This compilation of statistics comes from recent research on customer experience, customer service, contact centers, and related topics.

Brad’s Blog includes insight on how developments reflected in this data may impact your organization. This page is frequently updated.

Top two priorities for customer service leaders:

  1. Business growth
  2. Improving operational excellence
    (Gartner, Customer Service and Support Priorities Poll)

54% of organizations have reported cost savings and efficiencies as a result of AI implementation. (IBM 2022)

When a company makes customers feel appreciated, 76% indicate they’ll keep their business with the brand, 80% say they will spend more with the brand, and 87% will recommend the brand to friends and family members. (Forrester, 2021)

74% of consumers said they are more loyal to a business that provides them with the option to speak to a human, than those that only support customer service through digital or self-service channels. (Calabrio, 2018)

In a survey of 330 companies in North America and Europe, 57% said their entire business model needed to be reconsidered in the wake of COVID-19. (Futurum Research, 2020)

More than half of Americans have scrapped a planned purchase or transaction because of bad service. (American Express, 2017)

Customers that continue to support your brand over time will spend 67% more than new customers. (Edelman, 2018)

Consumers who believe personalized experiences are very appealing are 10x more likely to be a brand’s most valuable customer. (Epsilon Data Management, 2018)

By 2022, 70% of customer interactions will involve emerging technologies such as machine learning (ML) applications, chatbots and mobile messaging, up from 15% in 2018. (Gartner, 2019)

55 billion agent-assisted contacts are handled in U.S. contact centers, annually. (ICMI)

71% of American consumers would rather interact with a human being instead of a chatbot or automated tool. (PwC, 2018)

Since 2009, a stock portfolio comprised of the publicly traded simplest brands in our global Top 10 has outperformed the major indexes by 1600%. (Siegel+Gale, 2020)

Compared to disengaged employees, highly engaged employees are 5.3x more likely to make a recommendation about an improvement and 4.7x more likely to do something good for the company even if it is not expected of them. (Temkin Group, 2017)

The top two departments left off the CX team that marketers felt would add value: Operations (49%) and finance (40%). (Verndale, 2018)

Customer expectations for personalized experience:

  • 2013—4%
  • 2020—88%
    (Walker, 2020)

52% of customers report going out of their way to buy from their favorite brands. (Zendesk, 2020)

82% of consumers say the number one factor that leads to a great customer service experience is having their issues resolved quickly. (Source: ICMI)

33% of Americans say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service. (American Express, 2017)

43% of consumers would think about taking their business to a competitor if they were not given the option to speak with a human. (Calabrio, 2018)

Phone-based customer support remains the most popular and critical customer service channel for brands. In fact, consumer reliance on phone-based customer support has increased by 17% since 2018. (CallMiner, 2020)

80% of consumers indicated they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences. (Epsilon Data Management, 2018)

70% of customers are using self-service channels during their resolution journey. The problem is, only 9% are wholly contained in self-service. (Gartner, 2019)

One in every 25 jobs in the US is within the contact center industry. (ICMI)

58% of customers will go out of their way to buy a product or service from a company they know will offer excellent customer service. (Northridge Group, 2017)

73% of customer globally point to experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions, behind price and product quality. (PwC, 2018)

46% of all consumers will abandon a brand if the employees are not knowledgeable. (PwC 2018)

Companies that leverage the most customer data—those in the top 25% of managing data relative to other similar companies—see 36% faster resolutions and a 79% reduction in wait times. (Zendesk, 2020)

90% of consumers said they are likely to stay loyal after a positive call center experience; 73.7% said they are likely to switch after a negative call center experience. (CallMiner, 2020)

A majority of service leaders indicate that nearly 20% to 40% of today’s live volume could be resolved in self-service channels. (Gartner, 2019)

The more channels a company operates, the more contacts customers make to the service center. In companies which offered 3 channels, customers needed, on average, 2 contacts to reach resolution. Customers averaged 2.6 contacts to resolution when a company offered 6 channels. (Gartner, 2019)

Experiences that would make customers take their business elsewhere include unfriendly service (60%) and employees’ lack of knowledge (46%). (PwC, 2018)

For companies that provide an excellent customer experience, customers are:

  • 86% more likely to repurchase from the company
  • 77% more likely to recommend the company to others
  • 79% more likely to trust the company
  • 62% more likely to forgive the company
    (Temkin Group, 2017)

Organizations see machine learning as a key factor in helping them process huge amounts of customer data (49%), provide real-time analysis (49%) and build more accurate pricing models (49%). (Verndale, 2018)

70% of customers expect companies to collaborate on their behalf, and 68% of customers are annoyed when their call is transferred between departments. (Zendesk, 2020)

32% of global customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience. (PwC, 2018)

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