From Zendesk to Salesforce, McKinsey, and Statista, we’ve combed the best sources for business data to bring you the top customer service stats everyone in the CX industry should know. We’ve even taken it a step further by conducting our own in-house trends research to deliver you the most cutting edge info about what leaders in our industry are saying. (You can download the full report here.)
Read on to find out what customers are asking for, where AI fits into the picture, and where things are likely headed in the future of customer service.
Customer experience is the voice and vision of your brand
For many companies, CX is increasingly taking center stage when it comes to customer retention, keeping up with competition, and growing your revenue. The data shows that it can really make or break a brand in today’s business ecosystem.
- 80% of customers say the CX a company provides is just as important as the products and services they sell (Salesforce, 2023).
- The same report goes on to state that a whopping 88% of customers find that good customer service increases the likelihood that they’d purchase from a brand again (Salesforce, 2023).
- And when their expectations are not met, 65% of customers state that they’ve changed to a different brand due to just one negative experience (Help Scout, 2023).
Customer expectations are only getting higher
What’s more is that customers are wanting more than ever out of their interactions with your brand, which is only elevating the definition of what it means to offer good CX. Here’s what this means in numbers:
- According to our in-house trends survey, the #1 change in customer behavior in 2023 was higher expectations, with 38% of CX leaders reporting this shift last year (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- What’s more is that 88% of customers want brands to provide them with online channels where they can adequately resolve their queries themselves (Heretto, 2023).
- In fact, 74% of customers report that they now expect to do anything online that they can do in-person – from account management to printing return labels and more (Salesforce, 2023).
So the data speaks for itself when it comes to the importance of providing top-notch CX, but we need to dive a little deeper to understand just what exactly customers are currently looking for.
Customers want personalized experiences
- 73% of customers report that they now expect better personalization, thanks to technological breakthroughs like generative AI – but more on this later (Statista, 2023).
- In particular, 58% of customers now want companies to understand their unique needs and expectations in order to maintain their loyalty to a given brand (Salesforce, 2023).
- For example, 60% of consumers expect to receive support in their native language when contacting customer service (Laoret, 2023).
- This tracks with the fact that last year alone, 39% of our customers added a new language (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
They expect to reach you on the channels of their choice
- In addition to providing personalized support, around 75% of customers report using multiple channels to engage with a brand (McKinsey, 2023).
- Interestingly, 71% of customers say that they prefer different channels depending on the context. Of these, email ranks at 93%, mobile app stands at 76%, and 72% of customers used online chat to contact support last year (Salesforce, 2023).
- Therefore, it’s good to stay aware of the competition, as 35% of businesses plan to invest more in expanding services across a wider variety of channels (Zendesk, 2023).
…and your customers want support to be available around the clock
- Two-thirds of millennial customers currently want real-time support (McKinsey, 2023).
- Plus, 72% of consumers say that they’ll stay loyal to the companies that can provide the fastest customer service (Salesforce, 2023).
- So it makes perfect sense that the #1 thing support teams plan to do differently next year is improve operational efficiency, with 41% of respondents reporting as such in our in-house research (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
But you’ll be rewarded if you meet these expectations
While customers are getting harder to please, putting in the effort to meet their expectations will pay off. And if you manage to fall short, it can really affect your bottom line.
- Net promoter score (NPS) is gaining ground as second only to CSAT when it comes to measuring CX success. In fact, 23% of CX leaders saying NPS is the #1 metric they’ll track in 2024 (with CSAT ranking at 43%). This means that businesses are investing more in building brand amplifiers, rather than settling for mere customer satisfaction (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- This translates into more customers, as 77% of people report that they are more likely to buy from a brand if someone they know recommended it (Buyapowa, 2023).
- Meanwhile, NPS detractors make up for more than 80% of negative word of mouth by posting poor reviews, and spreading their opinions on social media (Survicate, 2023).
CX automation continues on the rise
Many businesses are trusting the power of CX automation to provide customers with faster, more personalized support on the channels of their choice – and for good reason. As the technology continues to get more sophisticated and more tailored to specific industries, businesses are seeing quick time to value, improving agent experience, and delighting customers.
- Trust in AI continues to grow as 70% of consumers report that they believe the use of AI in the context of customer support leads to more personalized and effective CX (Zendesk, 2023).
- So it makes sense that 56% of brands say that they are more likely to invest in AI-powered automation in 2024 than last year (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- In turn, businesses are seeing a 250% average ROI on their AI investments (IDC, 2023).
Generative AI is sure to enhance the quality of your support
Since the rise of ChatGPT, generative AI has vastly expanded the potential of support automation. Among other things, it makes it possible for chatbots to produce natural, human-like conversations – no training required. Gone are the days of clunky chatbots that take months to train. In turn, the data shows that this results in happier customers and better business outcomes overall.
- As generative AI becomes more sophisticated and tailored to industry-specific use cases — for example, assisting with email drafts— CX experts predict that this tech is poised to add a full $4.4 trillion in value to the economy (McKinsey, 2023).
- In addition, 78% of consumers expect gen AI to tools to help summarize their questions or issues so that agents can resolve them faster (Zendesk, 2023).
- With these just scraping the surface on the capabilities of LLM-powered chatbots, it’s not surprising that 76% of CX leaders report that they are considering adding generative AI to their support in 2024 (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
Automation also increases the speed and efficiency of your CX
As we’ve seen, customers want quality support that is also quick. AI can help here as well, as it has been shown to increase first contact resolution rate (FCR), as chatbots can instantly resolve your most repetitive queries.
- 76% of our customer survey respondents report implementing automation specifically to improve support efficiency (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2023).
- And this issue remains top of mind in 2024, as the biggest benefit business leaders hope to see with generative AI is increased agent efficiency according to 42% of respondents (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- The results speak for themselves, as more than 90% of employees report that automation tools have increased their productivity. As an added bonus, 85% also said automation boosted collaboration among their teams (Harvard Business Review, 2023).
- Finally, 42% of respondents report that they actually prefer to use a chatbot because it enables faster response times (Zapdo, 2023).
Speaking of speed, these are the areas where automation is growing the fastest:
If the world of customer support is all – or mostly – about speed, then you may be wondering where things are currently growing the most rapidly. Our trends survey research reveals interesting trends in automation across channels and industries.
Fastest growing channel:
- 71% of support departments report that they want help eliminating manual tasks like ticket tagging and routing (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- As a result, 43% of customers use ticket automation – our email and process automation product – which is up 20% from 2023 (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- Therefore, the #1 fastest growing channel as reported by CX leaders is email, and generative AI certainly holds promise for taking ticket automation to new heights in the years to come (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
Fastest growing industries:
When looking at adoption of UltimateGPT – our generative AI product – by industry:
- SaaS and Finserv are tied at 25% adoption in the last year (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
- And this is followed by 17% growth in the ecommerce industry over the course of 2023 (Ultimate Customer Service Trends 2024).
And that’s a wrap on the ultimate customer service statistics roundup. With competition fiercer than ever, knowledge is power and the data doesn’t lie. So keep the above customer service stats in mind when building your CS strategy for the coming year, and you’ll be set for CX success.