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Customer Experience: Aligning Customer and Business Priorities

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Layne Holley
Layne Holley
01/31/2013

The customer experience never ends, according to preliminary results from CMIQ’s current research initiative. Seventy-one percent of executives and customer service and contact center leaders who participated in the survey said they believe the customer experience cycle continues long after typically accepted end points, such as when a customer rejects products, services or contracts or when they request an end to contact with the organization. Interestingly, preliminary results show that only 51% of organizations (in contrast to individuals surveyed thus far) agreed that the customer experience cycle is not finite.

Three Easy Resources for Improving the Customer Experience

  1. CMIQ Customer Experience Research Initiative – Take the survey
  2. 2013 Executive Priorities Report – Download the complimentary report
  3. 2013 Executive Priorities Webinar – Attend the complimentary webinar


So what’s the big deal? These results appear to indicate that business has, perhaps, a larger window to get it right when it comes to customer experience. However, other preliminary results show that, no matter how big the window of opportunity, some organizations are still going to have a hard time getting it right.

One quarter (25%) percent of respondents said their organization’s customer experience priorities never or only sometimes align with customer priorities. Another 5% said their organizations don’t know customer priorities at all.

A Lesson from American Express

Even organizations renowned for their customer experience have to stay alert to stay on top of the game, according to CMIQ’s 2013 Executive Priorities Report. When American Express, for example, assumed recently that offering its clientele in Latin America customer service access via email with a 48-hour turnaround time would satisfy a segment of customers in need of digital channels, the company quickly learned that its customer experience priorities didn’t match those of its customers. Customers were expecting either chat/real-time answers and/or the ability satisfy their needs themselves through a more robust online experience via the AMEX website. (You can hear more about how Amex is prioritizing to meet customer and business needs in our upcoming webinar.)

Defining, Designing and Executing the Customer Experience

Customer experience is a complex and nuanced area of business. In late February 2013, we’ll share the results of our exploration into how businesses are defining, designing and executing the customer experience. Note that the results above are only preliminary: We look forward to including your organization’s experience and perspective to the data. All you have to do is take the survey!


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