Poor Customer Experience Comes at a Price

Debbie Braunert

It’s the height of the holiday shopping season and companies are in competition to acquire, up-sell and keep consumers.  With the increase of showrooming and cost-comparison shopping, businesses need to compete on more than just price to increase sales – they need to provide an optimal customer experience. Forrester’s 2012 “Customer Experience Index” estimates that the revenue impact from a 10% improvement in a company’s customer experience performance can reach more than $1 billion.

Conversely, companies can’t risk a customer having a bad experience at any point in the customer lifecycle, whether it is during the point of sale, during a service appointment or when making a payment.  Forrester’s survey data shows that approximately 30% or more of a company’s customers have poor experiences, and those poor experiences come at a hefty cost.  According to American Express’ Global Customer Service Barometer, 70% of American consumers want an apology or some form of reimbursement after a poor customer service experience.  And the cost of compensating an unhappy customer with a refund or additional product or service is only half the story.  Poor customer service experiences often lead to channel escalation for resolution, requiring multiple employees’ involvement and additional costs to resolve the issue.

Contact centers need to follow suit by focusing on making investments in enhancing customer experiences.  Customers now expect cross-channel interactions, mobile access and shared account knowledge across departments, and today’s contact center technology has evolved to meet these requirements.

Forrester developed a report entitled: Transform the Contact Center for Customer Service Excellence to help organizations improve customer service and maintain their customer base by providing an optimal customer experience.

• Discover: establish the value of customer service;

• Plan: set the right strategy;

• Act: execute the strategy with precision; and

• Optimize: measure and improve operations.

To access the full report, click here.

As the Vice President of Marketing, Debbie Braunert brings 20 years of high tech marketing experience to SoundBite Communications, where she leads the marketing strategies for SoundBite’s various products and solutions. Most recently, Debbie led the efforts around the launch of the company’s new preference management platform, which was a significant expansion to SoundBite’s proactive customer communications offering.

Prior to her position at SoundBite, Debbie held various marketing roles at Altiris, Pedestal Software, eDial and Inktomi. She holds a BS degree in marketing and an MBA with a marketing concentration from Bentley University.