Dive Brief:
- Customers are significantly more likely to trust, recommend and purchase more from brands with experiences that earn a five-star rating, according to an analysis of data from 28,000 consumers across 26 countries Qualtrics XM released last week.
- On average, 87% of customers with five-star satisfaction are somewhat or very likely to trust a brand, compared to 78% with four-star satisfaction. And 4 in 5 of consumers who feel five-star satisfaction will buy more from a brand, compared to three-quarters with four-star satisfaction.
- U.S. consumers expressed the biggest trust gap between five-star and four-star experiences. Nine in 10 U.S. consumers trust a brand with a five-star satisfaction rating, dropping to three-quarters for brands with a four-star rating.
Dive Insight:
Creating five-star experiences can be essential for CX leaders who want to maximize the impact of their investments.
Great CX offers a return on investment in the long term by increasing customer lifetime value, according to Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner. Higher repeat purchase rates and more word-of-mouth are two of the biggest advantages for brands that focus on experience.
“Both of those benefits help grow sales and, even more importantly, grow sales without high customer acquisition costs,” Jashinsky told CX Dive in an email.
Gartner research uncovered similar findings to the Qualtrics report. Four in 5 customers who are “strongly committed” to a brand are highly likely to complete a purchase from that company, compared to 2 in 5 who were “weakly committed,” according to Jashinsky.
Leaders aiming to create committed customers can start by determining the CX metrics that will produce tangible value, according to Qualtrics. They should define the behaviors that will benefit the company, then identify the key drivers of those behaviors.
However, companies shouldn’t limit themselves to only the most obvious metrics when it comes time to measure the actual results, according to Jashinsky.
Oversimplified reporting can obscure the unintended consequences of program changes for the organization, according to Jashinsky.
Instead, leaders can get a holistic view of their program’s performance by looking at it from multiple angles. These can include transactional metrics, like purchase frequency; attitudinal metrics like customer reviews and surveys; and comprehensive metrics like customer lifetime value.
