There is a gap between what organisations realise is important about customer experience and what they are actually doing
in practice.
A survey from cScape and e-consultancy records that 64% of company respondents believe joined-up online and offline experiences are essential for engaging with their audience. However, some 60% of companies are either not very advanced at mapping customer experiences and identifying touch-points (36%), or admit they have to start looking at this because they are not doing it all (24%).
Two thirds of in-house respondents said that their organisations measure customer satisfaction on a regular basis, whether weekly (12%), monthly (18%), quarterly (20%) or yearly (16%).Some 30% said that they never, or very infrequently, measure satisfaction.
Richard Sedley, cScape's Customer Engagement Director says: 'With the growing excitement around Web 2.0, how we attract and develop relationships with our audiences has taken on new imperative. Customer engagement is the best measure of current and future performance; an engaged relationship is probably the only guarantee for a return on your organisation’s or your clients’ objectives.'
The survey of agencies and organisations involved more than 800 respondents, all internet and/or customer experience professionals answering questions on customer experience measurement, methods of customer engagement and barriers to effective delivery.
It concluded that the nirvana of a “single customer view” is frequently beyond reach. Emerging digital platforms and technologies present an unprecedented opportunity to connect with audiences but, at the same time, offer more opportunity for things to go wrong and for those mistakes to become public.
The level of customer experience across channels is difficult not only to measure, but also to implement. Without the right kind of cross-channel measurement and benchmarking in place, this is even more challenging to get right. The difficulties encountered vary depending on the size of organisations. 'The gap between the aspirations and the reality is caused by barriers which fall into a range of categories, including technical issues and those relating to company culture and leadership,' says the report. In particular, supplier-side respondents (generally agencies) believe that there is a lack of boardroom buy-in which causes difficulties in delivering the best possible customer experience. Company respondents
recognise these issues to a degree, but it is the agency respondents who see this, along with lack of management vision, as being a particular handicap for organisations.
Submitted by Ann Light