Dive Brief:
- Customer experience teams need to provide experiences that are easy enough to forget in 2024, according to a report from customer experience solutions company CSG. The report, released Wednesday, gathered data from multiple studies and data sources as well as CSG’s data from its customer journey management platform.
- Customers value easy experiences over exceptional ones, CSG found. Speed is a critical factor. Nearly two-thirds of customers say speed is as important as price, according to CSG.
- “Today’s customers are tough critics,” said Mark Smith, SVP of customer experience at CSG, said in a prepared statement. “They expect smooth, intuitive experiences that understand who they are and what they want next — and get it right on the first take.”
Dive Insight:
With customer attention spans getting shorter and expectations for fast, seamless experiences on the rise, CSG says businesses should aim for forgettable, easy experiences.
It’s counterintuitive, CSG acknowledges. But more often than not, the experiences customers remember are bad ones — where friction interrupts their process. That includes difficulty transitioning from self-service channels to assisted channels or clunky checkout processes.
There are exceptions — some businesses are known for providing premium exceptional experiences, such as a Michelin restaurant or premium flyers, according to Eric Carrasquilla, president of customer experience solutions at CSG. But providing efficient, effortless experiences is a sweet spot for 99% of companies, CSG said.
“The fact that I was on the line with a really helpful call center agent or somebody in the store that's helping me with the problem is really good,” Carrasquilla said. “But even better [is] that I didn't have to wait 45 minutes to get to the final boss in the call center.”
Businesses that provide effortless experiences have a few things in common, Carrasquilla said.
“Instead of trying to boil the ocean over every piece of the customer life cycle, they go, ‘Look, here's a hot spot,” he said.
These businesses look at specific problem areas and grade it against a corresponding North Star measure.
They also make sure that the transition from digital and assisted channels is smooth.
“Those people have a clue as far as visibility as to where that customer was before they got to them, and they have empowerment to do the next best option to remove the friction,” Carrasquilla said.
