Customer Experience 2022: Analog merges with digital
According to the 5th CEX study by the Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich HWZ, 8 out of 10 Swiss companies have understood that the customer experience is at the beginning of a new development in which real and virtual spaces are merging. According to the study, the central challenge for Customer Experience 2022 lies in the productive linking of analog and digital worlds of experience.
After years of stagnation and silo thinking, a new corporate culture needs to be created that allows digital channels to be optimized, innovation and product development to be strengthened, and customer analyses to be professionalized. This is the conclusion of the 5th CEX study of the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich, which is conducted annually in collaboration with the consulting firm nexa Consulting.
Customer experience as a key success factor
"Customer experience is recognized by all companies as a key success factor with rapidly growing importance for 2022," says Prof. Dr. Michael Grund, Head of the Department of Marketing and Business Communications at the HWZ. More than 75 percent of the 229 participating companies from a wide range of industries in German- and French-speaking Switzerland, which were surveyed in an annual study between the beginning of July and the end of September, believe that the topic of customer experience has become even more important in their company compared to the previous year. However, according to the survey, three major challenges stand in the way of Customer Experience 2022: a lack of IT solutions, a lack of processes and competencies, and the only partial transformation of the company's conservatively perceived culture. "This year, the importance of customer experience in companies is increasing. There are several factors that support this finding. First, companies have decided to allocate additional resources in the form of budgets to customer experience. Second, specialized CX teams are becoming more professional and some companies have even changed their organizational structure to create dedicated departments for Customer Experience Management," points out Anne-Laure Vaudan of nexa.
Priorities for Customer Experience 2022
After the uncertainties during the first waves of the Corona crisis, companies are now in a partially positive mood. More than three quarters of them plan to invest in the area of customer experience in 2022. This involves optimizing the following three focus areas:
- Optimization of digital channels has first priority: A homogeneous customer experience should be offered across all channels (omnichannel approach). Most companies plan to stabilize or increase their budgets for customer experience in 2022.
- Innovation and further development of products and services: Customer needs and wishes must be incorporated even more clearly, quickly and agilely into the development of new services and products.
- Communication and training of employees: Developing and strengthening customer-centric processes. Strengthening video marketing and omnichannel experiences that work. Integration of Voice of Customer into the development of the company. Collected customer data must be interpreted in a target group-specific manner and quickly incorporated into the development of services and products (customer management/after sales).
Source: HWZ
