Dimension Data annual CX Benchmarking Report has urged organisations to address a ‘customer experience disconnect’, which could lose business or even jeopardise their chances of survival in competitive markets where consumer loyalty can no longer be taken for granted
Research from Dimension Data showed that 68 per cent of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) respondents said customer experience is not represented at board level, with lower-level management or multiple managers often assuming responsibility.
The report revealed that only 20 per cent of the respondents said their organisation takes a fully integrated, centralised approach to customer experience.
Nemo Verbist, group executive for customer experience at Dimension Data, commented, “Customer experience must be higher on the agenda for every business and the whole organisation should get behind it.”
“Brands acknowledge how crucial customer experience is, yet so few are making it a board-level responsibility, leaving it siloed or delegating it to individual managers. There’s an artificial reality between organisations’ CX ambitions and making real change that benefits the customer. This disconnect must be resolved. Brands must make customer experience the priority they say it is,” he added.
The research has also shown that most regional companies recognise customer experience as an important competitive differentiator (90 per cent), which is vital for driving loyalty (85 per cent), revenue growth (73 per cent) and cost reduction (55 per cent).
It has found that almost a quarter of respondents (20 per cent) are dissatisfied with their own customer experience services and only 11 per cent believe they are delivering experiences that would lead customers to recommend them to others.
This has resulted in an ‘artificial reality’, where companies are talking about CX, but not delivering on it, creating a gap between their CX ambitions and actual CX capabilities.
Nancy Jamison, principal analyst for customer care at Frost & Sullivan, advised, “Customer experience benchmarking is more important than ever. Brands need to invest in customer experience but they also need to know that those investments are paying off. And if they’re not, they need to know what to change. Right now, it looks like brands aren’t putting the right kind of focus on customer experience and, as a result, they’re not seeing the outcomes they want. That’s bad for them, and their customers.”
