Northridge Group: Consumers Less Happy with Service than Businesses Think
Featuring insights aimed at helping businesses to benchmark and improve their customer service, the report also notes that chatting with an agent increases 7% when it comes to speed of issue resolution, indicating that consumers find chat to be among the fastest ways to elicit a response and resolve their issues.
And while more than one-third of business leaders want contact center associates to be back in the office, nearly half of the consumers surveyed have knowingly spoken to a service associate who was at home, with almost 75% of the respondents feeling that the associate’s location has no impact on how their issue is resolved.
Consumers are not as happy with the customer service they receive as business leaders believe, states a new report from the Northridge Group. The State of Customer Experience 2023 report discloses that while 93% of business executives think their companies make it easy to resolve customer issues, only 66% of customers feel the same way.
The Northridge Group is an Illinois-based consulting firm that offers services on CX, quality monitoring, and operational excellence. The new report is the seventh annual CX survey carried out by the agency, which polled 1,000 customers and 250 business executives for the study.
Middle East Companies Ready to Invest Substantially in CX Infrastructure
Signaling the growing commitment of organizations in the Middle East to strengthen their AI capabilities and CX infrastructure, 52% of companies in the region are prepared to invest more than $200,000 to advance their CX technical capabilities this year, according to a report published by the Customer Experience Live Show Middle East, a CX event held in late May in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
The Customer Experience Live Intelligence Report reveals further that 37% of companies in the Middle East are investing in AI to leverage its power in translating customer interactions into actionable insights, while 32% prioritize workflow automation to drive operational efficiencies and enhance CX. Organizations are also upgrading their CX tools, with 27% investing in customer relationship platforms, 21% in personalization platforms, 21% in contact center solutions, and 27% reevaluating customer feedback management tools to align with their CX strategies.
Related Article: Middle East Area Companies to Allot Sizable CX Investments This Year
Ayusha Tyagi, managing director of Customer Experience Live, noted the importance that technology solutions play in providing a deeper understanding of customers and in achieving a tangible return on investment (ROI) for brands and businesses.
Jitterbit: Automation to Enhance CX Remains a Top Priority
CX may be one of the most critical differentiators for organizations in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, but personalizing CX requires businesses to combine a deep understanding of the customer journey with an integrated tech stack, the findings from a survey by software company Jitterbit show.
Results from the survey also indicate that automating processes to enhance CX is a priority for organizations. Despite ranking second—just behind IT—as having the most automated processes, CX remains one of the top five functions being targeted for further automation, indicating the high level of importance placed on CX functions within businesses.
Even so, organizations face challenges that stand in the way of delivering optimal CX, the survey findings note. The challenges include the prolific number of applications to be assimilated, IT resource constraints, and manual integration of apps and functions.
Overall, however, the integration and automation of marketing operations remains a top priority for organizations to deliver optimal CX, with most organizations reporting plans to invest in integrating marketing functions within the next 12 months. Respondents also intend to automate and integrate additional business processes to deliver the best possible CX, the survey findings disclose.
Based in Alameda, California, Jitterbit is the provider of an integration platform that enables companies to connect software-as-a-service (SaaS), on-premises, and cloud applications, with high-performance parallel processing algorithms allowing the transfer of large amounts of data with ease.
Telus International: Consumers Express Concern on Bias in AI Algorithms
A recent survey from digital CX provider Telus International reveals consumer concerns about bias in AI algorithms and a perceived lack of transparency in how generative AI is being used.
More than two in five (43%) believe that bias in AI algorithms caused them to be served the “wrong content,” such as music or TV programs they dislike or irrelevant job opportunities. Almost one-third (32%) believe that AI algorithm bias also caused them to miss out on an opportunity, such as a financial or job application.
And while generative AI can bring about new possibilities for brands to enhance the experiences they deliver to customers, the propensity of generative AI to occasionally deliver inaccurate or nonsensical information—a phenomenon known as a hallucination—could potentially impact hard-won customer loyalty.
The survey also shows that 40% of American consumers do not believe that companies using generative AI in their platforms are doing enough to protect users from bias and false information. In fact, more than three-quarters (77%) think that brands should be required to audit their algorithms to mitigate bias and prejudice before they integrate generative AI into their platforms.
“With the rise of generative AI, the need for good and fair data has become more important than ever,” says Siobhan Hanna, managing director of AI data solutions at Telus International. “It is crucial that companies proactively address biased data and reckless algorithms from the start to avoid severe consequences and inaccurate outcomes.”
Airship: Consumers Turn to Mobile Apps for Higher-Level Benefits
The top three reasons why consumers continue to use mobile apps from their favorite brands are ease of use (35%), to simplify life (31%), and to save time (27%), reveals new global research from mobile experience company Airship. And while deals, rewards, and targeted offers grew the most as opt-in motivators, the reasons consumers continue to use apps are increasingly about the higher-level benefits of ease, speed, and simplicity.
Searching and browsing app stores ranks first as to how people discover new apps to download, holding true across household income levels, generations, and the majority of countries. Search engines are the second most common app discovery method, followed by word of mouth (WOM). Personal recommendations are a key driver of app downloads in the UK, France, and Canada, where consumers turn to WOM as much as—or more than—app stores. In the US, Germany, and Singapore, WOM is the second most common method of finding apps.
Related Article: More Consumers Are Using Retailers’ Mobile Apps, New Airship Research Shows
When asked why consumers delete apps, “freeing up phone storage” (32%) and “too many in-app ads” (30%) rose to the top. Notably, “never used” (26%) was the third most common reason globally for deleting apps. In Canada, France, and Germany, “never used” was the most common reason for app removal, and in the US, UK, and Singapore, it ranked second. This data suggests that brands must quickly and clearly convey an app’s value to customers, and improving mobile app onboarding experiences are crucial to fostering app usage and optimizing retention.
The new research from Airship, completed in partnership with Sapio Research, contains the results of a global survey of 11,000 consumers aged 18 and older in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, South Africa, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Brazil. The provider of an enterprise SaaS platform, Airship focuses on helping brands master the full lifecycle of mobile app experience management, from app store optimization to customer journey orchestration.
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.
