Customer experience in Switzerland: still plenty of room for improvement

For the second time, nexa and the HWZ have jointly surveyed the importance of customer experience (CEX) among Swiss companies, the challenges they face and how they intend to meet them.The maturity level of Swiss companies, according to their self-assessment, is only 49 %. Although 74 % of companies had announced investments in CEX in the previous year, only 48 % believe that CEX has improved in 2018.Still: 97 % of companies expect CEX to become more important in the next three years. However, there is a significant difference between the language regions. For example, 53 % of companies in French-speaking Switzerland consider CEX to be very important, while only 24 % in German-speaking Switzerland.Small and very large companies in particular attach great importance to customer experience, while the topic seems to be less important to medium-sized companies.

Lack of IT solutions

The most frequently cited challenges are lack of IT solutions and lack of processes. The top challenge of 2017, lack of vision, is still in fourth place in 2018, with lack of management support, financial resources, or available data mentioned less often. "CEX-adequate IT solutions and customer-centric processes are recurring themes in the study. Not only is their lack among the most cited challenges, but they are also prominently mentioned when analyzing customer experiences on digital channels, maturity levels or priorities for 2019. Appropriate IT solutions and customer-centric processes are thus proving central to offering a seamless experience along the customer journey," says Anne-Laure Vaudan, Managing Partner, nexa.

Investing in customer loyalty and satisfaction

The top three motivators for investing in CEX are increasing customer loyalty (98 % mentions), customer satisfaction (96 %) and revenue (94 %). On the other hand, only 53 % of the respondents believe that costs can be reduced with CEX. In the future, the focus of investments will be on the implementation and optimization of customer processes, technology, as well as customer analysis and customer knowledge, i.e., the exploitation of data to learn more about customers.Only a small proportion of companies want to take care of vision and strategy. Prof. Dr. Michael Grund, Head of Center for Marketing & Sales, HWZ: "Companies have recognized the key benefits of customer experience management, but there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to concrete implementation."

More than a quarter still without a budget

Although 84 % of the companies attach a rather or very high importance to customer experience, it is striking that more than a quarter of the respondents do not yet have an explicit CEX budget. Another 22 % have up to CHF 20,000 available. Just under a third have a budget of more than CHF 100,000.

About the study

The results of the study are based on a survey conducted online. The data was collected between August 31 and October 1, 2018. 145 participants in French- and German-speaking Switzerland answered this self-assessment. Based on the responses, conclusions can be drawn about the two language regions and statements can be made depending on the size of the company.