Rackspace Technology, a leading end-to-end multicloud technology solutions company, announced the results of a global survey revealing that, in addition to allowing products and services to stand out, modernizing technology and applications to improve customer experiences drives real-world, bottom-line benefits.
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According to the survey, How Applications Impact Customer Experience, organizations that adopt an “experience-led” focus enjoy 1.6x higher brand awareness, 1.5x more employee satisfaction and nearly double their rates of customer retention, repeat purchases, average order values and customer l******* value. The research underscores the impact that modernizing applications to provide better CX can have on competitiveness and growth.
The global survey included 1400+ respondents in IT and non-IT business units, from companies with $300M annual earnings revenue and above, including both decision makers and application users. The results overwhelmingly confirm that CX is a main strategic priority (48%), ahead of IT security, compliance (45%) and IT strategy (41%), and that technology is the key to driving CX. Over half (55%) of survey respondents credit applications with enhancing customer experiences. Moreover, almost all organizations surveyed understand the importance of customer experiences, with 94% reporting that some form of user experience initiative is underway within their organization. Only a small percentage (6%) report having no customer experiences strategies or initiatives in place.
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“The results of our survey are further evidence that modernizing applications through a user lens is not just a ‘nice to have’ from a customer satisfaction perspective, but also delivers a wealth of tangible, quantifiable benefits to organizations,” said Jeff DeVerter, CTO, Rackspace Technology. “Applications are a foundation of customer experiences, and it is encouraging to see an increased focused on and rising enthusiasm for customer experiences improvements.”
Applications and Customer Experience
Applications play a key role in customer experiences, providing mobile accessibility, simplifying application submission, processing customer data, and delivering immersive experiences. Over half (55%) of survey respondents credit applications with enhancing customer experiences. Additional areas of significant benefit include providing more availability to services (48%), security (45%), engagement with products and services (41%), and process improvement (39%).
A large majority (88%) of respondents believe that non-technical C-suite executives recognize the bottom-line benefits of applications, and 90% report that senior management has a better understanding of the benefits of applications in their business than they did just five years ago. As expected, CIOs (55%) and CTOs (53%) are ranked as the most aware of technology benefits. However, CEOs rank close to CIOs and CTOs at 49%, with a noticeable drop off across the rest of the C-suite.
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With this high level of awareness among the C-suite, technology is taking the driver’s seat in corporate strategy in many ways. Six out of ten (63%) respondents are using technology to drive automation efficiencies and over half (51%) are using it to drive IoT and cloud native initiatives. While both categories have an indirect impact on customer experiences, technology initiatives focused on real-time data analysis (44%) and customer engagement (30%) have a more direct impact on building and refining customer interactions.
Barriers to Application Technology Adoption
Although the survey results point to a heightened focus on the use of applications to enhance customer experiences, organizations still face a number of barriers to application technology adoption, including:
- Fear of negatively impacting existing customer experiences (28%)
- Legacy IT systems (26%)
- Limited budget (24%)
- Lack of staff with the appropriate skill sets (22%)
- Lack of expertise to lead transformation activities (18%)
- Cultural resistance to change (16%)
- Lack of buy-in to digital transformation strategy (16%)
- Lack of support from leadership (13%)
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