Indian companies believe customer experience innovation will protect businesses from competitors

Asia Pacific (APAC) companies that have continued to invest in their customer experience (CX) over the past year are 10 times more likely to have maximized their resiliency during the pandemic and five times more likely to have grown their customer base in the past six months, as per Zendesk report.

Organizations in India stood out against their APAC counterparts, displaying a keener interest in taking the CX route to business growth. Most Indian organizations 88%, fastened its CX projects over the past 12 months compared to their counterparts in South Korea 67%, Australia 65%, Singapore 62%, and Japan (37%).

“In today’s digital-first economy, improving one’s customer experience is critical. In fact, our research with ESG confirms that the customer service function has evolved from a cost centre to become a revenue driver for businesses. Indian organizations who realized this have made great strides in maturing their customer experience capabilities, and are seeing the results,” KT Prasad, MD & RVP, India & SAARC, Zendesk, said.

CX-led Innovation is a Competitive Differentiator in India

The vast majority of respondents in APAC 90% agree that CX innovation is required to protect their business from competitors. In India, 97% of midsize and enterprise-sized Indian organizations agree with this sentiment.

In fact, three quarters of them recognize the strategic imperative of CX innovation, significantly more so than their counterparts in South Korea 49%, Japan 45%, Singapore 42%, and Australia 41%.

They also see the value of data to help focus this innovation and they use support data to expand sales opportunities and business growth, the highest globally. Among the four levels of CX maturity, companies in APAC have led in driving continuous innovation in their CX and using customer service data.

CX Maturity and Innovation Linked to Revenue Growth

It has become a clear correlation between improved CX maturity and the benefits of increased customer satisfaction (CSAT), faster response times, and effective customer service. Notably, the study also calls out the connection between CX maturity and greater business growth and revenue.

This connection is most pronounced in Asia Pacific, with midsized and enterprise from the region 4.7 times more likely to have grown their customer base over the past six months, and 10 times more likely to have increased per-customer spend significantly over the same time period.

Digital interaction is the main connection point with many customers to operate profitable service teams, where direct revenue exceeds the cost of customer service.

Investment in CX Leads to Better Agent Retention and Productivity

Agent turnover, technology, flexibility and wellbeing all emerged as areas of investment and focus for teams over the course of the past 18 months. This led APAC companies, in particular, to move quickly to implement tools to support overwhelmed service teams.

Investments and process changes made by APAC companies in the early stages of the pandemic include increased utilization of public cloud services 66%, more flexible remote work policies 64%, expanded mental health/wellbeing initiatives 64%, more flexible working hours 60%, and the adoption of new collaboration tools 60%.

Conversational Experience for Stronger Customer Relationships

Globally, companies that prioritize delivering conversational customer experiences are three times more likely to build deeper customer relationships. It also converts conversational experience to a shift away from transactional service focused purely on resolving tickets.

Many anticipate that preferences and changes will continue to shift as well as 73% of APAC organizations predict that chat and social channels will be most used by customers in the future, up from 54% who say this is the case today.

Meanwhile, Indian organizations lead globally in their enthusiasm for a conversational future, with 79% of them agreeing that chat and social channels are most used by customers today and 100% predicting this will remain the case in the future.