20 September 2017
A vast majority (94 %) of Nordic companies say that Customer Experience Management (CEM) is one of their top development areas during the coming three years. However, the work is conducted in silos and maturity of CEM is still quite low, a new study shows.
Tieto initiated a study with 70 Nordic digital marketing, sales and customer service decision-makers from retail, manufacturing and business-to-business service industries, to find out the maturity level of digital Customer Experience Management (CEM) in the Nordics.
The results reveal that more than half (58 %) say CEM is mentioned in their company strategy and nearly all (94 %) say CEM is amongst the top development areas within the next three years. Furthermore, more than half say they already have a digital customer experience (CX) strategy, vision or roadmap in their function.
Compared to a study conducted in 2014, there is a noticeable change in how digital CEM is perceived. Three years ago, respondents did not even recognize digital CEM belonging to their company digitalization agenda, it was rather seen as an IT investment and systematic CEM development was rare.
”Companies have already discovered that a more holistic view needs to be adopted in order to fully understand the customer experience journey and manage the cx strategy to cross-functional operations. If they don’t emphasize this, they are in danger to fall behind. It is harsh to say, become cx-obsessed or die, but that is becoming the new reality", says Jaakko Hartikainen, Head of Customer Experience Management startup unit at Tieto.
Maturity of Digital CEM is low - few are able to reach competitive edge with the latest technology
While companies indisputably name CEM as one of the key focus areas, the maturity of CEM is still quite low. When presenting digital CEM in four stages where stage IV is the most advanced, the study shows that only 13 percent of the respondents place their company in the most advanced stage. The most common is stage II (42 %), the second most common is stage I (24 %) followed by stage III (21 %). As an example, the most common tools for measuring customer experience (CX) are customer satisfaction surveys, while advanced automation and analytics are not widely in use.
”This offers a great opportunity for those who are more mature to unleash the business opportunities of CEM and make the gap even greater compared to those on the lower level of maturity. We are already experiencing the three megatrends of this century: customer-centricity, data centricity and agility of operations. Holistic customer experience management enables companies to survive in the highly competitive markets and keep up with the needs of the customer by listening to the customer’s voice on each step of the journey”, says Jaakko Hartikainen.
The respondents also to high extent believe that by implementing digital CEM operations, companies can not only gain better customer satisfaction, but also achieve growth in sales and profitability. Roughly 35 percent of all respondents evaluated their company’s investment range as significant for CEM related projects.
For more information, please contact:
Jaakko Hartikainen, Head of Customer Experience Management business unit Tieto
jaakko.hartikainen@tieto.com, +358443500445
About the survey
The study was conducted by unbiased research partner, MRK Funnel, and it took place in April-June, 2017. Read more about the study & download it here:https://campaigns.tieto.com/cemstudy
Tieto aims to capture the significant opportunities of the data-driven world and turn them into lifelong value for people, business and society. We aim to be customers’ first choice for business renewal by combining our software and services capabilities with a strong drive for co-innovation and ecosystems. www.tieto.com
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