Good news (sort of) this week for customer service and support. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (
ACSI) issued a release that touted "Customer Satisfaction Halts Slide, Glimmer of Hope for the Economy?" (
download PDF).
For the first time in a year, the index rose by .04%, with high end
hotels out-performing their budget competitors and satellite company
customers reporting happier experiences than those who get their ESPN
fix from cable companies.
Still, according to ACSI, all is not rosy:
"'Households
are under pressure from falling housing prices, tight credit, and
rising food and fuel costs, making it more difficult for satisfied
consumers to spend more even if they want to,' said Claes Fornell,
founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and
Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference. 'The smart move for
companies in this economic environment is to make sure they keep the
customers they have by shoring up their customer relationships.'"
Apparently
the airlines are not smart enough to overcome rising fuel prices and
shore up things with their customers because the index says that
customer satisfaction with the airlines dropped for a third year in a
row.
On a more positive note, one would
suspect that increased adoption of CRM had something to do with this
general turnaround in customer satisfaction. Last year the CRM industry
pulled in $7.8 billion in revenues and
Gartner recently predicted
that despite a recession CRM will continue to grow by 14.2 percent in
2008. But perhaps the rise in happy customers has more to do with
desperation and innovation than software.
Two recent studies corroborate this point.
A global benchmark study by
Strativity Group left the group's president "shocked" with the discovery that "80% of the executives strongly agree
that customer strategies are more important to companies' success than
ever before, [and yet] companies fail to design and deliver those strategies and,
as such, lose customer commitment and loyalty," according
a press release.
And that failure is evident in a worldwide study that showed a
shocking decline in call center service levels.
The Stratvity study points out some pretty disturbing statistics:
- barely
a quarter of respondents (27 percent) say the definition of the
customer experience is "well-defined and communicated" in their
companies;
- 29 percent of respondents indicate their employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems; and
- only 24 percent agree that their employees are "well-versed in how to delight customers."
If
only there was a software that could give employees a 360 degree view
of the customer so that employees could react in real-time. It appears
that companies are shelling out a lot cash for CRM yet failing when it
comes to operational and strategic implementation.
