Zendesk study finds customer experience maturity leads to business resilience, revenue growth and agent retention

January 16, 2023

年代AN FRANCISCO – October 7, 2021 –According to new research released today byZendesk, Inc.(NYSE: ZEN) in partnership with Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), companies that have continued to invest in their customer experience (CX) over the past year are 10 times more likely to have maximized their resiliency during the pandemic and three times more likely to have grown their customer base year over year.

“This research confirms what our customers across industries, sizes and life cycles all tell us: that customer experience requires continuous investment and innovation to truly set their business apart,” said Jeff Titterton, Chief Operating Officer, Zendesk. “The way the customer service function is viewed is changing – it’s the hub of your customer relationships in this digital-first economy. Having the tools for proactive service, information sharing, and cross-selling are now just as important as issue resolution. These are the skills that will shift your call center from being a cost center to a revenue driver.”

The 2021 State of CX Maturity Reportsurveyed more than 3,000 CX decision makers with more than 15% of these from North America to understand the characteristics and benefits of customer experience leadership. ESG built a CX maturity scale to identify common patterns and behaviors that separate high-maturity CX organizations – what ESG calls the “Champions” – from three levels of less-mature ones: “Starters”, “Emerging”, and “Risers”. The report outlines what businesses need to do to move up the maturity scale.

The research found that the number of Champions within midsized and enterprise companies has more than doubled from 6% to 14% since 2020. The greatest gains in the region were seen in the United States – shifting from 7% in 2020 to 17% in 2021. Meanwhile, Canada shifted from 4% in 2020 to 7% in 2021.

“The findings indicate that the shift to digital and remote work during the pandemic served as a trigger for companies to accelerate their adoption of new technologies, policies and processes to benefit from a higher CX Maturity,” added Adam DeMattia, Director of Custom Research at ESG. “Across North America, Champions recognize that service excellence can be a differentiator, and are actually accelerating investment in CX projects.”

There also continues to be a clear correlation between improved CX maturity and the benefits of increased customer satisfaction (CSAT), faster response times, and effective customer service. Notably, the study also calls out the connection between CX maturity and greater business growth and revenue.

Other key imperatives for CX Maturity that the research identified include:

CX-led innovation is a competitive differentiator
The vast majority of respondents in North America (89%) agree that CX innovation is required to protect their business from competitors. They also see the value of data to help focus this innovation – almost half of respondents (44%) recognize they could do more to use customer data to expand sales opportunities and business growth. Among the four levels of CX maturity, Champions are taking the lead in driving continuous innovation in their CX and using customer service data.

Conversations, not transactions, create stronger customer relationships
Nearly all Champions (97%) agree that pivoting to a more conversational experience with customers is a key goal for their teams – signalling the shift away from transactional service focused purely on resolving tickets.

Investment in CX leads to better agent retention
Agent turnover, training, flexibility and wellbeing all emerged as areas of investment and focus for teams over the course of the past 18 months. This led Champions, in particular, to move quickly to implement tools to support overwhelmed service teams.

Additional Resources

Methodology
In the second quarter of 2021, ESG conducted a double-blind survey of 3,250 line-of-business decision makers who were responsible for ensuring and enhancing the customer service at their organization. Organizations represented spanned all market segments, from small businesses to large enterprises, and multiple industry verticals like retail, consumer and corporate services, financial services, healthcare, education, and technology companies, among others.

About Zendesk
亚博Zendesk开始客户体验革命in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations, connecting more than 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels, communities, review sites and help centers. Zendesk products are built with love to be loved. The company was conceived in Copenhagen, Denmark, built and grown in California, taken public in New York City, and today employs more than 5,000 people across the world. Learn more atwww.ying8.net.

About ESG
Enterprise Strategy Group is an integrated technology analysis, research, and strategy firm providing market intelligence, actionable insight, and go-to-market content services to the global technology community. Learn more atwww.esg-global.com.

Media Contact:
press@zendesk.com

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