In this roundup: Mitto asks consumers which is worse—bad CX or shipment delays; Redzone shows what is behind higher productivity levels among frontline manufacturing workers; why Heap thinks automation is crucial to the future of digital insights; what Execs In The Know say is the new focus among CX leaders today; and how CEOs today think of customer empathy.
Mitto: For US Consumers, Bad CX is Worse Than Any Shipment Delay
A new study from Mitto, the Swiss-based provider of omnichannel communications solutions, asserts the importance of good CX, which can buy a brand reserves of goodwill for future deployment during tougher times. In a survey of 1,000 US consumers on how CX affects consumer tolerance levels for shipment delays, the findings show that for 76% of American customers public disaffection for shipment delays is outranked by communal distaste of an even larger offense: bad CX.
The reverse is true: previous experience of good CX from a company or brand makes customers much more forgiving. According to the study, up to 91% of customers state that good CX makes waiting for a product bearable, and 93% say they are more likely to have patience around delays with a brand. These findings emphasize the value of building good CX during times when a brand might be undergoing pressure from myriad issues.
“Our research reveals how important establishing good customer experience is not just during these tumultuous times when supply chain disruptions are causing shipping delays, but every day of the year,” says Andrea Giacomini, CEO at Mitto. “Brands must prioritize ways to communicate effectively with customers during the smooth times to not only gain trust and loyalty, but to proactively set the relationship up for ongoing success when uncontrollable elements arise.”
Redzone: Frontline Manufacturing Workers Show Increased Engagement
Frontline workers in manufacturing show increased engagement when they are provided with the appropriate technology to manage tasks and resolve problems, says a new study from Redzone, the provider of connected workforce solutions headquartered in Miami, Florida.
The findings from Redzone’s Frontline Workforce Engagement Study show that 50 manufacturing plants outfitted with the company’s connected digital workforce technology achieved a 74% increase on average in employee engagement across five engagement metrics. The five engagement areas are ownership of performance, autonomous problem solving, connection to others, cross-team collaboration, and a personal sense of competence and recognition from others.
The increased rate of employee engagement correlated to two major impacts on each factory plant. Factories in the Redzone study experienced a 32% reduction in employee turnover, compared to a 50% increase in turnover for the rest of the industry. The increased engagement also translated into higher productivity at the plants, which reported a rise in overall equipment effectiveness to 63%, up from 50%.
All told, the study quantifies the benefits to be obtained from an engaged frontline workforce, underscoring the direct relationship between motivated employees on the one hand, and decreased turnover, as well as improved productivity, on the other.
Heap: Automation, Not Manual Tracking, is the Way
A new report from Heap, the provider from San Franciso of a customer data analytics platform, states that the future of digital insights will be increasingly automated, weighted toward solutions that can capture and sift through behavioral data to locate—and then resolve—instances of friction. In contrast, manual tracking can miss up to 50% of user behavior, the report notes, resulting in flawed datasets and bad information.
Manual tracking also strains resources, the report adds. In the study’s survey of more than 1,000 Heap customers, the findings indicate that 50% of customer-facing teams wound up having to actively follow and analyze more than 127 user actions when manual tracking was involved. And in 25% of teams, the number of user actions being tracked had been as high as 253. Teams that needed to manually decide which behaviors to follow and analyze found themselves at a huge disadvantage compared to tracking teams already in possession of automatically captured data, the report points out.
Heap CEO Ken Fine says the findings show a widespread need for technology when tracking digital experiences. “For companies looking to deliver digital experiences that meet the changing needs of their customers, having a complete, up-to-date dataset confers an enormous competitive advantage,” Fine adds.
Execs In The Know: CX Leaders Find New Focus
A subtle but profound shift in focus has taken hold among CX leaders since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, according to the latest research report from Execs In The Know, the Arizona-based group of global CX professionals. Today’s CX leaders are placing greater value on their workers, emphasizing employee engagement, the maximal use of hybrid workplaces, and the need to invest in CX technologies to boost customer programs and agent performance.
The research, contained in the report titled CX Leaders Trends & Insights: 2021 Corporate Edition, reflects the results of a 90-question survey conducted among close to 90 CX leaders near the end of last year, and tackles several critical CX subjects, including outsourcing, work-from-home (WFH), and CX technologies.
Among the key findings, 66% described the shift to work-from-home as exerting a “Very Positive” or “Positive” impact on their ability to meet customer needs and expectations. At the same time, 71% indicated ongoing internal challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, with workforce shortages still being the biggest hurdle in most company operations. Among CX leaders, 69% expect the subject of “Support Technologies” to be among the top three areas of investment for this year. In comparison, the area of “Recruiting, Hiring, Onboarding, and Training/Coaching” lay at a distant second, at 32%.
UserTesting: Customer Empathy is a “Must” for Company Success
A new study from UserTesting, the San Francisco-based provider of a human insights platform to help businesses make customer-centric decisions, says that most CEOs today understand the role of customer empathy as a key ingredient to company success, and that an authentic demonstration of empathy to customers is needed to secure their long-term commitment.
The research also shows that while priorities across industries differ, securing strong personal relationships and supporting empathetic interactions are principal concerns for business leaders. CEOs consider customer understanding to be critical for teams involved in marketing/brand-building (38%), operations/production and design/prototyping (38%), and product ideation (26%). To win new consumers and retain existing customers, organizations will need a deep understanding of customer needs, expectations, and feelings, the report notes.
The level of a company’s CX maturity was shown to have a direct impact when it comes to selecting the most important means of helping employees demonstrate customer empathy. CEOs with mature CX organizations think beyond data capture and more frequently turn to technologies for sharing customer information and insights across the organization. Direct interaction with customers was the best way to gain customer insights, followed by customer feedback reports and market research reports, the report findings show. “The research reflects what we see every day with our customers,” says Andy MacMillan, CEO of UserTesting. “Empathy is having a greater and greater impact on overall business outcomes.”
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
