2022 Service Relevance Report shows poor customer service affects brand loyalty for 96% of customers

Coveo Solutions Inc, a leader in AI-powered relevance platforms that transform search, recommendations, and personalization within digital experiences, today announced the second annual Relevance Report: Service, which uncovered that 96% of people believe inadequate customer service experiences affect their loyalty to a brand.

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Across the demographics surveyed, customers expect the service and support agents they interact with to be consistent, accurate, and fast. In fact, 22% reported they would abandon a brand if they had conflicting information. While demand for customer self-service continues to grow, more than 52% of baby boomers will drop a brand if they can’t reach an agent – while 40% of Generation Z will abandon a brand if they can’t solve it on their own.

Unfortunately, many customer service agents lack the tools, technology and knowledge needed to deliver the relevant service experiences customers today demand. Despite significant advances in enterprise search, customer insight, and knowledge management, agents still struggle to quickly access the right information at the right time. They are buried in a mountain of unnecessary information – 41% of the information that the average agent receives each day is irrelevant to their job role.

“Service is a crucial element in keeping customers happy and, ultimately, preserving brand loyalty,” said Sawan Deshpande, VP & GM of Service at Coveo. “But every customer journey is unique and no agent can account for the nuance of every single support touchpoint alone. AI can not only offer agents a deeper understanding of a specific customer’s journey, but also arm them with relevant information when they need it most.”

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2022 Relevance Report: Service key findings include:

Three Strikes, and a Brand is Out

• Customers are losing patience faster than ever. 76% of customers said they would abandon a brand after three negative service experiences, a 3% increase from last year’s report.
• Meanwhile, the “one and done” mentality is on the rise. 12% of customers would drop a brand after only one negative service experience.

Service Could be Worse than Businesses Realize

• Customers will frequently leave a brand without any indication of dissatisfaction – no complaint, survey response, or social media call out. 46% of customers said they rarely or never complain about bad experiences, up from 44% last year.

Generations Define Good Service Differently

• Younger generations prefer self-service. 40% of Gen Z said they will desert a brand if they can’t resolve an issue on their own.
• But overcommitting to call deflection is a mistake, because more than 52% of Baby Boomers will drop a brand if they can’t speak to a person.

Conflicting Information Turns Customers Away

• 22% of customers said they would abandon a brand if they got conflicting information from customer service representatives.

As part of Coveo’s 2022 Relevance Report: Service, Arlington Research was commissioned to undertake a study across the UK and USA to discover trends relating to Ecommerce, Customer Services, and the Digital Workplace. The survey comprised a nationally representative sample of the working population across both the UK and USA, with 4,000 adults aged 18+ taking part, evenly distributed between each country. All respondents were people who use a computer for work, as a part of companies which contain more than 250 employees. This second installment focused on trends relating to customer service and support.

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