Winning the (nonstop) race for great customer experience

In theory, customers today have never had it better.

When they run into service or support issues, they have a growing menu of digital options to get what they need: email, text, social media, live chats, chatbots, and self-service portals. When those fall short, they turn to a reliable standby: the phone. 

In practice, however, the whole doesn’t nearly match the sum of the parts. According to the most recent Forrester study, the quality of customer experience in the U.S. has reached an all-time low, with brands seeing declines in overall effectiveness, ease of interaction, and emotional responsiveness.

Similar research from Qualtrics XM shows that, except for the pandemic year of 2020, customer trust is at its lowest point since 2016. And the 2024 Achieving Customer Amazement (ACA) survey by bestselling author and customer service advisor Shep Hyken reports that 43% of consumers have had more subpar customer service experiences in the past year than in previous years.

But most studies lead to a similar conclusion: Many companies are failing to deliver an experience their customers crave. What are they doing wrong? And more importantly, how can they get it right?

The expectations gap

Recent declines in perception of customer experience (CX) can be attributed in part to a corresponding steady climb in customer expectations, says Murali Krishnan, senior VP of customer service at Freshworks.

“Customers expect seamless and efficient service, similar to what companies like Amazon provide,” he says. “They want everything available at their fingertips and expect minimal contact. But many companies are still getting it wrong despite the availability of great tools. One major issue is that some companies have been applying AI as a blanket solution without properly triaging between simple and complex issues."

Read also: The next-gen customer support agent

"Rock-star brands like Amazon and Apple set a very high bar," adds Hyken. When it comes to response times, ease of use, and other issues, he adds, “customers are no longer comparing you to your direct competitors. They're comparing you to the best experience they've ever had with any company or brand, and they’re asking, 'Why can't you be as good?'"

At the same time, the customer journey has become increasingly fragmented, says Emmanuel Probst, global lead for brand growth at market research firm Ipsos North America. Instead of managing 10 to 15 customer touchpoints, brands might have 35 or more, from in-person interactions to traditional and social media.

The reality is that many companies lack the resources to compete with the e-commerce giants or be adept at TikTok. But some have made the transition to digital more smoothly than others by leaning hard into data and using AI to optimize strategies. 

Discovering the AI advantage

At Freshworks (publisher of The Works), customers such as global research publisher Springer Nature have seen improvements in CX when putting service platforms in place that give them more insights into customer interactions and tools to help agents improve those experiences. For example, when the publisher added AI tools that gave agents a clear view of the customer’s history and helped write replies to queries, customer satisfaction rose to 90% for chat-based exchanges.

Similarly, when Hinge Health, a digital support clinic for patients with chronic pain, began rolling out AI-powered chatbots, customers began to get answers on their own, freeing up human agents to better service patients with more complex issues, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction. 

Another case in point is Latico Leathers, a 40-year-old leather goods wholesaler. Since it began selling direct to consumers online, sales have jumped by more than 400%, notes Ben Schreiber, head of e-commerce for the family-owned company.

Improving the service experience was the catalyst behind the growth. Survey data collected both before and after sales helps inform product selection, website design, marketing outreach, and the overall shopping experience. 

"The key advantage is the opportunity to collect contextual data about your customers, which can inform your entire marketing strategy," adds Schreiber. 

Schreiber is now using AI to improve customer experience. He loads survey and other raw data into ChatGPT 4.0 and asks it to create marketing campaigns and write targeted social ads based on the data. The ads are so effective, he says, that he no longer relies on a copywriter.

Understanding CX/EX symbiosis

Multiple studies in recent years show how great employee experience influences customer experience, and vice versa. Hence, one factor that can undermine good CX is poor communication between traditionally siloed teams such as customer support and product design, notes Dave Stubberfield, director of Carter Consultancy in London and co-author of “Supercharging the Customer Experience: How Organizational Alignment Drives Performance.” 

Complaints about product defects or suggestions for improvements rarely make it from contact center personnel up the chain to management, he adds. The lack of action often leads to frustrated customers and disengaged employees. 

That’s the scenario Stubberfield inherited when he was hired by BT Group (formerly British Telecom) to oversee improvements for its cloud contact center shortly after the company received its third consecutive Daily Mail Wooden Spoon Award for the worst customer experience in the U.K. 

BT customers reported slow speeds, frequent outages, and unreliable phone service, as well as difficulty reaching customer service reps. Churn was rising, and customer loyalty (as well as brand reputation) was in free fall. 

One of the first things Stubberfield did was start breaking down silos and empowering employees. At the time, BT's contact center was completely isolated from the rest of the company: roughly 100 employees split into multiple teams with little or no communication between them and the rest of BT. Overall, the company was using more than 50 service management platforms and 76 different processes. 

Among tactics BT began to implement were consolidating to a single service management platform, automating more than 10,000 previously manual tasks, and introducing more self-service options so customers could get help without having to wait.

Then they began to bust down team team silos. BT's support teams now have weekly meetings with its development teams, where they can talk through any issues customers may have surfaced, says Stubberfield. The company also routinely surveys employees and customers, and uses that data to make more improvements.

Over a period of five years, the contact center’s NPS rating climbed from -11 to +76. Instead of Wooden Spoons, BT has recently taken home awards for fastest mobile network and most reliable broadband provider. 

Ensuring that workers felt engaged and empowered throughout the process was another success factor, says Stubberfield. 

"It isn't quite as simple as 'happy people, happy customers, happy business,' but keeping employees happy is massively important," he adds. "We do a lot of work around emotional intelligence to help people understand their strengths and weaknesses, and to translate the latter into opportunities for improvement." 

Making the commitment to excellence

As the BT example shows, turning a poor customer experience into a superior one takes time, money, and serious commitment, says Stubberfield.

"Some people think they can just build a team, call it 'customer experience,' and their troubles will disappear overnight," he says. "The question they need to ask is: ‘Are you just sending out surveys every few months in the hope things will improve, or are you actually driving initiatives and improvements behind the scenes?’"

Many companies talk about delighting their customers, but few devote the resources required to make that dream a reality, adds Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and longtime research director at the American Customer Satisfaction Index. His advice to companies that hope to deliver a great experience: Put your money where your mouth is.

"I've seen companies say, 'We care about our customers,' and then cut customer service staff and make it impossible to get through on their helplines," he says. "If you're going to make that promise, follow through on it."