NZ Small Business Missing Out

Media release

NZ Small Business Missing Out

A new unique online customer experience development program is taking off internationally but has had slow uptake from New Zealand business.

Program creator Christchurch based Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences Ltd is both excited and disappointed. Bell said he created the 7 step program that allows a small business to develop a quality customer experience mainly to give SMEs an affordable opportunity to develop their quality customer service experience.

Small businesses have just as much need to develop their customer experience as larger organisations but in many cases can not afford to work with us directly so the alternative was to come up with an affordable option that was specifically tailored for smaller business and includes our support as a business works through the program.

Bell said he has been working with businesses in retail, tourism and hospitality in Europe, United States and China catching up via Skype, email and our LIVE Chat communication options.

A lack of a long-term commitment to the development of a consistently delivered quality customer experience is the number one reason customer loyalty is on the decline, employee disengagement is increasing and productivity in NZ is amongst the lowest in the OECD according to Chris Bell

The development of a customer experience plan is still relatively new to NZ business. Bell thinks this is part of the reason for the slow uptake. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek survey revealed that “delivering a great customer experience” has become the new imperative: 80% of the companies polled rated customer experience as a top strategic objective.

These are some very enlightening new statistics from recent research by Oracle in their 2012 CX Index Report
• 70% of shoppers have stopped buying goods or services from a company after experiencing poor customer service.
• 64% have made future purchases from a company’s competitors after experiencing poor customer service.
• 81% are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
Every business delivers a customer experience everyday to every customer the question is- how good is it? What is it doing for the business? how is it making customers feel? and is it contributing to business growth through increased customer loyalty and word of mouth referrals or is it adding cost through increased marketing and recruitment costs as a result of customer and staff turnover and damaging negative word of mouth?.

A recent iStart- Microsoft survey found that 80 percent of us have taken our business elsewhere because of bad experiences and a third using social media to vent their frustration.

And from the same survey 80 percent of business leaders surveyed believe that NZ business had an average to poor approach to customer satisfaction.

Interested businesses can view the program at www.customerexperiences.co.nz

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