Most companies are more talk than action when it comes to improving the customer experience, new research found.
Very few companies have created a management level position to manage the customer experience, and even fewer are putting resources into improving customer service, a new ASQ survey on managing customer expectations found.
Most companies seem to leave the customer experience up to chance, anticipating customer service, marketing and sales leaders will do their part to make good things happen.
Reality may be different
What the survey found,
- Just 4% of survey participants rated customer service initiatives as their top priority
- 36% of service and quality leaders said that no management level customer service position has been created to manage the customer experience yet, and
- Only a third of participants said managing the experience and customer expectations is a top challenge.
What can be done
The good news: Even without financial or moral support from the C-level for customer experience initiatives, things can be done to improve the customer experience.
Survey participants (who struggle to get their own support) suggested:
- Train front line service providers to treat each contact with customers as a step in building long-term partnerships, rather than a transaction. One way: Do something extra every time.
- Create a rapid response team. Pull members from Service, Sales and Marketing and charge them with identifying and resolving customer service issues each day.
- Streamline responses to customer complaints. Use standard forms that everyone in areas that are involved with the issue can use to resolve the issue immediately, and then find and repair the root cause.
- Communicate customer expectations. When everyone involved in the customer experience knows what customers expect, they can deliver on it. Surveying and relaying the results are key to this step.
