The big list of customer experience statistics

This post was updated on June 19 2017. 

If you’re trying to emphasize the importance of customer experience (CX) to your business, it helps to have some numbers to bolster your arguments. This big list of statistics and data points is drawn from a wide range of CX research to help you illustrate why getting it right is essential to any company’s success.

In this list, you’ll find stats grouped by topic so you can easily pinpoint the data you need.

The importance of customer experience
Return on investment from good customer experience
Customer expectations
The future of customer experience
Mobile customer experience

The importance of customer experience

90% of customer experience decision makers say that a good experience is critical to their success. – Forrester Research

While 73% of companies with the most positive CX impact understand the link between customer experience and business results, only 35% of companies with the least positive CX impact claim the same. – Temkin Group

Customers who encounter positive social customer care experiences are nearly 3 times more likely to recommend a brand. – Harvard Business Review

68% of customers say they’ve switched service providers because of poor customer service. – Accenture

59% of 25 – 34-year-olds share poor customer experiences online. – New Voice Media

$41 billion is lost by U.S. companies alone each year due to poor customer service. – NewVoiceMedia

83% of consumers require some degree of customer support while making an online purchase. – eConsultancy

95% of dissatisfied customers tell others about their bad experience. – Zendesk

Return on investment (ROI) from good customer experience

A 1% improvement in first call response = $276,000 in annual operational savings for the average call center. – SQM Group

One happy customer can equal as many as 9 referrals for your business. – American Express

Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20% but also to lift revenue by up to 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%. – McKinsey

Customer experience leaders have more than a 16% advantage over competitors in willingness to buy, reluctance to switch brands, and likelihood to recommend. – Temkin Group

74% of consumers have spent more due to good customer service. – American Express

Companies with a social care program experience a 7.5% year over year increase in customer retention, while those without only see a change of 2.9%. – Aberdeen

Satisfaction on customer journeys is 30% more predictive of overall customer satisfaction than measuring happiness for each individual interaction. – McKinsey

Customer expectations

76% of consumers say they view customer service as the true test of how much a company values them. – Aspect

Customers who encounter positive social customer care experiences are nearly 3 times more likely to recommend a brand. – Harvard Business Review

60% of UK consumers prefer a balance of price and service and will not accept low service levels in exchange for a lower priced product. – UKCSI

97% of global consumers say that customer service is very important or somewhat important in their choice of and loyalty to a brand. – Parature

60% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service now than they did just one year ago. – Parature

When purchasing online, 71% of visitors expect help within five minutes. – LivePerson

In a poll of enterprise contact centers, 82% view the customer experience as a competitive differentiator, and view accuracy and quality of information provided (82%), as well as ease of interaction (73%), as the most important attributes of a quality customer experience. – Deloitte

The future of customer experience

By 2017, 89% of businesses will compete mainly on customer experience. – Gartner

By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator for B2B. – Walker

Nearly 80% of contact centers say their current customer service systems won’t meet their future needs. – Dimension Data

By 2017, 50% of product investment projects will be redirected to customer experience innovations. – Gartner

Mobile customer experience

84% of companies who consider themselves customer-centric focus on mobile customer experience. – VisionCritical

52% of customers are less likely to engage with a company because of a bad mobile experience. – Think with Google

Incorrect display and difficult navigation are the highest sources (90%) of customer frustration for mobile experiences. – SoftwareAdvice

45% of companies offering web or mobile self-service reported an increase in site traffic and reduced phone inquiries. – CRM Magazine