Dive Brief:
- Consumers value first-contact resolution, fast responses and knowledgeable agents significantly more than customer experience leaders, which could undermine organizational CX efforts, according to a Genesys survey released earlier this month.
- Nearly half of consumers — 49% — said first-contact resolution was the most critical aspect of a customer service interaction, compared with just 20% of CX leaders. Likewise, almost half of consumers — 48% — valued a fast response most, compared with only 28% of CX leaders.
- “As organizations continue investing in automation and AI to boost efficiency, they can’t risk missing the bigger picture: Customers want companies to solve their problems quickly and with empathy,” David Norrie, SVP at Genesys, said in a prepared statement.
Dive Insight:
CX is essential to a business’s success, with 82% of consumers agreeing with the sentiment that “a company is only as good as its service,” according to the report.
While nearly two-thirds of consumers agree that, in general, customer service is improving, only 11% say the service they receive is consistently excellent. About half of consumers say service quality is mixed.
Differing ideas about the ingredients of a good experience might explain customers’ ambivalence.
“The customer experience function stands at a crossroads,” the report says. “While organizations are prioritizing customer satisfaction, the elements required to deliver it aren’t fully aligned.”
If businesses fail to meet consumer expectations for high-quality customer service, their bottom lines could suffer. More than half of consumers surveyed said they would stop doing business with a brand after two to five bad interactions, while nearly one-third said they had abandoned a brand in the past year due to a poor experience.
Additionally, while 37% of consumers value a knowledgeable agent the most in a customer service interaction, only 17% of CX leaders agreed.
Nearly one-third of consumers surveyed also said they valued listening, understanding and/or empathy the most in their customer service interactions.
“Making it easy for customers to reach an agent and ensuring agents have the details of any previous interactions are also ways for organizations to provide empathetic experiences,” the report says. “Infusing interactions with these attributes also increases the likelihood of a fast response and a first-interaction resolution.”
For the report, Genesys and an independent research firm surveyed 5,157 consumers and 1,181 CX decision-makers in September and October 2024 across more than 16 countries.
