A shocking report commissioned by Zendesk has found that more than half of customer experience agents in the UK say they do not have the right tools to aid them in working from home.
According to the global Zendesk Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report 2021, up to 54% of agents in Britain say organisations they work for are lagging behind in the COVID-19 race when it comes to CX, despite half of customers stating that the customer experience is more important to them now than one year ago.
New data shows that customer experience has become increasingly crucial to business success rates, with the research finding that the most successful companies are adopting new technology at record speed.
Among tech decision makers in Britain, 78% say COVID-19 sped up technology adoption at their companies, with up to 22% adding that it has accelerated it by between four to seven years.
Peter Lorant, EMEA Chief Operating Officer at Zendesk, said: “Against the backdrop of rapid change in the past year, both B2B and B2C companies have been forced to adopt a more consumer-friendly approach, often re-engineering core parts of the business in a short time frame.
“While the fundamentals of business largely remain the same, the need to engage with customers in a more dynamic way continues to accelerate. This means investing in the agent experience, training your support teams and better understanding your customers so you can continue to differentiate from your competitors. The bar is only getting higher in 2021.”
Further highlighting the acceleration of technology, a Gartner survey conducted in 2020 found that 91% of organizations said that customer experience was one of, or the primary goal of, their digital business transformation efforts.
Raising the CX Bar
From simply adapting behaviours to adopting new channels and even reimagining the workforce, other findings from the Zendesk CX Trends Report 2021 include:
Being part of a more conversational world: As customers adopt new behaviours, the soaring popularity of messaging apps opens the door for more streamlined, conversational experiences. Globally, 64% of customers have tried a new way to get in touch with customer service in the last year. For many, that includes using messaging for support requests over apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which spiked significantly during the pandemic with social messaging up 110% year over year
