The State of CX.O 2024 Report

Overview

IT executives face a series of converging challenges.

As customer retention and expansion become harder to maintain, it’s more important than ever to deliver an exceptional customer experience. But standard CX metrics (customer survey scores) don’t uncover critical support gaps, making it harder to identify issues that negatively impact retention and expansion. And while AI and automation tools offer greater capabilities for improving customer engagement, with so many options to consider, it can be difficult to know where to even start.

Unified Monitoring should be your first AI investment for support, creating a layer of observability and sentiment analysis that will help you deliver an exceptional customer experience and carve out a sustainable competitive advantage.

The data in this CXO report highlight the opportunities and challenges of today’s IT requirements and demonstrate why it’s critical to monitor every customer interaction—regardless of whether it’s handled by a person or a chatbot.

— Krishna Raj Raja, Founder & CEO, SupportLogic

As Customer Retention and Expansion Slows, CX is More Important than Ever

The Risk of Poor CX

With so many companies struggling to hit revenue targets for new deals, it’s vitally important to ensure continued growth by maximizing expansions and retention.

That requires consistently delivering an outstanding support experience by monitoring negative sentiment in real time and proactively mitigating issues before they escalate.

50%

of customers will switch to a competitor after a single unsatisfactory customer experience.

Source: Zendesk, “51 customer service statistics you need to know,” February 2024

67%

of customer loyalty is driven by CX, more than brand and price combined.¹

70%

of customers say modern technology makes it easy to take their business elsewhere.²

73%

of customers say CX is the #1 consideration when deciding to buy from a company.³

It’s 2.4X more likely a customer sticks with a brand when their problems are solved quickly.

The Reward of CX Investment

Brands like Salesforce and Informatica are doubling down on CX, and seeing tremendous benefits to their customer relationships. They’re using sentiment detection to make their support staffs more efficient, and give their managers the time they need to start new initiatives.

80%

increase in revenue from companies that focus on customer experience.

Source: Zendesk, “51 customer service statistics you need to know,” February 2024

Enterprise-Grade Tech Consolidation Offers Operational Cost Relief

Trusted enterprise-grade partners provide access to constant AI innovation—without the cost of maintaining a full internal data analytics team, or the need to hire product analysts and designers to manage your customer support system.

Trust Matters with CX Leaders

83%

say data protection and security are the top priorities in CS strategy.⁴

71%

believe generative  AI tools must be embedded directly  into the tools agents already use.⁴

Technology Consolidation is Paying Off

Investing in automation can produce a return of between 3x and 11x the cost of that investment.

Source: McKinsey, A Future that Works: Automation, Employment, and Productivity, January 2017

All-in-one solutions double that benefit by turning on capabilities for more of your organization — further reducing IT friction.

Source: Startup Nation, 9 SaaS Trends Your Business Should Embrace, June 2022

MIT research says purpose-built AI is the  difference maker — helping successful companies stay competitive.

Source: MIT Sloan, Ideas Made to Matter, October 2022

AI Solutions are Expected to Reduce Inefficiencies and Avoid Headcount Balloon

While chatbots can be convenient, resolving complex support issues still require a human touch—especially when servicing customers paying a premium for support.

AI and automation tools help support teams work more efficiently, focus on enhancing customer relationships, and deliver a more personalized experience.

Live Agent Efficiency Gains

What agents believe would help them do their job better:

64%

want a single view of a customer’s interactions across all channels.⁴

52%

want AI tools that help find information quicker.⁴

78%

of agents’ time is spent on troubleshooting.

Source: Mavenoid, Hardware Support Insights Report, 2022

The Limits of Self Service/Chat

For complex support issues, the various forms of case deflection can only go so far:

Only

5%

of customers prefer self-service options for complex or nuanced problems.⁴

58%

of CX leaders expect chatbots to become akin to digital agents in 2024.⁴

72%

of CX leaders believe the chatbots they employ should be an extension of the brand’s identity.

Source: Zendesk, CX Trends Report, 2024

CX Leaders Think Chatbots:

49%

are capable of answering nuanced and complex questions.⁴

47%

are capable of having a natural conversation.⁴

47%

are capable of being empathic in addressing concerns.⁴

Most Organizations Lack a Single Control Plane for Customer Interactions

To make smart, proactive decisions, your support organization needs to be able to see the entire field and anticipate each customer’s unique needs in real time.

Which support teams are overloaded? Which products are causing spikes in support cases? What specific features are leading to customer frustration or confusion?

“The more data companies collect about their customers, the less they seem to know about how to satisfy them. That’s because data and information are not the same thing. Customer survey data in particular contain a great deal of noise. For such data to become useful beyond descriptive statistics, filtration and calibration are paramount—something that is lacking in just about any analytics tool used by business today.”
Claes Fornell/ ACSI Founder

Only 19% of CSAT ratings have a comment. This means that reactive surveys like CSAT aren’t giving organizations insights into the true voice of the customer.

The Competitive Risk of AI Underinvestment

So what’s the leading cause of unexpected churn? Product adoption issues.

30%

are using AI to automate the identification of customer intent.

Source: Zendesk, CX Trends Report, 2024

83%

of executives feel that unimproved CX causes considerable revenue and market share risks.⁵

58%

of product teams use support data for product feedback.⁶

Changing Trends in CX

“Successful product teams build with customer support as a key input.”

Source: Zendesk, “Why you should integrate your agent support and product teams,” December 2020

The most successful companies are using the customer insights found in their support data to give sales, success, and the whole organization better visibility into customer interactions.

85%

of CX leaders say AI is vital to the future of CX.

Source: Zendesk, CX Trends Report, 2024

30%

of F500 companies will consolidate post-sales into a unified customer-facing role by 2027.

Source: Gartner, Customer Service and Support Predictions, February 2024

Conclusion

The data presented in this report underscores the importance of monitoring every customer interaction and leveraging AI-driven solutions to improve customer engagement.

IT executives must navigate a complex landscape of customer experience challenges and technological solutions to keep their organizations competitive. As customer retention and expansion become increasingly critical to business success, it is essential to identify and address support gaps that may hinder the delivery of exceptional CX.

To overcome these challenges, IT executives should prioritize investments in AI and automation tools, starting with what we call Unified Monitoring. By creating a comprehensive layer of observability and sentiment analysis across all customer interactions, Unified Monitoring enables organizations to identify and resolve issues promptly, regardless of whether the interaction is handled by a human agent or a chatbot. This proactive approach to support not only enhances the overall customer experience but also helps organizations establish a sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market.

References:

CMS Wire, “It’s the Journey That Matters: Improving Customer Experience and Loyalty”, August 2020
Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer, 4th Edition
PwC, “Experience is everything: Here’s how to get it right”
Zendesk, CX Trends Report, 2024
Forbes, Forbes Insights Report: Proving the Value of CX
Freshworks, “What the Product Team can Learn from Customer Support”