The Northridge Group, a leading vvvv operations and management consulting firm, released its highly anticipated 2023 State of Customer Experience (CX) report. The survey findings indicate a significant disparity between business leaders’ perception of their companies’ customer service and the actual experiences reported by customers.
This is Northridge’s seventh annual consumer survey and the fourth conducted in parallel with business leaders. The goal is to learn what customers really think about the experiences they have interacting with companies and to determine whether their impressions are in sync with what the leaders of those businesses believe about the level of service they provide.
The 2023 State of CX report also provides insights and metrics that businesses can use to benchmark their performance as well as assess and implement meaningful operational improvements in their contact center. Highlights include the following:
- Nearly half of consumers surveyed had knowingly spoken to a customer service associate who was at home, and almost 75% of those respondents felt the associate’s location did not impact the resolution of their issue. Yet more than 1/3 of business leaders want contact center associates back in the office.
- 93% of business leaders surveyed believe their companies make it easy for customers to resolve their issues, but only 66% of customers felt this way in return.
- 92%Â of business leaders surveyed would like to provide additional training to their customer service representatives, with ‘soft skills’ being the top area of investment and/or improvement.
Download the full report at CX Trends – The Northridge Group.
“Customers look at their experiences with a company as a combination of all the contacts they make across channels to resolve their issues,” said Lisa Butler, Managing Principal, Head of Service Delivery at The Northridge Group. “The companies that learn how to deliver seamless, personalized experiences across multiple communication channels will undoubtedly possess a significant and lasting competitive advantage.”
The Northridge Group’s State of Customer Service Experience 2023 study encompassed 1000 U.S. customers over the age of 18 and 250 U.S. business leaders from small/mid-size to multi-billion-dollar global enterprises. The surveys covered various aspects of customer experience, including channel preferences, response times, issue resolution, customer effort, self-service tools, and corporate investments.
“Providing excellent experiences is essential to the survival of all businesses but given the sheer volume at which they occur it can oftentimes be difficult to assess how specific interactions unfold and whether the impact or result they produce was net positive or negative,” said Bryan Gillis, Managing Principal, Head of Emerging Markets & Growth, at Northridge. “Equally important is understanding the actions and investments made by a company’s leadership, proactively and/or in response to consumer sentiment or feedback.”
Download the full report at CX Trends – The Northridge Group.
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