Why Brands Fall Short on Customer-Centricity

Forrester revealed that CX quality in the US has hit an all-time low. Only 3% of companies are currently classified as customer-obsessed. Why do brands still struggle with the scale of change required?

Customer-centricity is a critical driver when it comes to driving revenue. But how many brands can successfully follow a customer-first approach when consumer preferences are changing so rapidly? 

Forrester’s research team conducted its 9th Customer Experience Benchmark Survey, collecting data from more than 98,000 customers across 223 brands and 13 industries. A recent survey revealed that CX quality among brands in the US has hit an all-time low, declining for an unprecedented third consecutive year. The results show that the average effectiveness of CX has dropped to 64%, while the average ease of experience has fallen to 66%.

Why do brands still struggle to connect with customers? 

Emphasising the importance of customer-centricity, Rick Parrish, VP and Research Director at Forrester, said, “Brands want to create better experiences, and they realise that putting the customer at the centre of their business is the way to do it. However, organisations struggle with the scale of change that this requires.” 

The study further revealed that 39% of brands and 10 industry averages have declined in CX quality over the past year. CX performance dropped across all three dimensions of CX quality: effectiveness, ease, and emotion. 

Although emotion remains the key factor for delivering high levels of CX performance, US brands are struggling to connect emotionally with customers. However, customers still feel slightly less positive in 2024. On average, they experience 25 positive emotions for every 1 negative emotion, compared to 29 positive emotions in 2023. 

Enlisted below were the common factors which contributed to the decline:

• Inability to provide seamless customer and employee experiences
• Underwhelming digital experiences using chatbots
• Consumers’ concerns about their personal financial situations, society, and the economy at large

Only 3% of companies are currently classified as customer-obsessed, which is defined as putting customers’ needs, desires, and satisfaction at the forefront of all business decisions and actions.

How will being customer-obsessed continue to change the game? 

Commenting on the key takeaways from the survey, Rick Parrish, VP and Research Director at Forrester, said, “Customer-obsessed grow revenue, profit, and customer loyalty faster than their competitors.”

The survey further revealed that customer-obsessed organisations reported 41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth, and 51% better customer retention than those at non-customer-obsessed organisations. The airline industry topped the race with an improvement in its overall CX quality. 

Also Read:  How to Turn Customers from Fans to Advocates

What can turn companies into customer-obsessed organisations? 

Adopting technologies which prioritise customer experience at scale and resolve their issues quickly can help brands gain a competitive edge. 

Recently, Zendesk invested in unitQ, an AI-powered customer feedback platform, enabling organisations to enhance customer and employee experiences.

In a world where customer feedback is disparate, siloed, and manually aggregated across sources, unitQ aggregates customer feedback in hundreds of languages translated from 60+ sources and automatically groups it into granular categories. It further allows teams to pinpoint the root cause of all customer friction with real-time insights at scale. 

SoCi introduced SOCi Chat, an AI-powered chatbot to transform customer interactions for businesses with multiple locations. This advanced version of the previous SmartBot offers immediate, localised responses across various platforms, such as Facebook, SMS, SOCi Pages, and local websites, all managed through a single corporate setup.