Survey of Digital Customer Experience Buyers Reveals Opportunities

Though bulk of brands claim robust CX programs, many fail at implementation

Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) , a digital-led CX transformation leader for the world’s most admired brands, recently commissioned a customer experience (CX) survey highlighting opportunities in the space. A total of 1,000 C-suite decisionmakers from top companies in sectors such as retail & commerce, banking & financial, and technology & media were surveyed on their perceptions and activations around customer experience.

Execs Largely Agree CX is Critical to Business Success, But Many Projects Fail in Implementation

While 95 percent of respondents felt their organization had clearly defined CX strategies in place, only 12 percent admitted to successful implementation of more than 80 percent of their CX initiatives. An overwhelming 86 percent said they believe CX initiatives are critical for business success.

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Why CX Implementations Fail

Respondents cited several barriers to successful CX implementation. Top reasons included:

• Lack of internal resources (e.g., staffing), 18 percent in top three, or skills gaps of internal employees, 21 percent in top three
• Difficulty assigning metrics and KPIs to measure success, 21 percent selected this as one of their top three challenges (from an available list of 20)
• Insufficient processes to guide implementation of technology, 20 percent in top three

Intuitively, executives know that CX is important, but being able to prove it can be difficult.  And not having the right resources on your team can make for an even steeper challenge to build the right processes and implement the right technologies that underpin a modern digital CX strategy.  This is why so few companies are actually able to fully implement and realize the full benefit of their customer journey plan.

“For every phase of the customer journey, regardless of the vertical, there should be an associated emphasis on the customer experience,” said Andrew Kokes, EVP and global head of marketing for HGS. “From attraction to retention and even attrition, organizations of all sizes need to focus their efforts on providing better CX. The ROI of that speaks for itself.”

CX Success Difficult to Measure

Cited as a key reason for the failure of CX implementations, measuring success poses a definite difficulty at all stages of the customer journey.

When asked to cite the most critical metrics used to measure the success of CX initiatives, respondents ranked their answers:

• Customer acquisition, 23 percent ranked as the top reason from a list of 11 reasons
• Revenue growth, 14 percent ranked as the top reason
• Brand recognition, 9 percent ranked as the top reason
• Talent attraction, 8 percent ranked as the top reason

“Acquisition is an important first step, you have to get new customers in the door,” said Kokes. “But it’s critical to not stop there, and to support every step of the customer journey, including product use, troubleshooting and service, as well as areas like repeat purchase and customer  retention.”

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Why Execs Choose a CX Partner

Survey respondents were largely aligned on their rationale for choosing a partner for CX implementation, which included:

• Price considerations, 48 percent found this to be “extremely valuable”
• Access to industry and competitive comparisons, 42 percent “extremely valuable”
• Availability of case studies and success stories, 40 percent “extremely valuable”

“While price is clearly important, brands also want to be able to carefully evaluate the critical decision of working with a CX partner through competitive intelligence and evidence of past success with similar companies,” said Kokes. “Therefore, it’s important for buyers to look for partners that can provide transparency to the total cost of ownership of a solution.”

HGS commissioned FINN Partners’ Global Intelligence Team to conduct this research, surveying 1,000 respondents across four key international markets (U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia). Survey responses were collected between March 18 and April 15, 2022. A combination of single selection and rank order questions were deployed to meet the results outlined. The executive summary for this survey is available upon request.