Closing the Experience Gap

It is no great insight to say that executives lack awareness of customer expectations or how customers truly feel. But, in some recent research what was a surprise was just how huge this gap in understanding customer experience really is!

Here are just a few insights.  In a survey of 1,000:

      15% of customers think businesses are honest and cooperative compared to 66% of businesses who think they are

      61% of customers say there is a problem in terms of consistency in handling issues yet only 23% of managers recognize the problem

      75% of customers say it is difficult to get to a manager when something goes wrong whereas70% of managers say they are truly committed to the customer experience

      Customers said that 6% of businesses understood their expectations whereas 36% of firms thought they did

      5% of customers thought their had been improvements to their customer experience in the last 6 months compared to 29% of businesses who thought they had improved their customer experience

      Customers felt that they were considered as a transaction by 80% of firms with only 20% offering some consideration of how they feel

(Source: Beyond Philosophy, Customer Experience Trend Tracker Q1, 2010)

Clearly, general cynicism has its part to play here but the magnitude of the gap is something to be aware of. Perhaps too much cost cutting and lack of focus on value creation over the last few credit crunch years is the problem. But even so, you would expect management to be more aligned or in tune with how customers are responding.

NET: closing the gap is the opportunity.