Customers are often dissatisfied

Customers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied. This comes as companies worldwide notice that customer service is becoming more important. That might sound odd, as companies are paying more attention to customer experience and customer satisfaction. However, that mismatch offers opportunities.

Recent research from Zendesk confirms a trend that has been noticeable in the B2C market for a number of years: the majority of companies worldwide now understand that customer experience is of vital importance and make attempts to capture customer satisfaction and customer experience in figures and reports.

Customer experience

72% of companies list customer experience as a top priority. After all, low customer satisfaction is catastrophic: 92% of consumers say they no longer want to do business with a company that is guilty of providing poor service one to three times, according to research from Gladly. 91% of those customers never even return.

Customer Satisfaction

Bain & Company investigated the importance of increased attention to customer satisfaction: 80% of the companies believe that they deliver a superior experience. However, according to Zendesk, customer satisfaction has fallen worldwide: from 94.6% in 2013 to 92.5% in 2018. There is also a slight decrease in the number of companies that score good to excellent: from 47% in 2017 to 38% in 2018. 

High expectations and little patience

The explanation of this customer satisfaction-paradox lies in a combination of factors in today's society. The power relationship between consumer and company has changed considerably now, thanks to the internet. For example, 75% of Dutch people now use reviews when shopping online, allowing consumers to make or break a business. Social media extends (negative) publicity further than ever before.

In line with this, today's consumers have become a lot more impatient. They expect information to be available 24/7, including the answers to questions and complaints. Waiting a week for a solution to a complaint is no longer of this time.