Temkin Group Research Archives - Customer Experience Matters®

Report: Propelling Experience Design Across An Organization

April 18, 2018April 18, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, Propelling Experience Design Across An Organization.

Although customer experience (CX) management has become a relatively common activity within large organizations, companies still struggle to deliver consistently positive experiences to their customers. One major issue impeding companies’ current CX efforts is that few organizations design customer interactions in a purposeful and deliberate manner. This report explores how companies can use Experience Design – which we define as a repeatable, human-centric approach for creating emotionally resonant interactions – to craft consistently excellent interactions and how they can share and spread these capabilities across the entire organization.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from this report:

The Experience Design process is made up of three generic phases (Clarification, Generation, Realization), each of which contains two stages (empathize and synthesize, conceptualize and materialize, scrutinize and actualize).
To help propel Experience Design capabilities across the organization, we developed The Federated Experience Design Model, which is made up of three tiers of employees – Experts, Boosters, and Dabblers.
We share over 30 examples of best practices from companies that are spreading and sharing Experience Design capabilities throughout their entire organization.
We also provide some tools that employees can use across the six stages of the Experience Design process.

Here are two of the 22 figures in the report:

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The move towards propelling CX across an organization is part of a broader trend that we describe in the report, The Federated Customer Experience Model.

Report: The State of CX Management, 2018

April 10, 2018April 10, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, The State of CX Management, 2018.

Temkin Group has evaluated the state of Customer Experience (CX) management at large companies for nine years in a row. This year, the benchmark is based on a survey of 171 companies with at least $500 million in annual revenues. Respondents not only answered questions about CX management, they also completed our CX Competency and Maturity Assessment. When we analyzed organizations’ CX efforts and progress towards maturity, we found that:

While only 7% of companies view themselves as industry leaders in CX today, 54% aspire to be leaders within three years.
Only 13% of companies have reached the top two (out of six) levels of CX maturity.
Of the four CX Core Competencies, Compelling Brand Values continues to be the most problematic for companies.
Twenty-two percent of firms have at least 21 FTEs in their centralized CX groups.
Companies rate themselves highest for customer insights & analysis and weakest for ambassador programs.
Voice of the customer software and market research vendors are the most valuable CX tools and services.
Two-thirds of companies think that their phone agents typical deliver a good experience, while only 11% feel that way about chat bots.
The top obstacle that companies face is other competing priorities, which has been at the top of the list for several years.
When we compared CX leaders with CX laggards, we discovered that the leaders enjoy stronger financial results, are more likely to have senior executives leading company-wide CX efforts, employ more full-time CX employees, use more experience design agencies, and feel more supported by senior leaders.
CX leaders are more likely to describe their culture as being Customer- or Mission-Centric, while CX laggards are more likely to describe theirs as Sales- or Profit-Centric.

This report also includes an assessment that companies can use to benchmark their CX efforts and capabilities.

Download report for $195

Here are the results from Temkin Group’s CX Competency & Maturity Assessment:

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Want to gauge your organization’s customer experience maturity or how well it’s doing across the Four CX Core Competencies? You can access Temkin Group’s online CX Competency & Maturity Assessment… and it’s FREE.

Report: State of the CX Profession, 2018

March 27, 2018March 28, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, State of the CX Profession, 2018. This is the fifth year that we’ve examined the roles of CX professionals and the third year that we’ve done a compensation study. Here’s the executive summary:

To understand the mindset and roles of customer experience professionals today, we surveyed 221 CX professionals and then compared their responses to similar studies we’ve conducted over the previous six years. We asked respondents about how their CX efforts impacted their organization last year and what their company plans to do during the coming year. This report also includes a compensation study, which is based on the 158 respondents who agreed to participate. Here are some highlights from the research:

Eighty-seven percent of respondents say that their customer experience efforts have had a positive business impact in 2017.
Ninety-six percent think that customer experience is a great profession to be in.
Eighty percent think that customer experience will be more important for their companies in 2018 than it was in 2017, compared to the 5% who think it will be less important.
Forty-eight percent expect to see an increase in their customer experience staffing levels this year, compared with only 6% that expect a decline.
Respondents plan to increase their spending most on voice of the customer software.
Respondents plan to increase their focus most on Web experiences and customer insights and analysis.
The total amount of compensation in our study ranges from $104,000 for mid-level individual contributors to $296,000 for CX executives.

Download report for $195

Here’s some data showing some of the results from the compensation study:

Compensation ranges for customer experience (CX) professionals

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Report: 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings (U.S.)

March 20, 2018April 17, 2018

2018 marks the eighth straight year that we’ve published the Temkin Experience Ratings, a cross-industry, open standard benchmark of customer experience.

To generate these Ratings, we asked 10,000 U.S. consumers to rate their recent interactions with 318 companies across 20 industries and then evaluated their experiences across three dimensions: success, effort, and emotion. Here are some highlights:

Wegmans, H-E-B, Citizens, credit unions, Publix, and Subway earned the highest overall ratings, while CarMax, Spirit Airlines, Optimum, Medicaid, and Comcast received the lowest.
When we compared individual company’s ratings with their industry averages, we found that Southwest Airlines and Georgia Power most outperformed their peers, while CarMax and Spirit Airlines fell farthest behind their competitors.
The Ratings declined slightly this year, driven mostly by a drop in the emotion component scores.
To improve customer experience, companies need to master four competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.

Download report for Free You can also download the dataset in Excel for $395

Have questions? See our FAQs about the Temkin Experience Ratings and watch this previously recorded webinar.

Here are the top and bottom companies in the ratings:

2018 Temkin Experience Ratings: Customer Experience (CX) Leaders & Laggards

***See how your company can reference these results or
display a badge for top 10% and industry leaders***

Here’s how the industries compare with each other:

2018 Temkin Experience Ratings: Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark Data for 20 Industries

Download report for FREE
You can also download the dataset in Excel for $395

Get the Data

Do you want to see all of the data from the 2018 Temkin Experience Ratings? You can purchase an excel spreadsheet for $395. Here’s a sample of the spreadsheet (.xls).

To view all of our ratings (experience, trust, forgiveness, customer service, and web experience), visit the Temkin Ratings website…

Report: Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction, 2018

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction of IT Clients, 2018.

During Q3 of 2017, we surveyed 800 IT decision-makers from companies with at least $250 million in annual revenues, asking them to rate both the products of and their relationships with 58 different tech vendors. Google, Oracle outsourcing, and Microsoft servers earned the top overall scores, while Autodesk, ADP outsourcing, and Fujitsu received the lowest overall scores. To determine their product rating, we evaluated tech vendors across four product/service criteria: features, quality, flexibility, and ease of use. And we calculated their relationship rating using four different criteria: technical support, support of the account team, cost of ownership, and innovation of company. We also looked at how the average product and relationship scores of tech vendors have changed over the previous four years and found that both product/service and relationship satisfaction have dropped to their lowest levels since the study began.

This research has a report (.pdf) and a dataset (excel). The dataset has the details of Product/Service and Relationship satisfaction for the 58 tech vendors as well as for 31 other tech vendors with sample sizes too small to be included in the published report. Here is a sample of the dataset.

Download report for $495
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Here’s a link to last year’s study.

Here are the overall results:

Here are the data graphics in the report:

Questions Used to Drive Analysis
Overall Product & Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Product & Relationship Satisfaction Component Scores
Top Half in Product Satisfaction Ratings
Bottom Half in Product Satisfaction Ratings
Top Half in Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Bottom Half in Relationship Satisfaction Ratings
Product & Relationship Satisfaction Component Scores, 2014 to 2017

Report details: When you purchase this research, you will receive a written data snapshot and an excel spreadsheet with more data. The dataset has the details of Product/Service and Relationship satisfaction for the 58 tech vendors as well as for 31 tech vendors with sample sizes too small to be included in the published report. If you want to know more about the data file, download this SAMPLE SPREADSHEET without the data (.xls).

Download report for $495
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Report: Customer Experience Expectations and Plans for 2018

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Customer Experience Expectations and Plans for 2018.

In December 2017, Temkin Group surveyed 145 respondents – each from a company with $500 million or more in annual revenues – about their customer experience efforts over the past year and their plans for 2018 and beyond. We compared the results of this survey to the results of similar surveys we’ve conducted over the previous seven years. This year’s results show that companies plan on increasing the amount of money and effort they dedicate to improving a variety of customer experience activities.

Here are previous reports from 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from the research:

86% of companies have seen a positive impact from their CX efforts in 2017.
81% of companies expect CX to be more important in 2018 than it was in 2017.
62% of companies expect to spend more on CX in 2018 than they did in 2017.
The companies that expect to increase their CX staffing in more than five times the percentage that expect to decrease it.
Companies plan to increase their spending the most for VoC software and chat bot vendors.
Companies plan to increase their focus the most on online self-service experiences, and the least on phone self-service.
Companies plan to increase their focus the most on solving customer service issues, and the least on understanding bills and statement.
Companies plan to increase their effort the most on customer insights and analytics.
21% of companies plan to compensate front-line employees based on CX metrics.
Compared with other companies, companies with more successful CX efforts in 2017 are employing more CX professionals, focusing more on online chat and new product experiences, and plan to spend more on speech/voice analytics vendors.

Here are the data charts in this data snapshot:

Business Impact of CX
Changes in the Importance of Customer Experience
Changes in Spending on Customer Experience
Changes in CX Staffing Levels
Plans for Spending with CX Vendors
Focus on CX Across Interaction Channels in 2018
Plans to Increase Focus on the CX of Different Channels
Focus on Customer Journeys in 2018
Focus on CX Activities in 2018
Plans to Increase Focus on Different CX Activities
Compensation Based on CX Metrics
Key Differences Between Companies With More Successful And Less Successful CX Programs

Download report for $195

Report: Channel Preferences Benchmark, 2018

January 23, 2018February 3, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group data snapshot, Channel Preferences Benchmark, 2018.

Here’s the executive summary:

In Q3 2017, we surveyed 10,000 U.S. consumers about their channel preferences when performing 12 different activities – such as selecting a life insurance policy or applying for a new credit card – and compared their responses to the results of a similar study we conducted in Q3 2016. This data snapshot examines how channel preferences vary across age groups, how these preferences have changed over the past year, and how channel preferences differ across multiple activities.

Here are previous benchmarks from 2016, 2015, and 2014.

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Here is an excerpt from one of the 14 charts in the report:

Here are all of the data charts int he report:

Channel Preferences Across Multiple Activities
Channel Preferences: Changes between 2016 and 2017
Channel Preference By Age: Check the Delivery Status of a Purchase You Made
Channel Preference By Age: Check the Balance on a Savings or Checking Account
Channel Preference By Age: Update Your Address on an Account After You Move
Channel Preference By Age: Purchase a New Book
Channel Preference By Age: Apply for a New Credit Card
Channel Preference By Age: Change the Beneficiary on a Life Insurance Account
Channel Preference By Age: Resolve a Technical Problem with Your Computer
Channel Preference By Age: Purchase a New Auto Insurance Policy
Channel Preference By Age: Select a Life Insurance Policy
Channel Preference By Age: Investigate a Mistake in Your Monthly Cell Phone Bill
Channel Preference By Age: Open a New Investment Account
Channel Preference By Age: Schedule a Medical Procedure

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Report: Lessons in CX Excellence, 2018

January 8, 2018January 17, 2018

We just published a Temkin Group report, Lessons in CX Excellence, 2018. The report provides insights from six winners in the Temkin Group’s 2017 CX Excellence Awards. The report, which has more than 70 pages of content, includes an appendix with the finalists’ nomination forms. This report has rich insights about both B2B and B2C customer experience.

Here’s the executive summary:

This past November, we named six organizations the winners of Temkin Group’s 2017 Customer Experience Excellence Award – AARP, Allianz Worldwide Partners, Century Support Services, Nurse Next Door Home Care Services, Reliant, and Sage. This report:

Highlights specific examples of how these companies’ customer experience (CX) efforts have created value for both their customers and for their businesses.
Describes winners’ best practices across the four customer experience competencies: purposeful leadership, compelling brand values, employee engagement, and customer connectedness.
Includes all of the winners’ detailed nomination forms to help you collect examples and ideas to apply to your own CX efforts.

Download report for $195

Here are some highlights from the winners: Read More …

Report: The State of CX Metrics, 2017

December 6, 2017January 2, 2018

We published a Temkin Group report, The State of CX Metrics, 2017.

Temkin Group surveyed 169 companies to learn about how they use customer experience (CX) metrics and then compared their answers with similar studies we’ve conducted annually since 2011. We also had them complete our CX Metrics Program Assessment that evaluates the degree to which these efforts are Consistent, Impactful, Integrated, and Continuous.

Here are some of the highlights:

Only 11% of CX metrics programs received “strong” or “very strong” ratings, while 64% of companies received “weak” or “very weak” ratings. Only one out of five companies earned at least a moderate rating for being Integrated.
Sixty-five percent of companies are good at collecting and calculating metrics, but less than 20% are good at using analytics to predict future changes in the CX metric.
Satisfaction and likelihood to recommend remain the most popular CX metrics, with satisfaction at a transactional level delivering the most positive impact.
Only 10% of companies always or almost always make explicit tradeoffs between CX metrics and financial results.
Companies identified the lack of taking action based on CX metrics as a top obstacle to their programs. The identification of this as a top problem increased the most between 2016 (54%) and 2017 (62%).
We asked companies about their effectiveness at measuring 19 different elements of customer experience. They are most effective at measuring customer service, phone interactions, and customers who are using their products and services. They are least effective at measuring the experiences of prospects, customers who have defected, and multi-channel interactions.
When we compared companies with stronger CX metrics programs with those with weaker efforts, we found that the stronger firms have better overall CX results, more frequently use and get value from likelihood to recommend metrics, and report fewer obstacles.

Download report for $195

Here are the results from Temkin Group’s CX Metrics Program Assessment:

Download report for $195

Dataset: 2017 Temkin Loyalty Index, UK

November 20, 2017December 31, 2017

In our Q1 2017 UK consumer benchmark study, we asked 5,000 UK consumers to rate their loyalty with the companies that they had interacted with during the previous 90 days. The analysis examined four areas of loyalty: Likelihood to repurchase, likelihood to recommend, likelihood to forgive, and likelihood to trust. Then we combined those components to calculate the Temkin Loyalty Index for 157 companies across 16 industries.

Download dataset for $295+
(see sample spreadsheet)

You can purchase and download the dataset, which includes companies that had at least 85 respondents. The excel spreadsheet includes the four areas of loyalty and the overall TLi for 157 companies. along with the industry averages.

Download dataset for $295+
(see sample spreadsheet)

Report: 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors

November 13, 2017December 31, 2017

We just published a Temkin Group report 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors that rates the customer experience of 58 large tech vendors based on a survey of 800 IT decision makers from large North American firms. This is the sixth year of the ratings, here are links to the 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 ratings.

Here is the executive summary of the report:

The 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors evaluates the customer experience of 58 large technology vendors. We surveyed 800 IT decision-makers from large companies regarding three components – success, effort, and emotion – of their experiences with these IT providers. Here are some of the highlights:

Out of all the vendors we looked at, VMware, IBM software & IBM SPSS, and Google earned the highest ratings, while ADP outsourcing, Unisys, Autodesk, and Fujitsu received the lowest.
When we compared this year’s results with data from the previous five Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors, we found that the average rating dropped over the past year, down from 58% in 2016 to 54% in 2017.
Compared with companies in the bottom quartile of the Temkin Experience Ratings, those in the upper quartile have customers who are 1.3 times more likely to repurchase from them, 2.5 times more likely to try new offerings, and 2.1 times more likely to forgive the company if it makes a mistake.
Companies in this upper quartile of ratings have a Net Promoter Score that’s an average of 28 points higher than their bottom quartile counterparts.
To improve customer experience, tech vendors will need to master Four CX Core Competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.

Download for $695, includes report (.pdf) and data file (.xls)
[Download sample of data file (.xls)]

The Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors evaluates three areas of customer experience: success (can customers achieve what they want to do), effort (how easy is it for customers to do what they want to do), and emotion (how do customers feel about their interaction). Here are the overall results:

Report: Five Steps For Building A Strong CX Metrics Program

November 6, 2017December 31, 2017

We published a Temkin Group report, Five Steps For Building A Strong CX Metrics Program.

A robust customer experience (CX) metrics program allows an organization to systematically measure the quality of the experience it delivers to customers and provides insights that help companies spot improvement opportunities, prioritize investments, track CX progress, and unify the organization around a common goal. Despite these benefits, few organizations have actually built a strong metrics program. In this report, we provide a blueprint that organizations can follow to create an actionable CX metrics program. Here are some highlights:

Temkin Group has identified five steps an organization must go through to create a strong CX metrics program: 1) Determine a Core CX Metric, 2) Set Achievable Goals, 3) Identify Key Drivers, 4) Establish Key Driver Metrics, and 5) Make the Suite of Metrics Actionable.
To illustrate what these steps should look like, we share nearly 30 best practices from companies including Brainshark, Caesars Entertainment, Ciena, Cisco, Horizon BCBSNJ, Oxford Properties, and Wyndham Worldwide.
We provide an assessment companies can use to both evaluate the effectiveness of their CX metrics program and identify where to focus improvement efforts.

Download report for $195

Here are the best practices highlighted in the report:

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Report: Temkin Loyalty Index, 2017

October 24, 2017December 27, 2017

We published a Temkin Group report, Temkin Loyalty Index, 2017. This is the third year of this study that examines the loyalty of 10,000 U.S. consumers to 329 companies across 20 industries.

To determine companies’ Temkin Loyalty Index (TLi), we asked respondents to rate how likely they are to exhibit five loyalty-related behaviors: repurchasing from the company, recommending the company to others, forgiving the company if it makes a mistake, trusting the company, and trying the company’s new offerings.

Download report for $295
(Includes report plus dataset in Excel. See sample spreadsheet (.xls))

Temkin Group’s TLi is based on evaluating consumers’ likelihood to do these five things (data for these items are included in the dataset):

Repurchase from the company
Recommend the company to others
Forgive the company if it makes a mistake
Trust the company
Try new offerings from the company

Here are some highlights of the research:

ACE Rent A Car and Advantage Rent-A-Car earned the highest TLi, while Time Warner Cable earned the lowest.
Supermarkets engender the strongest loyalty in their customers, while TV/Internet service providers engender the least.
NFCU and ACE Rent a Car most outpace their industries, while Spirit Airlines and Avis lag the farthest behind.
Customers are most likely to recommend ACE Rent a Car, AmazonFresh, and NFCU and least likely to recommend Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Cox Communications.
Customers are most likely to repurchase from Publix, H-E-B, and Trader Joe’s and least likely to repurchase from Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Cox Communications.
Customers are most likely to forgive Advantage Rent-A-Car, ACE Rent A Car, Fujitsu and NFCU and least likely to forgive Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications.
Customers are most likely to try a new offering from ACE Rent A Car, Advantage Rent-A-Car, and Siemens and least likely to show product loyalty to Fifth Third, Citizens, and Time Warner Cable.
USAA and NFCU are the most trusted companies, while Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Cox Communications are the least. All of the industries saw an increase in loyalty over last year, though utilities saw the most dramatic improvement.

Here are the top and bottom rated companies:

Here are the overall industry average TLi:

Download report for $295
(Includes report plus dataset in Excel. See sample spreadsheet (.xls))

Here are the 2016 Temkin Loyalty Index and the 2015 Temkin Loyalty Index.

Methodology

We report on companies that have feedback form at least 100 consumers who have interacted with the company over the previous 90 days. This ends up in 329 companies across 20 industries. The TLi is the average of five different measures of loyalty for each of those companies:

Report: State of Voice of the Customer Programs, 2017

October 17, 2017December 27, 2017

We just published a Temkin Group report, State of Voice of the Customer Programs, 2017. Here’s the executive summary:

For the seventh straight year, Temkin Group has benchmarked the competency and maturity levels of voice of the customer (VoC) programs within large organizations. This year we surveyed close to 200 large companies and asked them to complete Temkin Group’s VoC Competency and Maturity Assessment, which evaluates their capabilities across what we call the “Six Ds:” Detect, Disseminate, Diagnose, Discuss, Design, and Deploy. This report also includes data from these companies’ responses to help you benchmark your own company’s VoC efforts. We compared this year’s results with those from previous years and found that:

While most companies think that their VoC efforts are successful, less than one-quarter of companies consider themselves good at making changes to the business based on the insights.
Companies find their VoC programs to be most valuable for “identifying and fixing quick-hit operational issues” and least valuable for “identifying innovative product and service ideas.”
Companies expect technology will continue to heavily impact their VoC programs in the future, especially for integrating survey data with CRM and operational data.
In the future, companies expect the most important source of insights to be customer interaction history and the least important source to be multiple-choice questions.
The most common activity for VoC teams is defining customer experience metrics for their companies, and this activity became even more popular over the past year.
Only 14% of companies have reached the two highest levels of VoC maturity (out of six levels), while 46% remain in the bottom two levels.
When we compared higher-scoring VoC programs with lower-scoring programs, we found that companies with mature programs are more successful, technology-focused, and mobile-oriented and have more full-time staff and more involved senior executives.
Companies with more mature VoC programs identified “integration across systems” as the most common obstacle they face, while less mature VoC programs struggle the most with “cooperation across the organization.”

Download report for $195+

Here’s the VoC competency & maturity levels, which is one of 29 graphics in the report:

Download report for $195+

Free eBook: 25 Tips For Becoming A More Purposeful Leader

October 3, 2017December 27, 2017

As part of our CX Day celebration, which this year is focussed on Elevating Purpose, we’re giving away this free eBook: 25 Tips For Becoming A More Purposeful Leader.

One of Temkn Group’s Four CX Core Competencies is Purposeful Leadership. To master this competency, a company must be able to affirmatively answer the question, “Do your leaders operate with a clear, well-articulated set of values?” Purposeful leaders create an engaged workforce and help their organizations deliver positive customer experiences.

This eBook contains these 25 easily adoptable tips from across the Five P’s of Purposeful Leadership. Here are the tips: