This week’s Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summit (10-11th May 2017) provides everyone in the sector with the perfect opportunity to take stock of the current state of customer experience – and to help CX teams to plan for the future.
Given its importance to the bottom line, customer experience is high on the priority list of CEOs, CMOs and CIOs alike. Research from Gartner found that nearly a third (31%) of CEOs had customer projects as their number one strategic priority for this year, and 37% said that customer experience management was their most important area of technology investment over the next 5 years.
Customers today want fast answers to their questions and to have a seamless, informed conversation with companies, whatever their request might be. This is especially true in Asia Pacific, with research finding that APAC consumers are far ahead of those in other regions.
Ahead of next week's Institute of Customer Service (ICS) annual conference, new research spells out the enormous cost of poor service to brands. Figures from the UK’s Ombudsman Service found that it registered 55 million complaints over the last 12 months - costing UK businesses £37 billion as customers vote with their feet and move to alternative suppliers.