In an increasingly customer-centric business environment, understanding what customers are expecting becomes important. However, despite the company claims of providing excellent customer service, a significant gap often exists between the company perception and customers’ experiences. To bridge this gap, businesses need to delve deeper into customer service statistics to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer expectations, satisfaction levels, and areas of improvement.
To help this, we listed the following customer service stats that we gathered from various high-quality reports and sources.
1- The state of the customer service market & forecasts
In 2022, 90% of customer service leaders reported that customer expectations are higher than ever. (HubSpot)
2- Industry & business success in customer service
73% of business leaders report a direct link between their customer service and business performance. (Zendesk)
60% of business leaders say that good customer service improves customer retention rates. (Zendesk)
Customers state that the healthcare industry is the best at offering outstanding customer service and being customer-focused. (Salesforce 1)
Source: Salesforce
Across industries, businesses are aware that they are not doing great in terms of customer service success (Zendesk):
Almost 80% of companies state that they are not successful in providing quality customer service.
Only almost 20% of them say that they are successful in making customer service easy for customers.
80% of them report that they are not strong in resolving customer engagements rapidly.
Source: Zendesk
46% of business leaders say their organization does not have a three year strategic plan for customer service. (Zendesk)
Less than 30% of customer service representatives are feeling good enough to do their jobs. (Zendesk)
Only 15% of customer service teams are satisfied with their overall workload. (Zendesk)
Nearly 80% of customer service agents say they need more quality training. (Zendesk)
Globally, the priority for most of the businesses in the future is to drive better customer experience. (Zendesk)
Source: Zendesk
3- Customer experience stats
Customer experience is crucial for companies because it directly influences their reputation, customer retention, and ultimately, their bottom line.
Positive customer experience often leads to repeat purchases and customer loyalty, and can inspire word-of-mouth referrals. On the other hand, a negative experience can deter potential customers and damage a company’s brand awareness.
53 percent of customers say they feel an emotional connection to the brands they buy from the most, which contributes to the brand loyalty. (Salesforce 1)
The percentage of customers who state that it is hard for a company to earn their trust has risen from 54 to 61 between 2019 and 2020. (Salesforce 1)
Source: Salesforce
63% of customers express that businesses should improve their responsiveness to customer feedback. (Qualtrics 2)
While 81% of customers expect an increase in self-service options, 40% of businesses believe they already provide sufficient choices. (NICE CXone)
Use of customer service communication channels
Today, customers mostly prefer email to reach out to companies, followed by phone, in-person and online chat. (Salesforce 1)
Source: Salesforce
89% of customers say they will spend more with companies that allow them to find answers online without having to contact anyone. (Zendesk)
40% of consumers state that providing multiple communication options is the most important feature of a customer service department. (Business Wire)
65% of leaders report a decrease in the call volume when self service options are improved. (McKinsey)
In the US, 20% of consumers expect immediate response from companies on social media, followed by 24% waiting for a response within an hour. (Statista)
Source: Statista
Ticket volume is increasing across all customer service channels, with WhatsApp being the leader with a 370% increase from 2020 to 2021. (Zendesk)
Good customer service experience
%91 of customers say that a positive customer service experience makes them more likely to buy another product from the company. (Salesforce 1)
78% of customers indicate that they are happy to forgive a company if they receive great customer service. (Salesforce 1)
71% of customers state that they decide to make a purchase based on the quality of a company’s customer service. (Salesforce 1)
Source: Salesforce
94% of American customers will recommend a company whose service they rate as “very good.” (Qualtrics 2)
Poor customer service experience
68% of customers say it feels like most businesses need to improve the training of their customer service reps. (Zendesk)
76% of customers say they would switch to a company’s competitor due to multiple bad customer service experience. (Zendesk)
61% of them say they would switch to a company’s competitor after just one bad customer service experience. (Zendesk)
Only 13% of consumers will recommend a company whose customer service they’ve rated as “very poor.” (Qualtrics 2)
Poor customer service and experience could potentially cause companies a loss of up to $4.7 trillion in worldwide consumer spending. (Qualtrics 1)
4- Customer expectations
Understanding and meeting customer expectations from customer service is vital for companies for several reasons. When a company meets or exceeds these expectations, customers are more likely to be satisfied and develop loyalty towards the brand.
Additionally, in today’s competitive marketplace, customers have a variety of choices, and they will gravitate towards companies that best meet their expectations. Here are some customer expectation facts:
85% of B2B buyers say that the experience a company provides to them is as important as its product or services. (Salesforce)
90% of customers say they will spend more with companies that personalize the customer service for them. (Zendesk)
50% of customers state that improvement in customer service and support is a major need for businesses, with an extra 41% stating that it is at least a moderate need. (Salesforce)
More than 60% of customers say they now have higher customer service standards. (Zendesk)
72% of the US customers expect a customer service agent to have access to all relevant information about them. (Zendesk)
72% of buyers expect a response within 30 minutes when they’re looking for customer support. (HubSpot)
Again, 40% of companies that turned on automation and AI between September 2019 to September 2021 saw a 15% or higher improvement in first reply time. (Zendesk)
61% expect the majority of their customer service interactions to be automated in the future. (Zendesk)
76% of customer service executives are planning to invest in AI technologies for customer service and contact center operations. (Deloitte)
Source: Deloitte
Chatbots
70% of customers are already using or interested in using chatbots for simple customer service operations. (Salesforce 1)
56% of customers say it takes too many questions for the bot to recognize that it can’t answer their problem. (Zendesk)
In the US, almost half of the customers state that they are not getting accurate answers from the current customer service chatbots. (Zendesk)
More than 70% of customer service and contact center leaders state that they either fully adopted or are planning to adopt virtual assistants and chatbots. (Deloitte)
These tools facilitate streamlined communication, timely resolution of customer queries, and a more personalized service approach, all of which contribute to a positive customer experience. This, in turn, drives customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, fostering a sense of trust and commitment between the customer and the company.
44% of businesses state that modernizing service systems is the biggest challenge to delivering high-quality customer service, where implementing customer service software becomes a solution. (Finances Online)
An AI-driven omnichannel contact center solution has the capacity to automate approximately 70% of customer interactions and close to two-thirds of service-related tasks. (McKinsey)
Access Cem's 2 decades of B2B tech experience as a tech consultant, enterprise leader, startup entrepreneur & industry analyst. Leverage insights informing top Fortune 500 every month.
Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.
Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.
He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.
Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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