By John Hennessy
According to the 2004 Customer Experience Management Global Survey conducted by Strativity Group, despite companies being more committed to customer strategy than they were three years ago, the company/customer relationship is deteriorating. Only a minority of executives (40.6 percent) agree that their company deserves their customers' loyalty, down considerably from the 55.5 percent recorded in 2003.
Another area of decline is the state of employee experiences. Only 31 percent of the respondents affirmed that they have the tools and authority to actually serve their customers. This is a drop from 37 percent last year.
The study summary states that this decline indicates a lack of understanding on the part of organizations as to the critical nature of employee interactions with customers. In fact, it continues, this lack of understanding of the employee/customer interaction has significant impact on the company's branding, customer loyalty and, ultimately, repeat business and profitability.
Almost half of the companies continue to take any customer that is willing to pay and in lieu of using more sophisticated criteria, such as mutual match of interests, potential relationship longevity, profitability and potential growth. This lack of selectivity has a severe impact on the resources required to service the customers and, therefore, the profitability of companies.
Moderator's Comment: Why are companies, despite proclaiming customer centricity, heading in the opposite direction?
There's opportunity here. That's clear. The company who starts acting on their customer strategy will win. And it looks to be a pretty easy prize to take. There doesn't seem to be much competition. In fact, it's hard to detect that there's even an event. - John Hennessy - Moderator