Delivering an exceptional customer experience has proven to be a significant challenge to most organisations, even though they understand the critical impact it has on their businesses, according to a survey from marketing firm infusion and BPM expert Pegasystems.
The survey report, entitled 'Designing and Managing Customer Experiences for Improved Brand Performance', found that although 95% of organisations said the customer experience was important, only 6% considered their organisations 'best practitioners' in that regard.
These results highlight a significant disconnect between understanding the impact of customer experience and actually being able to deliver a positive experience. The majority of executives surveyed cited disjointed customer touch-points across channels and customer facing organisations as one of the key factors contributing to an inconsistent and often negative customer experience.
As a result of channel and organisational silos, companies are lacking transparency and integration in customer facing initiatives across the organisation. More than two thirds (69%) of executives surveyed believed that the lack of coordinated customer touch points is resulting in a negative impact on their brand.
The survey also highlighted a strong correlation between companies who successfully deliver great customer experience and the positive impact on their brand reputation. Successful organisations have been able to move beyond generic customer experiences to deliver more personalised, relevant experiences during every customer interaction. Responses cited that such efforts are usually driven top-down from the CEO, with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) best equipped to lead such initiatives.
"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," said John Ellett, CEO for nFusion. "We found that the organisations who are able to overcome this fragmentation issue are enhancing their customers' experiences and realising a positive impact in their brand reputation."
"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," added Grant Johnson, CMO for Pegasystems. "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."
For additional information:
· Visit nFusion at http://www.nfusion.com
· Visit Pegasystems at http://www.pega.com
