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Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

The evolution of customer experience… a look ahead to 2020

The evolution of customer experience (CX)… a look ahead to 2020 Celebrating 20 years of the Global CX Benchmarking Report

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Contents

Foreword

The evolution of an industry

How to stay relevant to 2020 and beyond

How to create a CX-centric business strategy

The basics of CX best practice

A glimpse into the future

Next steps

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1. Foreword

Rob is a global practitioner and thought leader in CX. For over 20 years, he’s enabled organisations to transform and grow the value of their customer relationships.

Rob AllmanGroup Senior Vice President, CX at Dimension Data

Meanwhile, the challenges facing businesses have been exacerbated by growing cost pressures, siloed behaviours, and the need to deliver tangible value. Disruptive innovators have become the ‘prophets of the new land’, and exceptional customer experience (CX) is an undisputed differentiator in the battleground of today’s digital world.

The last 20 years of CX benchmarking results trace a profound acceleration of the rate of change in customer behaviour, and their expectations are frequently out-pacing boardroom decision making and organisational execution.

The world has formed a digital skin. Digital technologies are enabling information exchange at unprecedented speeds. Social media, alongside the always-on capability of ever-smarter devices, have completely reinvented user attitudes and consumer behaviours.

Changing channel choices need to be balanced against effective deployments and necessitates alignment between solution design and user needs.

Many established business processes weren’t designed for, and struggle to understand, the digital revolution. Adaptability and innovation are key. To thrive, organisations must recognise that exceptional CX is vital.

Successful CX demands agile organisations that can operate in a fast-changing mobile, online, social, and automated era. CX reputations and mistakes are highly visible and the introduction of robotics and

game-changing Artificial Intelligence (AI) aren’t only advancing customer expectations but require CX journeys to be continuously re-engineered.

The goalposts are changing. What worked before won’t necessarily meet your needs for the future. At face value, contact resolution rates are worse today than they were 20 years ago. But, today, we’re not just measuring whether first contact resolution occurred or not. We’re trying to understand whether the agent added value in terms of the opportunity the interaction presented.

Organisations often tend to interpret this service evolution as an urgent and ongoing need to implement new technologies.

However, as the Dimension Data Global CX Benchmarking Report has proven in over 20 years of research, successful CX is less about technology, and more about adopting new business strategies and customer-centric attitudes.

Today the CX landscape is complex and sophisticated, both in design and in its impact on the business. Its role is often misunderstood. Frequently, it’s underplayed.

In this commentary, we’ll explore some of the changes, challenges – and opportunities – that you can adopt to make CX a source of competitive advantage and improved customer loyalty and profitability… and help you to prepare your business as we look ahead to 2020 and beyond.

Over the last 20 years, ensuring that ‘the customer is king’ has become more significant than ever.


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2. The evolution of an industry

First, let’s look at the findings from Dimension Data’s research on the transformation of the CX industry, over the past two decades:

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‘ The customer transcends the traditional profit and cost centre paradigm, occupying the central role in growth strategies, productivity gains, advocacy, and organisational or brand reputation.’

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In the digital age, we’re seeing a return to the idea that the customer is the most essential part of the business; that he or she is the origin and driver of business value, whether that’s defined as profit or performance. Organisations committing their entire existence to delivering a superior customer experience are not only prospering, they’re gaining market share. They’ve already changed their customer experience irrevocably. They’re setting the bar for customer experience, even for organisations that aren’t their direct competitors, or in the same market.

One of the seminal findings of the 2017 Global CX Benchmarking Report was that once customers are exposed to exceptional experience by one organisation, they apply that yardstick to all other organisations with which they interact.

Today, you’re not being compared to your peers; you’re being compared to the best overall. You’re not competing with your peers; you’re competing with whoever has found the shortest digital route to the customer’s sweet spot.

A constant we’ve observed – and predict will remain ever present – is that achievement of the pinnacle of CX is not a once-off, unique event. It’s possible only through a culture-defining set of characteristics.

These characteristics are based on an understanding that customer expectation and opportunity shifts go hand in hand with the evolution of technologies and fresh thinking from disruptive innovators. It’s clear now that the ways in which we work, live, and play will merge and increasingly be managed seamlessly via aggregated data across multiple organisations. There’s an explosive growth of voice user interface devices in connecting organisations’ services, our personal preferences, and the mechanics of our day to day life. Automated personal concierge capabilities represent a significant shift in how we engage with organisations. More and more, people are favouring organisations with the ability to provide smart, integrated services.

The security of personal data is now paramount. It must be an integral part of the new corporate culture, as the value of such data increases exponentially and people and governments become emphatic about related rights and legislation.

In 2017, the Global CX Benchmarking Report found that companies that have fully embraced digital technology, and put the customer front and centre of all their operations, are experiencing extraordinary growth and profitability. In their case, the customer is the source – not a by-product – of their success.

Figure 1: The transformation of CX over the last two decades20 years of benchmarking, call centre to customer experience

Broader channel access options.

Transformation of CX

Telephone-primed CX Digital-primed CX

Omnichannel is a top priority2016-2018

Birth of contact centre2000s

CX Robotics is the way forward2018-2020

AI enabled automation via behavioural and profile personalisations.

Consistent cross-channel support for customers, via integrated digital channels.

>2020Automated conciergeLife management services. Personalised portfolio and shared economy optimisation.

2017Proactive/custom CXNew trend towards pushed CX, tailored and enabled by analytics and technology.

2010sMultichannel the norm

Telephone and digital improve customers’ channel options and an ease of contact.

1990sTraditional call centresTelephone replaced face-to-face.


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3. How to stay relevant to 2020 and beyond

What does this mean for organisations that pre-date the digital era, and have clawed their way doggedly through the past 20 years of the evolution of call centres into multichannel contact centres, proactive automation, and, now, into the future with customer experience increasingly enabled via robotics?

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CX: why it matters Our latest research into this topic reveals some interesting findings:

• Over 70% of executives recognise CX as their most important strategic performance measure. Why? Because, CX is proven to provide a bedrock for organisational success.

• Organisations committing to transforming their CX and leveraging new digital capabilities, alongside a human touch that’s available when necessary, are demonstrating huge value. A staggering 91.6% can evidence increased customer loyalty, while 84.4% report increased company profit/revenue and 78.9% also experience a reduction in costs.

• Hardly surprising, then, that 81.4% of boardrooms recognise CX as a competitive differentiator.

Common questions that arise include: • What should be the basis of your operational

strategy? How far do you have to stretch to keep up with the digital disruptors? Is there a way to leapfrog the innovators that are redefining entire industries?

• If you maintain an approach that views the organisation and its customers as separate entities fighting for a share of the budget, can you ever deliver a truly superb customer experience?

• In response to public expectation, the average number of supported channels has almost doubled from 5 to 9 within the last five years. By the end of 2018, it will be 11. By 2020, it may be more. The mix offered and used will vary by organisation, by customer, by transaction type.

• Of concern, however, is that only 10% consider their digital business strategy to be optimised.

• Some 36% don’t have a single manager exclusively responsible for CX. Of those who do, just 36% are at board level.

• Alarmingly, this lack of executive ownership of CX comes at a time of unprecedented change, an unequivocal need for digital transformation in business, and an urgent need to evolve business services at the pace at which digital is advancing in our personal lives. The chart below indicates the immediate evolution – and expansion areas – of CX leading up to 2020.

• How easy is it to combine existing tools with those on the horizon, like AI, robotic automation, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Internet of Devices (IoD), to restore customers to their proper place as the organisation’s most important value centre?

• And what are the implications on the cost to serve?

Figure 2: Digital transformation of CX in the next two years

Customer interaction levels are forecast to rise by 62% in the next two years.71% anticipate increases to fully automated contact volumes, while 56% expect transaction via telephone to fall.

Digital assisted service volumes will...

Fully automated volumes will...

CX via social media will...

Overall interactions (spanning all channels) will...

Proactive automation volumes will...

Headcount employed will...

Telephone volumes will...

Increase Stay the same Decrease Not applicable

78.2 10.6

12.370.7

69.7

62.3

59.5

25.0

15.7 23.8

35.3

17.8

21.8

16.8

2.4

3.2

1.4

8.8

13.8

12.1

6.99.0

3.2

33.8

56.4 4.1

5.9

19.5


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4. How to create a CX-centric business strategy

There’s a tendency to misinterpret the evolution of CX as the need to simply implement new technologies. Rather, it’s a need to adopt new business strategies.


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CX is core to digital transformation. Digitally-relevant businesses are focusing on aligning system user experiences, both internally and externally, to drive positive disruption. This means not only changing the CX with a new application or with improved customer service but re-arranging the entire organisation to become more agile and responsive to customer needs. At face value, contact resolution rates are worse today than they were 20 years ago. But, today, we’re not just measuring whether first contact resolution occurred or not. We’re trying to understand whether the agent added value in terms of the opportunity the interaction presented.

Beyond today’s appreciation that customers are more demanding, better able to compare services, and ahead of most organisations in their use of technology, is your CX creating a differentiator for the company and, by default, promoting the company’s value proposition?

Deeper understanding of CX through customer analytics has brought us to the realisation that the opportunity areas arising from varying customer contacts enable significant business advantage. When the phone-based contact centre was devised some 30 years ago, it was, in theory, a comparatively simple concept, relatively easily executed.

In reality, it took on various different guises– many of them criticised by the public and the media. Some early technology-based approaches, such as interactive voice recognition (IVR), that were based on human interaction avoidance, created angry and resentful public debate. Today the CX landscape is complex and sophisticated.

CX strategies must encompass any point of contact for a customer with the business.

It can be a physical high street location or programmers maintaining fully automated web channels (think smart apps or AI). To a large extent, human advisors are still answering telephones, although they’re now increasingly supporting digitally based channel choices – from email and web chats to social media liaisons.

This model will continue to evolve, and the splits will vary by operation.

Whatever your organisational intent, though, CX does mean doing things differently. You have to be committed to putting the customer front and centre of everything the organisation does. You need a plan that is agile and will offer the solution flexibility needed to stay in line with, indeed, ahead of market

forces. This will mean changing the organisation – not just once but whenever the market shifts.

You may already have some of the components needed to put in place these modern day fundamentals. Recent history indicates, however, that you’ll need to make adjustments to enable them to properly serve your CX ambition.

New skillsAs channel choices expand, so too does the role and associated skill profile of the supporting customer advisor. Ten years ago, just 18% of agents were skilled across different contact channels. Today almost one third (32.5%) are. Recruitment strategies are having to change. People skilled at voice interaction are not necessarily equally skilled at web chat, and vice versa.

More integrationAs new channels emerge, so do new challenges. Organisations are being driven towards connecting customer journeys. First appearing in the benchmarking report in 2013, omnichannel (the concept of facilitating users’ natural channel-hopping behaviour to provide consistent customer experiences), is one of today’s top business visions. Yet, only 8.4% of organisations have all channels connected. 79.8% are aiming to have most channels – if not all – connected by the end of 2019. Almost a quarter (23.9%) still have no channels connected.

Those providing an average of 11 channels are most likely to be implementing a strategy to instead connect relevant or core channels. The biggest challenge to omnichannel, beyond technology constraints, is disparate management of the channels and the corresponding availability and capture of valuable data. 58.5% of organisations say their channels are managed in silos (with different management agendas).


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Figure 3: An experience-centric business strategy

Clearly, for CX to deliver the desired consistent results for both customers and the organisation, a common CX strategy must be used by every department. It also means applying to digital options the management basics used on live agent or telephone channels.

Different metricsAs CX techniques and service models develop, so do performance metrics. In 2008, 59.1% of organisations viewed contact centres as a cost centre and their metrics were designed accordingly. The metrics focused heavily on staff productivity.

By 2013, although 71.6% agreed that CX was a differentiator, staff productivity was still the second most important measurement of organisational performance.

By 2017, staff productivity ranked just sixth, as executive commitment to CX increased and analytics showed a picture of customers and agents that didn’t match up with early contact centre ideas about productivity.

Today the relationship between business results, employee engagement, and CX is better understood. Organisations are seeking the correct balance of services for their brand positioning. To achieve this they need more effective, relevant measurements of ROI. Yet, ROI measurement is actually falling, when it should be the fuel to the engine and the business vision. Without it, investments in, effective deployment, and ongoing refinement of new technology will be limited.

Proof of value is an emerging measure that will become critical in CX transformation measurement and investment.

Digitise business

Improve experience

Grow revenues

Reduce costs

CX Transformation

Understand

Integrate

Automate

Optimise

DigitalPhysical

FulfilmentContact c

entre

Robotics & AI

Omnichannel CX

Customer analytics

Workforce optim

isation

DistributionServ

iceMarketingSalesAssisted-serviceSe

lf-se

rvice

Proactive service

Todays expected CX

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New perspective on technologyA critical insight has been that customer experiences are becoming disjointed - largely because technology is being applied in a disjointed way. Technology should be used to create excellence rather than purely for its own sake. This understanding is particularly important as we stand on the brink of the robotics era. It will entirely reshape service reality.

If you’re aiming for an experience-centric strategy, know that:

• CX transformation needs a strategy

• connected CX journeys need design informed by that strategy

• speed of change requires that the strategy be agile

‘Proof of value is an emerging measure that will become critical in CX transformation measurement and investment.’


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5. The basics of CX best practice

To remain relevant in this complex, changing environment you need to understand, integrate, automate, and optimise your customer experience strategy, creating more value for your customers and your business.

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Customer analytics

Analytics is the single most CX-empowering tool organisations have at their disposal today.

This is because of three critical, accelerating CX trends: personalisation, robotics, and automation.

Personalisation is impossible without the ability to harness and understand mass data. Without access to information, automation, and robotics are disabled.

A decade ago, 72.7% of organisations had a centralised system to collate data and generate management information reports. Some 49% could track and view customer interaction journeys. Expansion of the scope of CX responsibilities combined with the ever-widening spread of channels creates complexity. Digital expansion has actually seen tracking capability decline. Full visibility of the end to end journey is now at just 38.3%. This needs to change.

Despite last year’s Benchmarking Report showing that the focus on big data has grown by 75%, business intelligence capability is below

expectations. Fewer than half of organisations surveyed (48.1%) have customer analytic systems in place. Just 18.6% believe their analytic systems meet their future needs. This disparity indicates why well-equipped organisations operating towards a clear strategy are performing at levels up to 10 times better than the average benchmark.

In 2008, 25.3% of organisations were fully cooperating on processes at an organisation-wide level. Some 24% had formal mechanisms to share intelligence. These capabilities are now down to 18% and 15.1% respectively. Poor design is becoming the top hindrance to digital success.

Collaboration on intelligence is regressing when it should be progressing. Without a shared consistency on the collection and analytics of data, it’s impossible for an organisation to deliver effective and truly personalised experiences. There’s plenty of data available, but you must be able to interpret it and translate it to actionable insights.

Figure 4: How to create a customer experience-centric business strategy: understand, integrate, automate, and optimise

Why customer analytics is key:

Customer analytics Understand

Omnichannel CX

Integrate

Robotics and AI

Automate

Workforce optimisation and employee engagement

Optimise

The 4 core capabilities of an experience-centric strategy

provide better service; increase brand

advocacy and reduce customer effort

revenue growth, repeat business, and customer retention

increase productivity and reduce cost

personalisation and differentiation

translation of customer strategy to customer

engagement

Let’s explore these fundamental elements of developing a customer-centric business strategy:


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Omnichannel was first mentioned in the 2013 Benchmarking Report. It has since established itself as the number one technology trend being progressed by CX teams.

Yet the term is often misunderstood. Omnichannel’s value isn’t limited to the connection of all channels. It actually lies in the understanding and facilitation of relevant real time data that reciprocally adds value to the customer’s experience and the organisation’s ability to be more productive and grow the value of the relationship. The appropriate connection of channels provides context – and content – relevant to the experience to customers.

The evolution of multiple communication touchpoints has now been enabled by the application of valuable data and dynamic algorithm-based intelligence. Some 79.8% of organisations are aiming to have most, if not all, channels connected by the end of 2019.

A decade back, some 69% of CX technology systems were part of the enterprise architecture in some form – versus 76.4% today. That said, in 2013, 58.8% of operations enjoyed more than a limited involvement in the design of new CX technology systems. Today it’s just 49.6%.

By definition when it comes to omnichannel, involvement of the entire organisation is the only way to achieve the desired CX outcomes.

Omnichannel CX Why omnichannel CX is important:

provides better service, increases brand advocacy

derives value from holistic data

capture

offers experience-centric customer

engagement that is context-appropriate

and relevant

drives new revenuesrealigns and integrates your

business to deliver a better experience

reduces customer effort through relevance and

choice

‘Approximately 59% of organisations say their channels are managed in silos (with different management agendas).’

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Despite the fact that the world has formed a digital skin, levels of digital uptake by organisations have slowed, affected by poor design, deployment, and marketing. Customer demand for digital remains high, but solutions fall short of customer needs.

This in spite of the fact that phone volumes have dropped by 17% since 2015, and CX robotics has reached its tipping point, and process automation, AI, IoT, and IoD are creating a new reality. The appetite for apps and social is rising as AI and IoD focus intensifies.

In this context, the automation of customer service is perhaps the most crucial evolution in CX today.

The effective use of automation and self-service has redefined leading organisations’ value propositions and created a leader/laggard dynamic. Simply layering automation over legacy process and dysfunctional organisational structures is not an effective response to disruptive digital entrants. Instead, organisations must think in terms of factors such as the re-emergence of voice user interfaces, now being enabled via the IoD (think Amazon Echo, Apple’s Suri etc.) that make it possible to simplify, serve, and enrich customer lifestyles.

Automation versus roboticsThe explosion of new IoD consumer devices underpinned by voice user interfaces (e.g. Amazon’s Echo), combined with increasing consumer use of messaging as a means of engaging with organisations, means that we are primed for exponential change in the way organisations engage with customers. It also means that the elements that form CX will change fundamentally.

Automation is one way of enabling an organisation to keep pace with user shifts and demands. However, errant use of automation can harm rather than help the cause of CX. It can escalate frustration to the point of disillusionment, resulting in loss of a vast wealth of opportunity.

And, while the introduction of robotics and AI in tandem with a human touch is critical for growing CX at this juncture, bear in mind that the outward focus of robotics and AI is well documented.

By contrast, the automation of tasks that increase productivity of customer advisors offers the opportunity for profound inwardly focused efficiency gains, in tandem with increased employee engagement. Inherently this will enhance CX. It also constitutes lower risk for the organisation than a fully cognitive self-service bot, for instance, because it uses advances in technology to create pragmatic value for both customers and organisations.

Robotics and AIWhy robotics and AI are important:

increased brand perception and CX

through ease of use

consistent application of CX

strategy

increase sales and services resolution

through evaluation and knowledge capabilities

reduction in agent cost and increase in

productivity

transformed customer journey and operations


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because they were digital. However, by 2013, 66.4% of organisations believed self-service systems were causing significant customer dissatisfaction.

Now, the top factor cited as hindering customer usage of new channels is customer awareness and functionality. Far from proactively driving customers to digital offerings, organisations aren’t marketing or effectively researching CX needs on new channels.

In 2013, the split of actual interactions was 66% for telephone, 17% for assisted-service, and 17% for automated channels. Progress has been made, with the split reshaping to 54.7% (telephone), 25.2% (assisted service), and 20.1% (automated). However, the progress remains less than the desired position of 39.8%, 36.5% and 23.7% respectively.

While delivery on the digital vision has fallen short of expectations, the attempts made so far have taught us valuable lessons about uptake, and how to ensure that solutions meet customer needs.

What we need to do now is apply the learnings to AI and robotics, as the speed of transition is set to intensify. Organisations that stall may not survive.

Taken in isolation, these additional demands make the organisational CX landscape more complex and costly. In fact, the use of digital channels to deliver superior CX solutions is a highly effective way of reducing cost and increasing productivity.

In 2013, just 36.4% of organisations considered digital as a way to reduce cost. Today, 52.2% use assisted service digital channels to reduce costs, and 56.3% see automated solutions as an additional cost savings opportunity.

However, digital solutions do need to be designed, managed, and maintained efficiently – and then measured to ensure that they’re driving the correct outcomes. Currently, just 44.3% of organisations use return on investment as a key commercial consideration in assessing new technology. It’s resulting in most organisations failing to measure costs per transaction on the vast majority of channels they offer.

As has often been the case over the past 20 years, the evolution of the cost savings belief has been circular. A decade ago, in 2008, 15.8% were using financial incentives to drive customers to lower cost channels. They came at a lower cost precisely

Figure 5: What organisations want versus what they haveDigital transformation of CX in the next two years

Phone contacts dropped 17% from 2015, but the actual split of interactions fall way short of the desired model.Digital uptake levels are losing momentum, as they are affected by poor deployments and unsatisfactory design and marketing.

What is your desired split of customer interactions by channel grouping? n = 858

Telephone Assisted-service Automated channels

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If used appropriately, robotics and AI will exponentially increase both CX and an organisation’s productivity. They have a dual – inside out and outside in – impact on CX.

Advances in automation have combined machine-based learning, AI, and natural language processing to offer powerful, highly intelligent ‘automated agents’. But, be aware, robotics and AI deployed in a static way will not reflect the ever changing world. We need to constantly use ‘bots’ to understand the effectiveness of customer journeys and opportunities, while being aware of ‘bot mortality’.

Automation in general and the advances in automation offered by robotics finally gives organisations an all in one ability to differentiate their services and add value to customers while

reducing cost. Automated processes provide a huge productivity gain by allowing customer advisors to focus on their customers rather than systems. Automation capability and intelligence can also build up effectively, trained to be match fit for customer-facing, AI-based self-service.

The cultural, man versus machine challenge is profound. Managing change and concepts such as automation anxiety for both customers and employees is crucial to ensuring that digital is an appropriate servant to your CX strategy and that highly effective CX is harmonised with the productivity benefits, cost, and growth of automation.

The guiding star for this effort must be defining the experience you want your customers to have.

How will robotics and AI evolve within CX?Figure 6: Automated full-time equivalent (AFTE) evolution – the theory and art of the possible

Workflow based Platform specific End-to-end AFTEs Configurable AFTEs Cognitive AFTEs (AiFTE)

Complete AFTE framework

3 years ago Yesterday Today & tomorrow

• End-to-end• Handles more

than one task

• Configurable e2e AFTEs• Quicker deployment• Built-in analytical capability

• Machine learning• NLP• Object recognition• Self-learning & healing• Complete governance

• Suggestion models• Best practices

Workflow / macro based

Rule based

Platform based


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The most intractable challenge of the digital era, and the CX that it makes possible, appears to be the difficulty of bridging a strategic desire to evolve and address a siloed management operating model that inherently hinders digital and workforce optimisation.

Efficiency levels are further impeded by the absence or inconsistent use of core support technologies. In spite of the fact that complexity levels are growing and cost pressures are returning, many organisations are operating without knowledge and workforce management systems. Agent analytics and a surge in e-learning techniques have emerged as 2017’s top optimisation priorities. Employee skills and experience are now at a premium.

Yet, because of increased complexity in the workplace, agent absenteeism is twice that of management – and has doubled since our first report 20 years ago. If we don’t gauge engagement levels properly, the roles imposed on agents may become untenable and the industry will hemorrhage experienced, high performing agents.

Emerging technologies are creating a platform for unprecedented efficiency opportunities, both in business and customer effort, but resources need new skills to support the re-shaped environment. These skills are not being provided for.

One very effective way of resolving these issues is to view efficiency as a CX enabler.

If you’re serving the customer effectively, you’ll automatically be highly productive. By definition, you’ll be adapting your operating models to meet future needs, reducing wasted effort that’s costly and frustrating for employees and customers. You’ll be using technology enablers to accelerate workforce optimisation. All of which will provide a significant return on investment in digital transformation.

Workforce optimisation and employee engagement Workforce optimisation and employee engagement is critical to:

reduce cost improve staff retention and

acquisition

breakdown organisational silos

improve productivitygrow revenues

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Looking back over 20 years • Average CX team sizes have remained the

same for the last two decades. The 1998 benchmark was 12 agents to one manager. The 2008 benchmark was also 12. Today we’re at 13.

• Two decades ago, just 69% of agents enjoyed permanent contracts; by 2013 87% did. Most recent results have levelled out to 82.5%.

• Induction training allocations averaged 18.7 days as recently as 2013; despite increasing role complexity, allowances have since dropped by 17% to 15.6%.

• Two decades ago, agents were receiving 22 days’ vacation per annum, and 16 days of development training. Again, we see a drop to today: 20.5 days vacation and 9.6 days formal development training.

• Length of service was as much of a problem twenty years ago as it is today. Back then, the average tenure for agents was just 29.3 months. In 2017, it was 28.7 months.

• Agent attrition was the same level in 1998 as it is today (19.9%). It surged to 27.5% in 2013 before settling again.

• Absenteeism has almost doubled from the 5.6% (agents) and 2.2% (manager) recorded in 1998.

Engaged employees = productive employeesIn 2013, the top methods for promoting employee engagement were clear goals and process alongside proactive communications. Yet today, and five years down the line, just 45% of organisations say that employee engagement levels are at a promoter level, and rating 8/10 or better.

Budget level brands and the public sector report the lowest engagement levels. Our understandings around role performance are also diminishing. Back in 2008, 69.2% of organisations had agent analytics. Disappointingly, this has dropped to 53.8%.

Measurement and data collection tools are often available. They’re just not being applied effectively. In 2013, just 27.2% of organisations were tracking volume forecasts across all CX channels. Today, 72.5% will endeavour to forecast telephone volume, but only 36% will do the same for assisted service volumes. There’s little business logic behind this approach.

Critical to growing the value of CX and harnessing the value of engaged people are current and targeted operating models that demonstrate a clear understanding of the need to harmonise self-service, automation, and the value of the customer advisor.


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6. A glimpse into the future

Organisations want to reduce costs, grow revenues, improve CX, and transform into digital businesses. But, how?

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There are some clear fundamentals on which you must structure your strategy and deploy operations.

Market relevance depends on adopting an experience-centric business strategy focused on understanding, integrating, automating, and optimising your customer

experience and, thereby, creating more value for your customers and your business.

Establishment of trust for customers is the leading driver of CX, followed by the matching of service experiences to brand values. Change comes at a cost and the commercials will always

linger at front of mind. But customer-centric strategies need to see beyond that. The value that can be derived and opportunity that can be gained is evidenced by those who have committed

to transform. Their returns on investment being powerfully evidenced by customer spend increases, improved loyalty, and operational cost savings.

Most importantly, don’t hesitate. Disruptors have already given your customers’ expectations of all organisations that you can’t meet with your old strategies, business models, or technologies.

Think about CX as a value enabler. Delivered effectively, CX will grow the value of your business rather than the business having to fund CX. Take full advantage of the digital revolution. Reshape your business model by powering personalisation, automation,

and connected customer journeys with intelligence from analytics.

New disruptors in the industry are proving that strategy is the real enabler of profitability, performance, and sustainability. Commitment to CX, using digital tools, is what actually positions

you to transform your organisation into a 21st century brand.


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7. Next steps

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Optimising your CX strategy isn’t easy, regardless of your organisation’s size, industry, location, or level of maturity.

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About the Global CX Benchmarking ReportThe Report is an annual research study encapsulating 20 years of CX insights and trends frequently cited by industry analysts and quoted by the media. It’s widely acknowledged as the most useful, authoritative, and comprehensive report of its kind. It’s designed to provide a single point of reference on key aspects affecting customer interaction management within today’s CX industry. We believe it’s the most extensive global overview of its type.

‘ The annual release of the Dimension Data Global CX Benchmarking Report is a highly-anticipated event in the customer experience world. For 20 years now, it has offered the definitive global view of how technology is changing CX for both customers and companies. With the current explosion of devices and interaction channels, its insights are more valuable than ever for companies seeking to understand how to plan their next CX moves.’ – Sheila McGee-Smith (Analyst)

Dimension Data has over 30 years of experience in helping our clients navigate the challenges we’ve outlined in this paper. We offer a range of consulting, advisory, and benchmarking services to help set you up for success. Some of our offerings include:

Throughout its 20 years, the Report has provided data that the industry has used to:• support business planning (and build strategy)

• pinpoint problems using data insights and spot areas that are falling below competitor levels (and close the gaps)

• identify best practices and benchmark company performance against top quartile results (and set targets aligned to the company’s vision on performance)

• validate performance, trends and directions taken by peers and develop objective yardsticks (and compare results)

• get buy-in for change by using relevant reference data to validate a business case, new spend, and/or transformation to a CX capability (support change)

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Emerging trends to look out for in the 2018 CX Benchmarking Report

Achieving omnichannelHow to use automation and new channels to deliver omnichannel experience and reduce cost

New operating modelsThe organisational ownership of CX and the right operating model to deliver

Analysing the dataHow they analyse transactions and use theinsight to design conscious journeys

Emerging security threatsShould they use blockchain-based technologies for ID management, personal data, and security

Introduction of AI and RoboticsHow best to implement virtual assistants andmanage a blend of FTEs and aFTEs

Stricter complianceGDPR compliance, and the right to be forgotten,will be a key focus in coming year

Look out for the 2019 Report, due to be published in January 2019

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