Having had a few really positive and vibrant weeks, both professionally and personally, I’ve been brought down with a super huge bang these last couple of days, while preparing Marie’s Mumblings for this week’s blog….
Scouring through the World Wide Web (and other interesting artefacts) in the hope that I can share some more of my buoyancy for all things great about the world of CX and the environment we operate in, I’m deeply saddened (and frustrated) to come across one bad news story after another this week.
It seems we’re struggling to showcase very little right now when it comes to creating ‘Purple Cow WOWs’ for our customers and yet, according to HubSpot’s latest whitepaper ‘The State of Customer Service in 2019’ published by GM, Michael Redbord, customers have a louder, more powerful voice than ever; they share their experiences more often; have higher expectations and are more informed now than in the past. ‘Customer is King’ will surely reign supreme as a CX mantra once again, as our new decade dawns, yet many UK businesses don’t seem to have cottoned onto this fact yet.
Here’s just a few of the miserable highlights (or should I say, lowlights) of my latest research from Which?, The Independent, Institute of Customer Service and HubSpot publications:
- “WH Smith crowned UK’s worst high street shop”
- “Ryanair rated worst brand for customer service, coming bottom out of 100 British businesses”
- “Scottish Power will pay £18m fine for poor customer service, failing to get even ‘the basics’ right”
- “TSB falls to bottom of UK bank ranking while Monzo comes out on top”
- “TalkTalk ranked poorest for customer service failings for 5th year running;
- Sky Broadband suffered biggest drop in approval, with overall customer satisfaction score of 45% and BT came 3rd from bottom with 46%”
- “Homebase website named the UK’s worst online shop”
- “Online shoppers not given clear information on return rights by retailers – 45 out of 46 popular retailers and supermarkets did not offer information that was completely accurate and clear on how to return goods online”
- “Rail passengers lost around 4 million hours due to delayed trains last year – 80 trains a day were significantly delayed by at least 29 mins, affecting 8.1 million passenger journeys and a further 660 services a day were cancelled altogether – the highest number on record since records began!”
- “London Luton has been voted the worst large airport in the UK, for the 4th year running, with a CSAT score of just 43%, citing security queues and a lack of seating as the reasons behind their low ratings”
- “Only 12% of customers said they fully believed companies when they made claims about putting customers’ needs before the needs of their own”
- “Less than a quarter of companies surveyed use Live Chat as an efficient means of serving and helping customers, yet 93% of those who DO offer this service have proven it to be a ‘successful channel’ for ensuring customer satisfaction, as measured by NPS scores”
- “The number of customers who experienced a problem with an organisation has increased year on year by 1.5 percentage points, to 14.3% in 2019 – its highest ever level”
- “Utilities (namely Energy & Water companies) have seen the biggest decline in customer satisfaction scores compared to other sectors since last year, July 2018”
- “11 out of 13 sectors surveyed in the UKCSI annual study have lower customer satisfaction scores than last year”
By comparison the “10 highest ranked organisations for customer satisfaction are….”
1. First Direct
2. Debenhams
3. Suzuki Automotive
4. John Lewis
5. Next Retail
6. Amazon.co.uk
7. Ocado Retail
8. Nationwide
9. Netflix
10. LV=
So it’s not all doom and gloom – at least not for these top 10 CX stars!
You’d do well to find a few spare minutes this week to read through the two latest reports on the State of our Nation, which demonstrate some positive facts and stats too, in terms of what we’re doing to enhance our customers’ experience and become that Purple Cow in those busy fields in which we operate.
…and while you may not be of First Direct standing just yet, perhaps you can glean some useful insight into where exactly you DO fit (or would like to fit) in the grand scheme of all things CX as 2020 and a new decade hurriedly approaches….…
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https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-service-2019
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Until next time – keep FIT!
Marie
