A hefty majority of consumers, 72%, are willing to spend more with a brand that provides a great customer service experience.
That’s a prime finding from Gladly’s “2022 Customer Expectations Report,” and indicates personalized customer service is vital to creating customer loyalty.
“Customer loyalty has been proven to be the single most important indicator for a company’s long-term success. And given the economic uncertainties of today, this is ever more important and ever more challenging,” Joseph Ansanelli, CEO of Gladly, said in a press release on the findings. “Our annual customer expectation report again shows that a foundation for loyalty is world class and personalized customer service.”
Additional insights include:
- 44% want brands to know their names and past purchases.
- 66% prefer brands that can make personal recommendations based on their likes.
- One in four customers have purchased items that were recommended by customer service agents in the past, with an even higher number (four in 10) reported specifically for Millennials.
- 44% only want brands to know their information, not advertisers.
- 42% of shoppers say they would stop buying from a brand altogether after just two bad service experiences.
- 58% would rather stand in line at the DMV than jump through hoops to get in touch with a live agent.
- Options are everything: 42% of customers ranked reaching customer service agents on their preferred channel as the most important attribute in the customer experience.
- Phone is still the most preferred method of contact with email taking the second slot above chat. Now, chat is most often used for simple questions or as a backup to a phone conversation.
- 59% of respondents said they’d recommend a brand to a friend because of its customer service, with women being the most likely at 64%.
- 73% of consumers want to be treated like a person, not a case number.
The report, created in collaboration with Stitch Marketing Research, polled 1,500 retail customers across the U.S.
