Customer data is now available at an unprecedented scale, and the technology to enable meaningful and positive customer experience (CX) has never been more advanced.
What’s more, there is broad consensus that CX is critical as a competitive differentiator.
So, why is it that CX efforts so consistently fall flat?
What Is the CX Gap?
There is a yawning gulf between organizational measures of customer experience and actual customer satisfaction. A full 87% of marketers say they are delivering engaging customer experiences. Considering that marketing teams are often tasked with CX strategy and execution, the overwhelmingly positive assessment here suggests that brands are delivering on CX, after all: 87% of marketers couldn’t be that wrong, right?
Let’s juxtapose that figure with the consumer perspective. In the same study, nearly half (49%) of consumers reported that brands failed to meet customer experience expectations, and two-thirds couldn’t even remember a time when a brand exceeded their expectations.
An in relation to traditional advertising, an overwhelming majority of consumers say their experiences miss the mark: 91% of consumers say the ads they are seeing have become even more intrusive than in the previous few years, and 84% say obnoxious or intrusive ads give them a poor opinion of the brand being advertised.
In other words, there are real consequences to getting CX wrong.