McKinsey & Company has just published a new article in The McKinsey Quarterly about "Maintaining the Customer Experience" in which they make some very valid points.

In their report they state that as a result of challenges in the economy, consumer companies are “cutting back the service levels that customers have come to expect,” and as a result, “satisfaction scores are reversing.” McKinsey's research shows that the focus of senior executives on improving customer service is growing in importance but they advise executives in charge of customer experience to have the “courage” and “instinct to look for ways to self-fund customer experience improvements.” They suggests that companies find ways to “minimize wasteful spending while learning to invest in the drivers of customer satisfaction.” Much of the problem lies in over-investment in expensive technology, specifically without the ability to analyze what the problems really are according to the customer.

In summary, the McKinsey report suggests that in these tough economic times, “by managing the customer experience more rigorously, companies can maintain quality while still saving money,” that “finding these savings requires rigor in customer experience analytics,” and that savings can be reinvested in improvements to problem-resolution processes.

We completely agree.

And that's exactly what we do!