More Info On Customer Experience And Loyalty

March 12, 2009 8 Comments

In an earlier post, I discussed my research on how customer experience correlates to loyalty. That analysis looked at the link between good experiences and three elements of loyalty: Willingness to buy from the provider, reluctance to switch away from the provider, and likelihood to recommend the provider.

In a recently published research report called Customer Experience And Loyalty: A Closer Look I took a deeper look at the correlations. I wanted to understand the connection between those loyalty elements and each of the three components of Forrester’s Customer Experience Index: Meeting the needs of customers, being easy to work with, and being enjoyable.

Making things a bit more complicated, I examined all of this across 12 industries: airlines, banks, cell phone service providers, credit card providers, hotels, insurance firms, Internet service providers, investment firms, medical insurance companies, PC manufacturers, retailers, and TV service providers.

While the data is different across industries, I found some overall trends:

  • Meeting needs tends to correlate the most with purchasing more
  • Being easy to work with correlates the most with purchasing more and making recommendations
  • Enjoyability correlates the most with making recommendations

Looking at the matrix of customer experience and loyalty, here are the industries with the highest level of correlation in each area:

detailcorrelations_vsmall

The bottom line: It’s another wake-up call for wireless providers, TV service providers, ISPs, and banks

Filed under Customer experience

About Bruce Temkin, CCXP
I'm an experience (XM) management catalyst; helping organizations improve results by engaging the hearts and minds of their employees, customers, and partners. I enjoy researching and speaking about these topics. I lead the Qualtrics XM Institute, which is the world's best job. We're igniting a global community of XM Professionals who are inspired and empowered to radically improve the human experience. To achieve this goal, my team focuses on thought leadership, training, and community building. My work is driven by a set of fundamental beliefs: 1) Everything starts and ends with human beings, so you need to understand how people think, feel, and behave; 2) XM is a discipline that needs to be woven throughout an organization's entire operating fabric; and 3) Building the XM discipline requires a combination of culture, competency, and technology.

8 Responses to More Info On Customer Experience And Loyalty

  1. Pingback: Customer Loyalty Is Everything: Part 2 | WebHosting-Business.com

  2. Pingback: Youth and Customer Service 26 March 09 | mobileYouth - youth marketing mobile culture research

  3. sales incentives says:
    April 4, 2009 at 9:54 am

    customer loyalty programs

    Excellent post on customer loyalty, backend marketing, and recurring billing.
    These are all the best ways to generate as solid business model.
    Long term reccuring customers are where the money is at.
    If you treat and market your loyal customers
    with incentive programs,sales incentives,
    and customer loyalty programs,
    you will be setting yourself up for
    long term success based on proven business principles.

    Reply
    • Bruce Temkin says:
      April 4, 2009 at 10:46 am

      Sales incentives: While I appreciate postive feedback, this reads more like a generic advertisement for your company (for instance, I never discussed anything about recurring billing). Please feel free to comment, but try and add to the conversation with a less obvious marketing facade.

      Reply

  4. Pingback: Youth and Customer Service 15 April 09 | mobileYouth - youth marketing mobile culture research

  5. Michael Hinshaw says:
    April 27, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    Huh. Just playing with “Social Mention” for an article, and plugged our firm in; unsurprisngly, found only a small handful of mentions, including these somewhat odd posts from Youth and Customer Service (?) that seem to be linking one of my slideshows to your blog. Weird.

    But for whatever it’s worth, I liked your post – we’ve found much the same in our client research, and the correlations between experience and loyalty (including NPS, willingness to recommend, likelihood to repurchase, etc.) are irrefutable, and projectable.

    In any case, I’ll keep an eye on your blog now.

    Thanks!

    Reply
  6. Web Hosting says:
    June 4, 2009 at 8:15 am

    Useful research. The table showing all the correlations in one place is a very handy tool. I’d also say that “meet needs” is a must in any industry. Without meeting the needs of customers any further correlation is unnecessary.

    Reply

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