Brad Cleveland

OVERALL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

86% of customer service leaders across all major industries said that improving customer experience is a significant priority in 2024. (Gartner, 2024)

The top driver of consumer purchases in 2024 is product and service quality, with 61% of customers listing it as a priority. (Qualtrics, 2024)

The number of silently dissatisfied customers is growing. “66% of customers won’t tell you when they’ve had a bad experience,” a percentage which is up 7.2 points since 2021. (Qualtrics, 2024)

In 2024, 87% of customers are likely to recommend a brand or company to friends and family if it provides a convenient customer service experience. (The ACA Study, 2024)

87% of customers say great customer service increases their trust in the company when they buy something from them. (The ACA Study 2024)

In 2024, 88% of customers think customer service is more important than ever. (The ACA Study, 2024)

In 2024, 62% said a convenient (hassle free, without friction) experience is more important than a friendly customer service experience. (The ACA Study 2024)

While 51% of customers say service is more important than price, 70% of customers are willing to pay more if the experience is more convenient. (The ACA Study 2024)

More than half (55%) of consumers stated having their issues resolved faster via reduced wait times, quicker responses, etc. would improve their next customer experience. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

CUSTOMER SERVICE PRIORITIES

70% of customer service leaders across all major industries said that

1. employing analytics to understand VoC
2. improving operations
3. improving customer retention

are all significant priorities in 2024. (Gartner, 2024)

DIGITAL SELF-SERVICE

28% of all customers reported they are most likely to quit trying to solve a problem with a product or service, rather than reach out to an agent for help, if they cannot find a solution themselves online. (Gartner, 2024)

38% percent of millennial and Gen Z customers expressed a “self-service or no service” mindset. (Gartner, 2024)

DIGITAL SUPPORT

While 82% of customers report satisfaction in making a purchase digitally, only 64% report satisfaction in receiving digital support. (Qualtrics, 2024)

Customers are 2.7x more likely to return after a positive digital support experience. (Qualtrics, 2024)

CUSTOMER FRUSTRATION

71% of business leaders report that their Voice of Customer (VoC) and/or quality data indicate that Customer Experience at their companies is better than it was 1-2 years ago. Yet only 67% of customers say companies make it easy or very easy to get customer service issues handled efficiently. (Northridge, 2023)

While 93% of business leaders surveyed believe their companies make it easy for customers to resolve their issues, only 66% of customers felt this way in return. (Northridge, 2023)

43% of customers say they had more bad customer service experiences in the past year compared to previous years. (The ACA Study 2024)

40% of customers say that when it comes to customer service, most companies don’t meet their expectations. (The ACA Study 2024)

43% of customers admitted to yelling at a service person at one time or another. (CCMC Customer Rage Study, 2023)

79% of customers have called customer support, gotten an automated menu system, and repeatedly screamed into the phone, “agent” or “representative,” and eventually, out of frustration, hung up. (The ACA Study 2024)

43% of customers would rather clean a toilet than call customer support. (The ACA Study 2024)

In 2024, older generations are significantly more tolerant of a bad customer service experience than younger generations. For example, 52% of Boomers would give a company a second chance, versus just 37% of Gen Z. That’s a 40% difference! (The ACA Study 2024)

32% of customers say customer service representatives are always friendly and helpful. That means 68% of customers say they aren’t! (The ACA Study 2024)

CUSTOMER RETENTION

The stakes to get the CX right are high, with 76% of consumers surveyed stating a negative customer service experience would impact them choosing a brand’s products/services in the future, with 61% saying they’d consider other brands first, and 15% saying they’d never be a customer again. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

On average, customers are likely to offer two opportunities for a company to make amends for a poor service experience before looking elsewhere. (The ACA Study 2024)

In 2024, 58% of customers would be likely to switch companies or leave a brand because of an inconsistent experience. (The ACA Study 2024)

In 2024, customers won’t put up with an average experience. Almost one in four will find somewhere else to do business if you just “satisfy” them. Customers want more than an average experience. And if they know there’s better service elsewhere, 79% of the people would switch. (The ACA Study 2024)

39% of customers say that in the last 12 months, they had such a terrible customer service experience that they stopped doing business with the brand even though they liked the product. (The ACA Study 2024)

81% of customers said rudeness or apathy would likely cause them to switch companies or leave a brand. (The ACA Study 2024)

85% of customers are willing to go out of their way to do business with a company that has better customer service. (The ACA Study 2024)

79% of customers would switch to a competitor if they found the other company or brand provided a better customer experience. (The ACA Study 2024)

In 2024, 70% of customers say a convenient customer experience alone would make them come back to a brand or company. (The ACA Study 2024)

63% of customers have stopped doing business with a company or brand because of the inability to connect with someone from customer support. (The ACA Study 2024)

EMPLOYEE RETENTION & TRAINING

90% of organizations are concerned with employee retention. Providing learning opportunities is the top retention strategy. (Workplace Learning Report 2024, LinkedIn)

Nearly half of contact center managers (45%) say their agents today don’t have all the skills they need to become the best possible agents of the future—though more were confident they would in five years. At the same time, more than a third of managers recognize the need to make training more of a priority. (Calabrio, 2023)

65% of agents said that more training would help them do their job better. (Zendesk, 2024). 

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DATA

Half of organizations (50%) lack effective communication between departments when it comes to aligning on CX data & feedback. (CallMiner, 2023)

ORGANIZATIONS: REMOTE WORK

42% of customers knowingly spoke with a contact center associate working from home, and 72% said this did not impact the agent’s ability to resolve the issue. (Northridge, 2023)

Nearly two-thirds of managers (64%) say they oversee a hybrid workplace, meaning they must juggle the demands of supervising employees who are at home as well as those in a physical contact center. (Calabrio, 2023)

Fewer than half—49%—of managers surveyed felt that remote work was meeting expectations for productivity—24 percentage points lower than in 2020. (Calabrio, 2023)

AI

Among those who reported having familiarity with their enterprise’s GenAI strategy, 83% say that their enterprises either have plans to invest in GenAI or have done so already. (Gartner, 2024)

62% of customers still prefer human-service channels over digital. (Qualtrics, 2024)

[N]early half (46%) of consumers surveyed would prefer to speak to a real human but feel comfortable if the agent is using AI in the background to improve the interaction. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

48% of consumers are comfortable interacting with an organization’s AI. (Qualtrics, 2024)

75% Knowledge workers who now use AI at work (as of June 2024). Yet, 60% of leaders worry their organization’s leadership lacks a plan and vision to implement AI. (The 2024 Annual Work Trend Index from Microsoft and LinkedIn)

70% of contact center managers believe AI will mean there will be more agents in the next 10 years—not fewer. (Calabrio, 2023)

Our survey found the top benefit of AI for the future workforce would be in increasing agent and manager productivity (25%), followed by its ability to optimize forecasting and scheduling (20%), measure and understand contact center productivity (20%), predict consumer actions and behaviors (20%), and chatbot service to customers (20%). (Calabrio, 2023)

65% of CX leaders see AI not as a passing fad but as a strategic necessity and reality, one that has effectively made previous CX operations obsolete and dated. (Zendesk, 2024)

75% of CX leaders see AI as a force for amplifying human intelligence, not replacing it. (Zendesk, 2024)

70% of CX leaders say that generative AI has led their organizations to take a step back and re-evaluate their entire customer experience. (Zendesk, 2024)

70% of CX leaders plan to integrate generative AI into many of their touchpoints in the next two years. (Zendesk, 2024)

70% of CX leaders believe generative AI is making every digital customer interaction more efficient, from search functions to voice assistants. (Zendesk, 2024)

OMNICHANNEL

1 in 4 contact centers are omnichannel (versus just multichannel). (ICMI, 2024)

64% of agents said that having a single view of a customer’s interactions across all channels would help them do their job better. (Zendesk, 2024)

CHATBOTS

70% of CX leaders believe that bots are becoming skilled architects of highly personalized customer journeys. (Zendesk, 2024)

72% of CX leaders believe that the bots companies employ should be an extension of the brand’s identity, reflecting its value and voice. (Zendesk, 2024)

Latest research shows chat increasing by 7% when it comes to issue resolution. (Northridge, 2023)

In 2019, only 40% of business leaders reported that their company offered any type of chat (live agent or chatbot). Today, 62% of business leaders claim their company offers live agent chat (Northridge, 2023)

32% of those aged 18-35 prefer live agent chat over the phone. This generational shift indicates that live agent chat will likely continue to gain dominance over the next few years. (Northridge, 2023)

Half (50%) of consumers surveyed stated having additional ways to contact customer service, such as live chat, would improve their next customer experience. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

Boomers are the group who least prefer chatbots, with 70% stating they don’t enjoy using them. Millennials prefer chatbots the most, with 67% stating they enjoy, or are interested in, using them. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

More than half (53%) of consumers stated they prefer to chat with a live agent via the telephone when it comes to complex customer service questions or issues, while only 17% would prefer to use technology like live chat via a website or mobile app. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

PERSONALIZATION

62% of agents said that having data that allows them to personalize interactions would help them do their job better. (Zendesk, 2024)

81% of customers prefer companies that offer a personalized experience. (The ACA Study 2024)

Over a quarter (32%) of consumers surveyed stated having a more personalized experience, where it feels like the agent knows them, would improve their next customer experience. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

CALL BACKS

82% of respondents reported they have allowed an automatic system to call them back when offered, and 65% of these who allowed the callback reported that it worked well. (Northridge, 2023)

32% of customers called a company or brand with a complaint or question, were promised a return call, and didn’t receive one. (The ACA Study 2024)

ON HOLD

In 2024, when contacting customer service on the phone, 39% of customers are willing to wait up to five minutes before getting frustrated or angry, and almost half (48%) are willing to wait up to 10 minutes. (The ACA Study 2024)

43% of customers would spend more money if they knew they would never have to wait on hold for customer support. (The ACA Study 2024)

47% of customers say they have stopped doing business with a company or brand because it kept the customer on hold for too long. (The ACA Study 2024)

Only 50% of respondents were satisfied with the wait or hold time in their most recent customer service experience. (Quote from Business Wire, citing Cogito survey December 2023)

CUSTOMER REVIEWS

84% say ratings and reviews help them decide if they want to make a purchase. (The ACA Study 2024)

71% say reading a review has stopped them from making a purchase they were ready to make. (The ACA Study 2024)