Zendesk Study Finds Customer Experience Maturity Leads to Business Resilience, Revenue Growth and Agent Retention
October 07 2021 - 12:00PM
Business Wire
According to new research released today by Zendesk, Inc. (NYSE:
ZEN) in partnership with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), companies
that have continued to invest in their customer experience (CX)
over the past year are 10 times more likely to have maximized their
resiliency during the pandemic and three times more likely to have
grown their customer base year over year.
“This research confirms what our customers across industries,
sizes and life cycles all tell us: that customer experience
requires continuous investment and innovation to truly set their
business apart,” said Jeff Titterton, Chief Operating Officer,
Zendesk. “The way the customer service function is viewed is
changing - it’s the hub of your customer relationships in this
digital-first economy. Having the tools for proactive service,
information sharing, and cross-selling are now just as important as
issue resolution. These are the skills that will shift your call
center from being a cost center to a revenue driver.”
The 2021 State of CX Maturity Report surveyed more than 3,000 CX
decision makers with more than 15% of these from North America to
understand the characteristics and benefits of customer experience
leadership. ESG built a CX maturity scale to identify common
patterns and behaviors that separate high-maturity CX organizations
- what ESG calls the “Champions” - from three levels of less-mature
ones: “Starters”, “Emerging”, and “Risers”. The report outlines
what businesses need to do to move up the maturity scale.
The research found that the number of Champions within midsized
and enterprise companies has more than doubled from 6% to 14% since
2020. The greatest gains in North America were seen in the United
States - shifting from 7% in 2020 to 17% in 2021. Meanwhile, Canada
shifted from 4% in 2020 to 7% in 2021.
“The findings indicate that the shift to digital and remote work
during the pandemic served as a trigger for companies to accelerate
their adoption of new technologies, policies and processes to
benefit from a higher CX Maturity,” added Adam DeMattia, Director
of Custom Research at ESG. “Across North America, Champions
recognize that service excellence can be a differentiator, and are
actually accelerating investment in CX projects.”
There also continues to be a clear correlation between improved
CX maturity and the benefits of increased customer satisfaction
(CSAT), faster response times, and effective customer service.
Notably, the study also calls out the connection between CX
maturity and greater business growth and revenue.
- Related to their peers, midsized and enterprise Champions in
North America were 3.4 times more likely to have grown their
customer base over the past six months, and 6.4 times more likely
to have increased per-customer spend over the same time
period.
- Champions are also changing how the customer service function
is viewed across their organization. With digital interaction being
the main connection point with many customers, Champions in North
America are 3 times more likely than Starters to operate profitable
service teams, where direct revenue exceeds the cost of customer
service.
Other key imperatives for CX Maturity that the research
identified include:
CX-led innovation is a competitive differentiator
The vast majority of respondents in North America (89%) agree
that CX innovation is required to protect their business from
competitors. They also see the value of data to help focus this
innovation - almost half of respondents (44%) recognize they could
do more to use customer data to expand sales opportunities and
business growth. Among the four levels of CX maturity, Champions
are taking the lead in driving continuous innovation in their CX
and using customer service data.
- Champions are 7 times more likely to be using service data
extensively.
- When used, that data is delivering results - Champions are 12.7
times more likely to identify the impact on sales success as “game
changing”.
- Champions in North America are also 2.5 times more likely than
Starters to have accelerated major CX projects over the past
year.
Conversations, not transactions, create stronger customer
relationships
Nearly all Champions (97%) agree that pivoting to a more
conversational experience with customers is a key goal for their
teams - signalling the shift away from transactional service
focused purely on resolving tickets.
- Champions are three times more likely to prioritize delivering
conversational customer experiences that can build deeper customer
relationships.
- Organizations in North America have increased the number of
service channels year-over-year from an average of 6.6 to an
average of 7.
- Many anticipate that preferences and changes will continue to
shift as well: 63% of organizations predict that chat and social
channels will be most used by customers in the future, up from 50%
who say this is the case today.
Investment in CX leads to better agent retention
Agent turnover, training, flexibility and wellbeing all emerged
as areas of investment and focus for teams over the course of the
past 18 months. This led Champions, in particular, to move quickly
to implement tools to support overwhelmed service teams.
- More than a quarter of organizations (35%) say staffing
turnover continues to be a challenge, up from 29% in 2020.
- Organizations expect an 8% increase in the number of remote
agents, even after the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer an
issue.
- Investments and process changes made by Champions in the early
stages of the pandemic include increased mobile device use by
agents (46%); increased utilization of public cloud services (62%);
more flexible work policies (56%); adoption of new collaboration
tools (56%); and expanded mental health/wellbeing initiatives
(54%).
- Between accelerating CX investments and adapting service policy
changes earlier in the pandemic, Champions in North America are
10.3 times more likely to believe they made the right investment
and policy decisions during the pandemic to maximize their
resiliency.
- Champions across the region are nearly 4 times more likely to
have excellent agent retention.
Additional Resources
- For more information, download the report, The State of CX
Maturity, here
- Read the blog content series on how businesses can achieve CX
maturity here
Methodology
In the second quarter of 2021, ESG conducted a double-blind
survey of 3,250 line-of-business decision makers who were
responsible for ensuring and enhancing the customer service at
their organization. Organizations represented spanned all market
segments, from small businesses to large enterprises, and multiple
industry verticals like retail, consumer and corporate services,
financial services, healthcare, education, and technology
companies, among others.
About Zendesk
Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by
enabling any business around the world to take their customer
service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service
everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations,
connecting more than 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of
customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels,
communities, review sites and help centers. Zendesk products are
built with love to be loved. The company was conceived in
Copenhagen, Denmark, built and grown in California, taken public in
New York City, and today employs more than 5,000 people across the
world. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.
About ESG
Enterprise Strategy Group is an integrated technology analysis,
research, and strategy firm providing market intelligence,
actionable insight, and go-to-market content services to the global
technology community. Learn more at www.esg-global.com.
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Kaylee Hill press@zendesk.com
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