The State of Customer Experience

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Experience

How Organizations are Utilizing CX Programs

to Improve Their Understanding of Customers

while Driving Revenue and Increasing Product

Competitiveness

Executive Summary

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Introduction

In our State of Customer Experience research, Primary Intelligence

found that 81 percent of business-to-business (B2B) organizations are

conducting some type of Customer Experience (CX) program today. This

is not surprising, given the greater emphasis on understanding

customers’ interactions and experiences with companies and the

individuals who support them on a daily, weekly, monthly, or ad hoc

basis.

CX leaders, including those that currently have Customer Experience

Programs in place and especially those that do not, strongly believe

that understanding their customers’ experiences improves their ability

to retain customers.

At the same time, Customer Experience leaders are less confident that

their organizations have a solid understanding of their customers’

overall experiences with them. Moreover, individuals who do not have

CX programs in place or are unsure if such programs exist within their

organizations are even less confident that they understand their

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How Can This Report Help You?

Managers who are developing new Customer Experience programs, along with veteran CX practitioners, will benefit from the State of Customer Experience findings by understanding operational strategies organizations are using to effectively leverage their CX efforts throughout their organizations. The study will answer key questions surrounding Customer Experience initiatives, including:

• Who within the organization is typically responsible for Customer Experience programs? • Which vertical industries are most actively involved in CX initiatives?

• What are the key benefits firms derive from customer outreach and engagement? • How much are firms spending annually to fund Customer Experience efforts? • How long have CX programs been in place?

• Which groups internally are responsible for analyzing and collecting customer feedback? • Which levels within customer organizations are routinely asked for feedback?

• Which CX data collection tools are most commonly used today?

• Which stakeholders are providing the greatest support for Customer Experience initiatives?

• What are the key reasons organizations do not set up or continue with CX programs? After examining operational data, we overlay performance metrics on top of operational results. Performance-related metrics are grouped into three categories:

1. Company Performance: Measures revenue growth, profitability, employee attrition, customer support performance, customer retention, marketing effectiveness, and product competitiveness.

2. Customer Experience IQ: Measures how well companies understand their customers, including knowing what customers want and what’s important to them, knowing what products and services customers buy, knowing and understanding the top challenges faced by customers, knowing the most important priorities and strategic goals of customers, and knowing the business needs or problems customers are trying to solve. 3. Program Success: Measures the relative success of CX programs, including metrics such

as the ability to retain customers, growth of customer accounts, improving understanding of customers, providing actionable customer insights, improving marketing efforts, and improving product capabilities based on customer feedback. In this way, Primary Intelligence highlights the relative success (or failure) of operational strategies in terms of their impact on the performance of the organization.

Additionally, we include practical strategies, best practices, and tactics to avoid when

conducting CX initiatives based on the over 15 years of experience Primary Intelligence has in the field of Customer Experience Analysis.

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Notable Quotes

“…when we first started, people saw us as the police. So we tried to change their mindset and say, ‘No, Customer Experience is supposed to be everybody’s job, from the top to the bottom, whatever you are doing.’ There was a certain empowerment of employees.” – VP, Customer Experience, Media Industry

“Probably one of the [best practices we believe in] is being pretty open with any of the results and feedback and, really, to provide that as widely as possible within the company.” – VP, Customer Operations, Technology Industry

“Our post-interview debrief calls [are a best practice at our company]. I invite the appropriate people, generally the director level or above, who can really influence change and really should know about things in their sphere of influence that they could change or improve to help us improve our customer outcomes.” – Program Manager, Global Sales Operations, Manufacturing Industry

“…we incorporate CX data back into our quarterly metrics. We actually track it monthly and report it up to C-levels of the organization, what's going on, where we're making

improvements, and what we're doing to change it. I think that's helped us a lot to try to

incorporate voice to the customer type of data and change our process and do better.” – Senior Director of Services, Contact Center Software organization

“I think customer journey mapping is really critical. While we have these other programs and routines in place, to get a full picture of the customer, a journey where the touch points are [is essential].” – AVP, Financial Services Industry

“We try very much to get away from the metrics and the collecting of data. We really try and look at that as just a means to an end.” – Senior Director, Customer Advocacy, Technology Industry

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What’s Included?

This 119-page report includes key findings, quotes based on interviews with research participants, strategies and tactics used by CX practitioners in the field today, and

recommendations for ways you can improve your Customer Experience program results. We include 80 figures that highlight graphically how firms are operationalizing their CX efforts. The figures also establish which practices are yielding the best results from an outcomes perspective.

The following pages highlight the Table of Contents and List of Figures for the State of Customer

Experience research report from Primary Intelligence.

List of Figures

Figure 1: Respondent Departments ... 18

Figure 2: Respondent Management Levels ... 19

Figure 3: Connection to Customer Experience Program ... 20

Figure 4: Respondent Vertical Industry ... 21

Figure 5: Incidence of Customer Experience Programs ... 22

Figure 6: Customer Experience Program Responsibility ... 23

Figure 7: Customer Experience Programs by Vertical Industry ... 24

Figure 8: Company Performance by Vertical ... 25

Figure 9: Customer Experience IQ by Vertical ... 26

Figure 10: Program Success by Vertical ... 27

Figure 11: Customer Experience Beliefs and Attitudes ... 28

Figure 12: Comparison of Beliefs and Attitudes for Respondents With and Without Customer Experience Programs ... 29

Figure 13: Customer Experience Benefits Experienced ... 31

Figure 14: Annual Customer Experience Program Investment ... 35

Figure 15: Annual Customer Experience Program Investment and Company Performance ... 36

Figure 16: Annual Customer Experience Program Investment and Customer Experience IQ ... 37

Figure 17: Annual Customer Experience Program Investment and Program Success ... 38

Figure 18: Customer Experience Future Program Investment ... 39

Figure 19: Customer Experience Program Tenure ... 40

Figure 20: Customer Experience Program Tenure and Company Performance ... 41

Figure 21: Customer Experience Program Tenure and Customer Experience IQ ... 42

Figure 22: Customer Experience Program Tenure and Program Success ... 43

Figure 23: Customer Experience Analysis Responsibility ... 44

Figure 24: Customer Experience Analysis Frequency ... 45

Figure 25: Company Performance and Customer Experience Analysis Frequency ... 46

Figure 26: Customer IQ and Customer Experience Analysis Frequency ... 47

Figure 27: Program Success and Customer Experience Analysis Frequency ... 48

Figure 28: Access to Customer Experience Information ... 49

Figure 29: Access to Customer Experience Information and Company Performance ... 51

Figure 30: Access to Customer Experience Data and Customer Experience IQ ... 52

Figure 31: Access to Customer Experience Data and Program Success ... 53

Figure 32: Stakeholder Support for Customer Experience Program ... 54

Figure 33: Company Performance and Stakeholder Support ... 55

Figure 34: Customer Experience IQ and Stakeholder Support ... 56

Figure 35: Program Success and Stakeholder Support ... 57

Figure 36: Usage of Customer Experience Data ... 58

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Figure 38: Customer Experience Data Collection Frequency and Company Performance ... 62

Figure 39: Customer Experience Data Collection Frequency and Customer Experience IQ ... 63

Figure 40: Customer Experience Data Collection Frequency and Program Success ... 64

Figure 41: Customer Experience Data Collection Methodology ... 65

Figure 42: Customer Experience Data Collection Methodology and Company Performance ... 66

Figure 43: Customer Experience Data Collection Methodology and Customer Experience IQ ... 67

Figure 44: Customer Experience Data Collection Methodology and Program Success ... 68

Figure 45: Customer Experience Data Collection Responsibility ... 69

Figure 46: Customer Experience Data Collection Responsibility and Company Performance .... 71

Figure 47: Customer Experience Data Collection Responsibility and Customer Experience IQ ... 72

Figure 48: Customer Experience Data Collection Responsibility and Program Success ... 73

Figure 49: Customer Experience Data Collection Targets ... 74

Figure 50: Customer Experience Data Collection Targets and Company Performance ... 75

Figure 51: Customer Experience Data Collection Targets and Customer Experience IQ ... 76

Figure 52: Customer Experience Data Collection Targets and Program Success ... 77

Figure 53: Customer Experience Data Collection Tools ... 78

Figure 54: Customer Experience Data Collection Tools and Company Performance ... 80

Figure 55: Customer Experience Data Collection Tools and Customer Experience IQ... 81

Figure 56: Customer Experience Data Collection Tools and Program Success ... 82

Figure 57: Customer Experience SFA Tool Used ... 83

Figure 58: Customer Experience Survey Tools ... 84

Figure 59: Customer Experience Data Sentiment ... 85

Figure 60: Comparison of Customer Experience Data Sentiment for Respondents With and Without Customer Experience Programs ... 86

Figure 61: Customer Experience Desired Data Frequency ... 88

Figure 62: Customer Experience Actual Data Frequency ... 88

Figure 63: Customer Experience Deliverables ... 89

Figure 64: Customer Experience Individual Reports ... 90

Figure 65: Customer Experience Data Source ... 91

Figure 66: Company Performance and Customer Experience Data Source ... 92

Figure 67: Customer Experience IQ and Data Source ... 93

Figure 68: Program Success and Customer Experience Data Source ... 94

Figure 69: Customer Experience Data Type ... 95

Figure 70: Types of Open-Ended Customer Experience Feedback Collected ... 97

Figure 71: Customer Experience and Company Performance ... 100

Figure 72: Customer Experience Customer IQ... 101

Figure 73: Customer Experience Program Success ... 102

Figure 74: Average Customer Retention Rate ... 103

Figure 75: Comparison of Average Customer Retention Rate for Respondents With & Without Customer Experience Programs ... 105

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Figure 76: Annual Customer Rate Retention Improvement ... 106 Figure 77: Rate of Customer Defections Since Last Year ... 107 Figure 78: Comparison of Rate of Customer Defections Since Last Year for Organizations With and Without Customer Experience Programs ... 107 Figures 79: Past Customer Experience Programs ... 108 Figure 80: Reasons for Lack of Customer Experience Programs ... 109

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About Primary Intelligence

Primary Intelligence delivers outcomes for B2B marketing, sales, and product leaders. We teach you how to keep customers happy and grow your accounts. Our Customer Experience Analysis

and Win Loss Analysis solutions uncover the answers by speaking directly to buyers and sellers. It’s all possible thanks to our TruVoice software, proven methodologies, and exceptional people.

Primary Intelligence clients include six of the Fortune 20 brands. Clients compete in over 30 vertical industries, including aerospace, business services, technology hardware and software, education, financial services, health care, manufacturing, and telecommunications.

To find out more about Primary Intelligence, please visit our website: www.primary-intel.com

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About Carolyn Galvin

As Director of Industry Insights, Carolyn Galvin is responsible for analyzing aggregate data to understand best practices and root cause issues surrounding Customer Experience and Win Loss programs. Utilizing primary source research and secondary information, Carolyn produces syndicated and custom client reports that help to illustrate best practices and benchmarking metrics. Prior to her current role, Carolyn served as a Program Consultant at Primary

Intelligence since 2013, with direct responsibility for customers’ Win Loss and Customer Experience programs.

Carolyn has over 17 years of market research, customer satisfaction, and competitive

intelligence experience working for large corporations, and research agencies, including Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper Networks, and Frost & Sullivan. Early in her career, Carolyn worked as an Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to joining Primary Intelligence, Carolyn owned her own consulting firm, where she provided custom and syndicated research to clients worldwide on disruptive IT and telecommunications technologies.

Carolyn has two master’s degrees, one from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a second from Georgetown University. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Hood College in Maryland. Carolyn has also taken advanced Competitive Intelligence, Strategic Planning, and Strategic Marketing courses at the California Institute of Technology. Since 2007, Carolyn has taught online global business and management classes part-time at the University of Maryland.

To contact Carolyn with questions or comments about the State of Customer Experience report, or to discuss CX issues generally, please provide your contact information HERE.

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Disclaimer

Primary Intelligence believes the information contained in this report is reliable and accurate but, due to the dynamic nature of the market research industry and the market research process, cannot guarantee that it is accurate or complete and it should not relied upon as such. Opinions expressed are current as of the date of this publication. The information, including the opinions contained within the report, is subject to change without notice.

Use of this report by third parties does not absolve these third parties from using due diligence in verifying the report’s contents. Primary Intelligence shall have no liability for any direct, incidental, special, or consequential damages or lost profits, if any, suffered by any third party as a result of decisions made, or not made, or actions taken, or not taken, based on this report.

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