Survey Says: Current Budgets are a Barrier to CX Programme Development
By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)
‘We’re in the money, We’re in the money; We’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along!’ sang the cast of the musical 42nd Street. But based on the recently released results of the 2015 Global Customer Support Outlook Survey, that’s not exactly the tune most customer experience professionals are singing today.
Survey participants were asked to share whether their 2015 customer support budgets had increased, decreased or remained the same. In EMEA, 35% reported increases and 38% said their organisation was maintaining the same budget. Responses from participants in the Americas show that 28% had budgets that increased while 44% had a budget remaining the same in 2015 (see charts below).
On the surface it sounds positive that a majority of respondents report having a budget to work with this year that is the same or larger than last year. However, when asked to identify the barriers affecting their customer experience programmes, 52% of EMEA participants and 45% of Americas participants cited Lack of budget (or dedicated budget) – the biggest barrier for EMEA and the second most identified obstacle for the Americas (see charts below).
These eye-opening statistics indicate that there is a disconnect between organisations’ customer support goals and the budgets they have dedicated to developing and implementing customer experience programmes. This suggests that current budgets, even if they aren’t decreasing, simply aren’t enough for customer support professionals to successfully meet the growing demand from customers for omnichannel engagement and support.
This goes hand-in-hand with Communicating the strategic importance within the organisation, the second most identified obstacle for EMEA (50%) and the top barrier for the Americas (46%) when it comes to customer experience programme development. Customer experience professionals must tackle the task of educating company executives and leaders on omnichannel engagement to secure the necessary budget and technology to support customers, build loyalty and, ultimately, generate revenue.
For a complete look at the 2015 Global Customer Support Survey results, download a copy of the full report here.
