New study finds significant gap in delivering 'great' customer service

New research has revealed the disconnect between firms’ understanding of the impact of customer experience and actually being able to deliver a positive experience. 

A survey by marketing firm nFusion and business process management company Pegasystems found that while 95% said the customer experience was important, only 6% considered their organisations best practitioners. 

Additionally, the figures showed that the majority of executives surveyed cited disjointed customer touch-points across channels and customer facing organisations as one of the reasons for inconsistent and often negative customer experience. Over two thirds of respondents claimed this lack of coordinated customer touch points is resulting in a negative impact on their brand.

Other findings in the report show a strong correlation between firms that deliver ‘great’ customer experience and a positive impact on their brand. Such organisations deliver more personalised, relevant experiences during every customer interaction, usually driven top-down from the CEO, with the Chief Marketing Officer(CMO) best equipped to lead such initiatives, said the report.

John Ellett, CEO at nFusion, said: “Today's organisations are challenged to unify incredible amounts of customer data that are typically siloed across various departments as they struggle to adapt to new channels and provide more consistent customer experiences across touch-points. We found that the organisations who [sic] are able to overcome this fragmentation issue are enhancing their customers' experiences and realising a positive impact in their brand reputation.”

Grant Johnson, CMO at Pegasystems, said: “The role of CMOs has evolved in recent years and increasingly they are being asked to lead cross-functional customer experience initiatives to improve competitive performance. Given the negative impact a poor customer experience can have on brand reputation, CMOs have a unique opportunity lead the charge to orchestrate all customer touch points across their organisations to drive overall customer value, as well as more consistent and positive customer experiences.”