Today companies are increasingly realising the power and influence each customer has on their business and success. A recent study showed that $100 billion alone was invested on customer engagement solutions to support the effort to try and understand the voice of the customer. But are companies spending this money wisely? Below are six common challenges around leveraging this investment, accompanied with some staggering facts:
1. There's a substantial gap between concept and implementation:
- While much is said about “the customer”, a recent report written by Bruce Temkin, The Current State of Customer Experience, stated that only 3% of companies are truly customer centric.
- While 80% of companies believe they deliver a "superior experience" to customers, only 8% customers agree with their statement (Bain).
2. There is uncertainty surrounding what metrics to track:
- The on-going debate around what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track is never ending. There is a trade–off between using company specific KPIs and standardised metrics: the former useful in aligning the company’s overall objective and internal culture, the later allows benchmarking. Many companies seem to underestimate the importance of selecting the right metrics or don’t know what to measure. Very few leaders seem to test the relationship between the KPIs selected and the company’s critical success factors to achieve its strategic goals.
- Interestingly, recent research showed that 1/5 of companies are not familiar with NPS®, and of those companies that track NPS®, many managers and most employees don’t know how it is calculated.
3. There's little to no leadership and contradictive objectives are commonly set:
- Only 37% of companies have had a customer experience leader for at least 12 months .
- 71% of companies identify “other competing priorities” as a significant obstacle to their customer experience efforts.
4. There is a lack of focus on employee engagement:
- 95% of organisations want to improve profitability, but only 43% want to improve the work environment for employees.
- 45% of companies that have a formalized VoC programme tie compensation to customer feedback scores.
5. No action is driven and processes are not aligned:
- Only 50% at of companies that gather feedback act up on it (Customer Champions)
- Only 14% of companies describe their current monitoring processes as innovative, cutting edge, or mainstream.
6. No attempt to understand the "why":
- Only 27% of service oriented companies conduct benchmarking (PriceWaterhouseCoopeers)
- A big proportion of companies gathering feedback don’t conducting qualitative analysis to understand the reasons of customer ratings.
Fizzback has the right solution and number of specialised teams (such as Fizzback Insight Consulting and Fizzback Business Transformation) which can work with companies to overcome these challenges. We know our clients are getting value for their spending. Are you?
Natalia Piaggio