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Forrester asked more than 4,500 consumers about their interactions with 114 companies across 12 different industries and developed its Customer Experience Index based on the usefulness, ease of use and enjoyability of those experiences. Thirty-eight percent of firms were rated as “poor” or “very poor.”
“Executives regularly tell us that customer experience is critical to their competitiveness, but this year’s Customer Experience Index demonstrates that there’s room for improvement across all industries,” says Bruce Temkin, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “While many firms are dealing with rough economic times, they can’t let customer experience fall to the back burner. If firms let their customer experience deteriorate, then they’ll lose customers and amplify the negative impact of the downturn.”
To keep customer experience momentum in a downturn, Forrester offers several recommendations for companies:
• Prioritizing the moments of truth that occur during customer interactions because they have the biggest impact on overall satisfaction, likelihood to repurchase and likelihood to recommend
• Seeking usability improvements to key customer touch points, such as Web sites, service emails and interactive voice response systems
• Increasing communication with employees to keep them apprised of any shifts in priorities, and engaged with overall customer experience efforts
Source: Business Wire
