Customer
Service Statistics
2023
Customer service is the direct link between companies and customers—it is the key to retaining consumers and extracting value from them. By providing outstanding customer service, businesses assist and advise their clients on their services and products with the goal of having satisfied clientele.
Customer service has become a critical differentiator for businesses, a top priority for customers, and a profit-generating force overall. To learn more about the market size, customer service expectations, and the struggles businesses face to catch up, let’s take a look at the latest customer service statistics.
Key Takeaways
- 30% of customers believe that customer support is the primary reason why they stick with a solution
- Customer support requests are up to 14% from last year.
- 81% of people claim that receiving good customer service makes them more likely to make another purchase.
- 70% of the buying experience is based on how the customer is treated.
- More than 60% of customers now expect companies to meet all of their needs.
- 61% of customers would leave for a competitor after just one negative experience.
- 64% of businesses say they can notice sales growth due to good customer service.
- 90% of customers are willing to spend more when companies provide personalized customer services.
Market Size
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global customer experience management industry was worth $11.34 billion in 2022. The market is projected to grow from $11.34 billion in 2022 to $32.53 billion in 2029. The rise will come from increased interaction between customers and customer service centers.
Support requests, which range from technical problems to help in determining the correct shoe size, are up 14% from last year. But how satisfied are customers with the service they are provided? Customers now have higher expectations than ever; more than 60% of customers say they now expect companies to meet all of their needs. Unfortunately, not every business can catch up to these expectations resulting in unhappy customers and consequently loss of sales.
On the other hand, businesses that meet customer needs benefit greatly from it.
The Outcomes of Good Customer Service
The relationship between a company’s success and customer satisfaction are closely related, with 73% of business leaders reporting a direct link.
The same report has shown that customers are willing to pay extra to those who offer good customer service. Therefore, the growth possibilities for organizations that succeed in impressing customers are enormous.
Impressing customers is a tough task but with happy customers come happy times. Just like that, 90% of customers are willing to spend more with companies with personalized customer services
High performers
Delivering good customer service is not a simple task, but with the help of those hard-working and aspiring individuals, it can come true. High performers recognize the value of their customer service staff. They are more inclined to prioritize the budget for customer service projects and more likely to monitor the business impact and make required modifications along the way.
Data shows that high performers are
As a result of good supervision, customer service representatives are 9.9x more likely not to feel overwhelmed by employing AI-powered tools and 8.3x more likely to be satisfied with the training frequency.
The Results of Bad Customer Service
Negative experiences are costly, and they go viral. Customers are increasingly interacting with service staff and they want helpful and empathic agents, always-on support, and streamlined conversational experiences, regardless of whether they’re speaking with a human or a bot.
Consequently, 68% of them believe most businesses need to upgrade their customer service agent training.
Customers want quick, simple, and efficient service; if they don’t receive it, they’re likely to consider other options. More precisely, 61% of customers would leave for a competitor after just one negative experience—a 22% increase over the previous year. Make it two bad experiences, and 76% of clients will permanently leave.
Switching to competitors
The percentage of customers that agree to switch to a competitor remains high worldwide. Brazil tops the list with 80%, France with 70%, and Spain with more than 60%
Companies that aren’t living up to customer expectations suffer the most. Undoubtedly, this comes as a result of high customer expectations. More precisely, data shows that Gen Xers top the list.
Almost 60% of them are willing to switch to a competitor after one bad experience.
Undervalued employees
Undervalued and inadequately resourced customer service teams result in decreased customer service quality.
In 2021, approximately 40% of customer service representatives stated that their organizations considered customer service an expense rather than a growth opportunity, an increase of 8% from 2020.
A recent study, however, shows that 78% of companies believe that service agents play an essential role in the company’s overall growth.
Although 78% of companies and their leaders believe that service agents play an important role in client retention, many agents are unhappy with how they are treated. Agents also believe their jobs have only gotten more crucial and strategic. Despite the increased visibility, the risk of burnout is substantial. Heavy workloads, increased responsibility, insufficient training, and confusing signals from superiors have left many agents feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated. Only 15% of agents are extremely content with their workloads, and less than 30% of employees feel empowered to perform their jobs properly.
The inadequate approach to training programs and the failure to make customer representatives feel content with their work leads to a poor customer experience and, ultimately, unhappy customers.
Customer Expectations
While customer service used to be nearly entirely provided through calls, it has evolved through time and is now available through emails, online forms and other channels. Each customer uniquely addresses their need, and so far, the most popular channels remain as follows:
When contacting a company, 76% expect to speak with someone right away. However, this depends on the channel.
Customers most definitely wish to avoid repeating themselves. 71% expect a business to share information, so they don’t have to repeat themselves. 92% will spend more money with companies who guarantee they will not have to repeat information.
European Customer Service Statistics
Customers from Europe specifically have shown high expectations when it comes to having their needs met. According to one study, personalized service is the essential factor driving Customer Satisfaction (CS). However, respondents stated that the time necessary to resolve a problem isn’t the most significant aspect to them.
Furthermore, the report emphasizes the importance of multi-skilled teams. According to the data, countries with the most multi-skilled teams (Nordics: 51%) have greater levels of CS when compared to other ways of constructing customer service center teams. Multi-skilled teams lead on the capability to work with a personalized approach to the consumer. In essence, these teams of people with diverse knowledge have a better chance of producing higher levels of CS.
Providing numerous self-service options for customers benefits CS on a large scale. Unfortunately, 40% of businesses do not offer self-service, resulting in lower satisfaction levels.
How Much Is Being Done
Toward Quality Customer Services?
Companies risk losing opportunities to incorporate client feedback into their strategic framework if there is no clear commitment from the top. Customer inquiries are an important source of feedback for determining what works and does not with products or services.
Even though businesses appear to recognize the potential advantage of adequate supervision and investment in quality customer service, only 20% report viewing customer service data on a daily basis. 40% say they only look at data once a month or less.
Businesses that do not make necessary changes and investments swiftly risk slipping behind those that do. 54% of businesses report having a three-year strategic plan for customer service, which indicates that 46% still do not.
What The Future Holds
The ultimate goal of customer service organizations is to grow their business. And in order to achieve such a goal, they will need to shift to a more predictive strategy that provides additional value to customers. In the upcoming years (2025 and beyond), customer service will improve, and so will customer satisfaction levels.
Statistics for the future predict that:
40%
By 2025, 40% of customer services will focus on value enhancement tools to measure overall success, up from 17% in 2021.
75%
By 2025, modern privacy standards will protect the personal information of 75% of the world’s population.
37%
37% of customers will experiment with utilizing a digital assistant to interact with customer service on their behalf by 2025.
60%
By 2025, 60% of clients will seek assistance from non-company-owned third-party information sources.
60%
By 2025, 60% of service firms will use analytics tools to supplement traditional surveys with voice and text interactions from customers.
The Bottom Line
Customer expectations have shifted dramatically in recent years, leaving many businesses struggling to catch up. There is a clear data-backed case for the beneficial, multi-layered impact that excellent customer service can have on a company. Putting effort and resources into recruiting and developing excellent customer service staff is important to running a successful business.