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Survey finds customer experience strategies lacking

shopping_aisle, supermarketNew research by Salmat suggests that brands are failing to adapt to technology growth and increasing demand for self-service customer interactions, despite these interactions being expected to almost double by 2020.

According to Salmat, brands expect self-service interactions to increase from an average estimate of 37 per cent to 61 per cent over the next five years, yet only 22 per cent of brands report having a well-structured and organised customer experience (CX) strategy. Furthermore, almost half either have a plan but don’t follow it, or have no plan at all.

Sarah Pike, CMO, Salmat, said retailers are at risk losing loyal followers if they don’t start improving their customer experience offering.

“Customer experience is critical to generating customer loyalty. Yet as technology continues to advance and consumers look for the easiest and quickest means of making contact, our research reveals that brands are not really understanding their customer’s needs,” Pike said.

The survey of 288 CX professionals also found a range of measurement tools were being used to gauge the success of users’ experiences. The most common metric was Net Promoter Score (NPS) with 39 per cent of practitioners using the tool at least annually, closely followed by grade of service (34 per cent).

Customer Experience Index (CxPi) and Customer Effort Score (CES) were less common.

“While most brands use some form of customer experience measurement, for the most part these results aren’t used to implement change,” Pike said. “One third of NPS users and 39 per cent of grade of service users said they rarely use their results to implement any form of change in their CX.”

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