It’s obvious that there’s still a huge and growing gap between customer expectations and the reality of what brands are delivering. According to Forrester research, CX improvements have stalled for a third year in a row. Brands need to build trust with consumers, actually listen and take action.

Research carried out by AmazeRealise found that 36% of CMOs admit their brand still hasn’t invested in customer experience (CX). This was despite 88% expecting a focused CX programme would yield long-term customer loyalty and increasing sales over time.

77% of CMOs we asked confessed that their business has spent less than one percent of its annual turnover on enhancing CX. The top three reasons cited for this lack of investment were that they didn’t know enough about it, the perceived cost of implementation and that they had trouble building the business case for its positive impact based on results.

In spite of the lack of investment, our survey found that the long-term business benefits of dedicated customer experience programmes were well understood by all CMOs. As well as providing improved loyalty and sales, half of those surveyed (44%) expected CX initiatives to lead to a decrease in costs and 25% thought they would attract new customers through word-of-mouth recommendation.

Customer Experience is now a key factor in driving business growth. The key is to bring everyone along on your journey. Brands don’t need to do everything at once. They can start small and go for quick wins and shouldn’t shy away from getting customers involved in beta testing.

A new brand could release a customer-focused service tomorrow that almost immediately makes another look behind the times. A Customer Experience journey should never end. It requires a culture of constant improvement.

THE CX CHALLENGE

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