The State of CX Vendors

We recently published a report looking at the state of CX management from the practitioner’s stand point. But what about the vendors in the market? To find out, we surveyed 98 CX vendors about their businesses (see graphics below). Here’s some of what we found:

• Prices are on the rise. About one-quarter of CX vendors say that their average selling price is increasing, which is more than three times the number that see prices dropping.
• Field and product marketing are key weaknesses. Only 20% of CX vendors think they are strong at field marketing and 24% feel that way about product marketing. Almost all CX vendors are growing, with 31% expecting to expand by more than 50% this year.
• Sales is key areas of focus. Over half of CX vendors see sales as a key area for improvement, next on the list is corporate marketing at 32%.
• Innovation is the path to success. Seventy-eight percent of CX vendors think that the innovation in their offerings will impact their business over the next two years. At the other end of the spectrum, they aren’t very worried about new entrants or pricing pressure.
• M&A is in the air. More than one-third of the companies that gave us an answer expect to make an acquisition or be acquired over the next 18 months.
• There’s a lot of growth. Nearly all respondents expect to increase their revenues this year and 31% expect to expand by at least 50%.
• Telecom and retail are hot markets. When we asked where they see growth, the two industries with the most momentum are telecom/media services and retail.
• U.S. is largest CX market. Nearly nine out of 10 CX vendors sell in the U.S. and 78% expect their sales to grow this year. Next on the list of growing markets are Asia, Canada, and Western Europe.

The bottom line: Companies are spending money on CX vendors

Cool Happenings From the CXPA MIE

We’re having a great day at the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org) Members Insight Exchange in San Diego. Lots of wonderful sharing, learning, and networking amongst our CXPA members.

My update started by highlighting that the state of our association is STRONG. This slide has some facts and figures on the association (great stuff for only two years!).

Here’s the slide that I’ve presented at each of the three MIEs about why the CXPA is so important: We are all stronger as a community!

We also made some very cool announcements:

• CX Professional Certification. We have started work on the development of a professional certification program for CX management called the “Certified Customer Experience Professional” (CCXP). Think of it like the CPA is for accountants. The CXPA, as a non-profit, independent professional association is uniquely positioned to deliver on this great evolution for the marketplace. We plan on beginning certifications in Q4.
• CX Day: October 1, 2013. Mark your calendars for 10/1/2013 for Customer Experience Day! It will be a day for celebrating the profession. Some of the elements include Local Networking Events throughout the world, several live online events, announcements of awards for CX professionals who are making a difference, and a contest to see which companies are the most innovative in celebrating CX Day within their organization.
• MIE 2014. We also announced another important date, we will be holding next year’s Member Insight Exchange on May 13 & 14 in Atlanta.
• CXPA Extra Mile Award Winners. The CXPA is fueled by the passion and effort of our members. While many, many people contribute, we identified three fthat have gone well above and beyond the call of duty: Desirree Madison-Biggs, Karl Sharicz, and Yvonne Nomizu. Thank you to our winners and to everyone else who contrinutes their time to the CXPA.
• CX Innovation Award Winners: This is the second year that we are giving awards for innovative CX practices. This year’s winners are Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Sage. The other finalists are Autodesk, Barclaycard US, and Oklahoma City Thunder. Awesome job! You can see more of their stories on the CXPA site.

Here’s a photo from one of the favorite activities at the MIE, Show & Tell. Attendees go from table to table as a member at each table explains a specific CX Tool that they are using. This type of member to member sharing is one of the things that makes CXPA events so distinctive.

The bottom line: CXPA is thriving, all CX professionals should join us!

Report: The State of Customer Experience Management, 2013

We just published a Temkin Group report, The State of CX Management, 2013. The research shows where large companies are along their customer experience journeys. Here’s the executive summary:

We surveyed more than 200 large companies and found an abundance of Customer Experience (CX) ambition and activity. Most companies have a CX executive leading the charge, significant CX activities being coordinated by a central team, and a staff of six to 10 full-time CX professionals. Using Temkin Group’s CX competency assessment, we found that only six percent of companies have reached the highest two levels of customer experience maturity as firms struggle the most to master Employee Engagement and Compelling Brand Values. When compared with CX Laggards, CX Leaders have stronger financial results, more CX ambition, more CX leadership, and they are more successful with their employee engagement efforts. Executives in companies with stronger CX competencies also focus more on delighting customers and less on cutting costs.

Download report for $195

Here are some of the findings from the research:

• While only eight percent of companies believe that they are leading their industries in CX today, 62% have goals to be the best within three years
• Sixty-one percent of respondents have a senior executive in charge of the company’s overall CX efforts and 71%  have a centralized CX group
• The median firm in our study has six to 10 full time CX employees
• Seven out of ten respondents identified “other competing priorities” as a significant obstacle to their CX efforts
• Only six percent of the companies that completed our CX Competency and Maturity Assessment have made it to the top two levels of maturity, Align and Embed
• We compared companies with leading CX efforts with other firms and found that they have better financial performance, more centralized CX activities, better employee engagement, stronger employee engagement, and more management attention to corporate culture

Download report for $195

The bottom line: Most companies remain in the early stages of CX maturity

Examining the Happiness of Mothers on their Day

First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers that read my blog. Given the day, I decided to examine our consumer research to find out if mothers are, in fact, happy. My previous analysis already shows that females are happier than males. But what about if they are mothers or not? I examined happiness levels of more than 5,000 U.S. females based on their family situation.

As you can see in the chart below, married moms are by far the happiest females.

The bottom line: Happy Mother’s Day!!!

Report: Employee Engagement Case Studies: Five I’s in Practice

We just published a Temkin Group report, Employee Engagement Case Studies: Five I’s in Practice. It’s a deep dive into how companies are systematically improving employee engagement. Here’s the executive summary:

Engaged employees create engaged customers, kicking off what Temkin Group describes as a virtuous cycle. More and more organizations are paying attention to the connection between employee engagement and customer experience through a variety of efforts spanning five areas that we call that Five I’s of Employee Engagement: Inform, Inspire, Instruct, Involve and Incent. We’ve compiled case studies of three organizations that are engaging employees and driving results: BMO Financial, Hampton brand, and Safelite AutoGlass.

Download report for $195

Here is an overview of how the three companies we examine are addressing the FIve I’s of Employee Engagement:

Download report for $195

The bottom line: Employee engagement is worth the effort of learning best practices

Advantage Rent A Car and USAA Lead in 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

All companies, even customer experience leaders, make mistakes. But how much goodwill have companies built up for consumers to forgive them after those miscues? To answer this question, Temkin Group surveyed 10,000 U.S. consumers about companies with whom they’ve recently interacted. We used this data for the third annual Temkin Forgiveness Ratings of 246 companies across 19 industries.

Download entire dataset for $295

Company Results

Here are the highlights of the 246 companies in the 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

• Advantage earns top spot. With an excellent score of 61%, Advantage earned the highest rating.
• USAA dominates forgiveness. USAA grabbed the next three spots for its banking, insurance, and credit card businesses.
• The rest of the top 10. H.E.B., Blackboard, Aldi, Alaska Airlines, credit unions and Publix round out the top 10
• No industry owns the top. The top 25 companies in the ratings comes form a variety of industries: Four grocery chains, three airlines, three retailers, two banks, two hotel chains, two investment firms, two software firms, one appliance maker, one auto dealer, one credit card issuer, one fast food chain, one health plan, one insurance carrier, and one rental car agency.
• HSBC dominates the bottom. HSBC earned the bottom two spots in the ratings for its credit card and banking businesses.
• Many TV service providers are at the bottom. Six of the bottom 12 companies are TV service providers: Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon, Charter Communications, and Optimum (iO)/Cablevision.
• USAA most outperforms its peers. We compared company ratings with their industry averages and USAA came in the top three spots, 36 points above in banking, 31 points ahead in credit cards, and 28 points ahead in insurance. Three other companies are more than 20 points above their industry averages: Advantage (car rentals), credit unions (banking), and TriCare (health plans).
• HSBC most underperforms. HSBC fell the farthest below its industry average in two areas, 23 points behind its peers in banking and credit cards. Five other companies had scores that were 15 points and more below their industry: US Airways (airlines), Motel 6 (hotels), McAfee (software), Kia (auto dealers), and Hertz (rental cars).

We also examined year-over-year results for 204 companies that were in both the 2012 and 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings. Here are some highlights of that analysis:

• Chrysler improves the most. With a jump of 29 percentage points, Chrysler is the most improved company.  Six other companies gained 20 points or more: Continental Airlines, Citigroup, Avis, EarthLink, Ameriprise Financial, and Alaska Airlines.
• US Cellular declines the most. With a drop of nearly 20 percentage points, US Cellular dropped the most in 2013.  Nine other companies fell by more than 10 points: Bright House Networks, HSBC, Cox Communications, Hertz, PNC, SunTrust Bank, Dollar Rental Car, Hyatt, and TD Ameritrade.

Industry Results

Here are the highlights of the 19 industries in the 2013 Temkin Forgiveness Ratings:

• TV service providers are unforgivable. TV service providers, as an industry, earned the lowest Temkin Forgiveness Rating of 12%. It was five points below Internet service providers and seven points below wireless carriers.
• Grocery chains are the most forgivable.  With an average rating of 39%, grocery chains are the highest scoring industry. Three industries are just four points behind: hotel chains, auto dealers, and rental car agencies.
• Credit cards make the most improvements. Credit cards made the largest improvement, nine percentage points, over the previous year.  Auto dealers, rental car agencies, and airlines also improved by more than five points.
• TV service providers head in the wrong direction. Led by TV service providers that dropped three points between 2012 and 2013, three industries earned lower scores in 2012. The other industries are retailers and appliance makers.

Calculating the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings

During January 2013, Temkin Group asked consumers to identify companies that they have interacted with during the previous 60 days.  For a random subset of those companies, consumers are asked to rate companies as follows:

How likely are you to forgive these companies if they deliver a bad experience?
Responses from 1= “extremely unlikely” to 7= “extremely likely”

For all companies with 100 or more consumer responses, we calculated the “net forgiveness” score. The Temkin Forgiveness Ratings are calculated by taking the percentage of consumers that selected either “6” or “7” and subtracting the percentage of consumers that selected either “1,” “2,” or “3.”

Download entire dataset for $295

To see all of the companies in the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings as ell as all of our other Temkin Ratings and sort through the results, visit the Temkin Ratings website

The bottom line: Forgiveness is an asset that you accumulate by consistently meeting customer needs.

Customer Experience Reading List for Execs

Here’s a short list of posts that I’d recommend sharing with executives that want to get up to speed on customer experience:

1. The Four Customer Experience Core Competencies. The path to customer-centricity requires mastering these four competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness. The report also has a self-assessment tool that execs can use to gauge their organization.
2. The 6 Laws Of Customer Experience. Every executive should understand these fundamental drivers of how organizations deliver customer experience.
3. My Manifesto: Great Customer Experience Is Free. Provides a perspective of how to think about customer experience management.
4. 10 CX Mistakes to Avoid. Highlights common mistakes that inhibit customer experience efforts and provides advice for overcoming these obstacles.
5. The Future of Customer Experience. Shows where customer experience is heading and identifies competencies and skills necessary to gain CX maturity.
6. The ROI of Customer Experience. Shows the link between good customer experience and higher loyalty and revenues.
7. Three Characteristics Of Transformational Leaders. Identifies what leaders need to do if they want to drive change in their organizations.
8. Lessons in CX Excellence. Provides details of the customer experience efforts of 11 organizations that were finalists in Temkin Group’s 2012 Customer Experience Excellence Awards.

If your execs show interest in customer experience, then sign them up for the monthly CX Journal so they can continue on their CX learning journey.

The bottom line: An informed executive is a critical CX asset.