Customer Experience is Everything and the Only Measure of Business Health
A recent study by PWC, argues that customer experience is everything and the only viable business goal. Check the arresting headline:
Customer experience is everything – so get it right
Good customer experience leaves people feeling heard and appreciated; it minimizes friction, maximizes efficiency and maintains a human element.
How Bad is the Experience Gap?
Experience drives a real economic imperative to get this just right. Consider the chart below. Specifically, look at the grey bar for the US and now look at the business exposure when customers have several bad experiences. The result – nearly 60% of all customers defect and stop interacting with brand…..a whopping 60%!!
So how bad are expectations already?
The answer is….it varies. If you are an airline – then you are in real trouble with satisfaction levels 33% below expectation. Even the humble bank has its work cut out with a gap of over 20%. We have written before that this could cost US banks a staggering $16 billion.
Why is experience everything?
So if everything is so bad out there, then why bother improving the customer reality? Like L’Oreal, the answer is:
Because its worth it
As we have described before, there is extra margin captured if the experience matches or exceeds customer expectations. This additional margin drives an ROI when operational execution hits it out of the park:
The full PWC study is a good read and sets out a roadmap of why the customer experience is the only business goal that matters. They also share their six main pathways to focus on. Getting the customer reality wrong is a disaster for the brand image and the profitability whereas getting it right leads to higher satisfaction, loyalty and the option of additional margin.
The shocker here is knowing that nearly 60% of all customers will defect the brand if multiple poor interactions are experienced. Remember there are no businesses where this exposure could be sustained.
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