Delivering better digital customer experiences (CX) will remain a significant catalyst for business success, according to new research from customer service platform Zendesk. As companies continue to prioritize the customer experience, many are adopting new technology at record speeds to keep up.
According to the research, 63% of tech decision makers have placed a greater priority on CX, as half of customers say that their experience with a company is more important now than a year ago. Seventy-five percent of tech decision makers believe that COVID-19 has sped up technology adoption to meet the demand for digital CX.
The Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report 2021 leverages insights from the Zendesk Customer Service Benchmark research, a data index that details how 90,000 companies use their support solutions. The results of the survey gauge the attitudes of more than international 8,000 consumers, customer service agents, managers and technology buyers.
The research found that 64% of customers tried to get in touch with customer service in the last year, with social messaging spiking 110% year-over-year. Seventy-five percent of customers say they base their purchasing decisions on the quality of the company’s CX, while 80% will take their business elsewhere if they receive a bad customer experience.
Other key takeaways from the report include:
- 46% of agents say they don’t have the right tools to successfully work from home;
- 40% of managers say they don’t have the right analytic tools to measure success for remote teams;
- 75% of companies that say the pandemic sped up technology adoption — 50% say it has accelerated by 1-3 years while 25% say it’s accelerated by 4-7 years; and
- Customer experience leaders cited the ability to quickly adapt to the evolving needs of customers as their biggest challenge in 2020 and the highest priority going forward.
“Against the 2020 backdrop of dizzying change, companies adapted in ways they never thought possible,” said Shawna Wolverton, EVP of Product at Zendesk, in a statement. “With the customer experience more important than ever before, having the right strategies to meet customers where they are can make or break a business’ success. The fundamentals of business remain the same, but the need for relationship-driven, conversational customer service accelerated at an unprecedented rate.”
