changing, and 78% say 2020’s crises should be a catalyst for businesses to change for the better. (Salesforce)
10. A total of 54% of brands issue a public statement within 2-3 days of a major news event, and 51% have their CEO speak out within that same time frame. (Edelman Trust Barometer)
11. More than half of the survey respondents, 61% of customers, will advocate for a brand they trust, 57% will purchase, 43% remain loyal, and 31% engage. (Edelman Trust Barometer)
12. Just 13% of customers say they trust brands to offer effective guidance through the ongoing COVID crisis. (Forrester)

What Does it Mean?

In the past, brands have largely steered clear of commenting on issues for fear of alienating potential customers on the other side of the aisle. Today, this strategy can cause you to lose customers who would rather purchase from companies who share the same values.

What this means for brands is it’s time to stick up for the values you—and your target customers—believe in. Those who aren’t on board probably aren’t the right fit anyway.

It doesn’t mean newsjacking every tragic event that hits the news cycle—whether it’s a celebrity death, a tropical storm, or the latest COVID-related crisis. Instead, respond to crises in a way that makes sense for your business.

For example, we all saw the “we’re all in it together” ads during the initial pandemic lockdowns. They instantly became a cringe-y cliche and ended up being seen by consumers as an empty cash grab.

Here, it made more sense to promote information about how the shutdowns impacted customers. Some examples include sharing if orders were delayed, events rescheduled, service models changing, etc. Promotional posts only made sense if they were coming from organizations able to offer direct support.

Think of lenders pausing repayment plans or brands partnering with charitable organizations. Then a bit later, brands could use consumer feedback to improve things like online shopping, food delivery, work from home solutions, digital products/services, and so on.

CX & the Impact on the Bottom Line

Finally, it’s worth measuring the value of the customer experience in terms of its impact on the bottom line.

Loyal customers are your greatest asset. By creating seamless and meaningful experiences, you’re creating an emotional connection with them, which is incredibly valuable—and profitable.

These customers will not only speak highly of you but will also help drive perceptions of your brand in a positive way by encouraging friends, family members, and colleagues to try it out. By delivering a great CX, you empower your customers to do the work for you.

A few stats that show the close relationship between CX and profitability:

13. Only 21% of brands have created their own KPIs to measure the impact of their CX efforts. Just 14% say they actually measure the ROI of CX initiatives. (Lumoa)
14. Organizations stand to lower operating costs by as much as 30% by 2024 by embracing “hyper-automation” technologies. (Gartner)
15. Brands that fail to provide simple, friction-free experiences leave an estimated $98B on the table. (Siegel + Gale)
16. Companies prioritizing CX stand to see 1.7x higher retention rates, 1.6x higher CLV, 1.4x higher revenue growth. (Adobe & Forrester)

What Does it Mean?

Investing in CX boosts profits, cuts operational costs, and sets the stage for growth. The key takeaway, however, is, a CX strategy can only succeed when all decisions are guided by, you guessed it, the customer.

Final Thoughts

We discussed why CX should be the center of any organization’s business strategy, and we’ve looked at some of the KPIs and sales metrics that represent success. However, sometimes we need to look at the data to understand the value of customer experience and the urgency of driving improvements.

3Pillar Global builds innovative digital products that drive growth and power up your revenue engine by putting customers at the center of everything we do. Whether you’re looking to improve the experience through deeper customer insights, new digital products, or better service, our experts can help. Contact an expert today to learn more.