The Shocking Failure Rate of Customer Experience Programs: Why Do They Fail?

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Alex Selwitz

April 28, 2023

Can you believe that customer experience programs have a failure rate of over 60%? Sometimes this is due to poor implementation or improper training — however, the reason could be something entirely different.

Whatever the reason is, many businesses fall into the pattern of failure in their customer experience programs. This is the case regardless of how well-intentioned the programs were in the first place. The result is lost customers, lowered morale, and reduced business revenue.

If you’re looking to avoid becoming part of that statistic, this guide is for you. We’ll go over the 8 reasons why good customer experience programs fail, as well as different ways to prevent it.

1. They don’t adapt to change and innovation

Any business’s customer experience programs should be about making intelligent changes for their client’s benefit. As a business owner, you must understand that change is constant, and it also applies to your customer experience programs.

Their decisions and preferences are dynamic, and your programs must be able to adapt to their changing wants and necessities. The easiest way to do this is with continuous customer research — such as surveys, focus groups, and customer feedback. Gathering feedback helps businesses identify potential areas for improvement in their CX programs.

Additionally, over time, you must do things differently and keep everything fresh and new to your customers. You can use the data from customer research to identify trends and tweak your customer experience programs to better satisfy customers and meet their expectations.

In order to adapt to change, you need to invest in technology: new tools for data analysis, customer relationship management, and customer feedback management. They help you gather, analyze, and implement data needed for constant change.

Finally, it’s important to establish a culture of innovation within your workplace. Encourage new ideas from employees and stay open to new approaches for your CX plan. This helps create an adaptable environment that’s flexible and able to make timely improvements.

2. They don’t have enough purpose

CX programs will never be successful if you don’t know their exact purpose. The program must be well-designed and aligned with your business goals and vision.

The easiest way to ensure your customer experience program has a purpose is to sit down and identify the specific outcomes you want to achieve. This could be improving customer satisfaction or increasing customer retention. From there, you’ll be able to clearly define goals and focus the project to ensure you achieve those outcomes.

Remember that CX programs must have adaptive and well-structured leadership:

Empowerment: the program leaders must have full authority for their success. This means providing the necessary resources, such as budget and personnel, to ensure that the program can be successful.
Ownership: there should be a straightforward program owner who is responsible for its success and quality.
Expertise: the chosen program leader must be knowledgeable with the right research methods, strategies, and analytics.
Adaptation: CX programs need to be reviewed and up-to-date with customer preferences and changing market trends to be relevant and useful to clients.

Always remember that CX programs are created to make your business more valuable for your clients. Re-invent your program as needed, and work with your clients in mind.

3. There’s not enough collaboration

Lack of cross-functional collaboration leads to wasted resources — reducing the program’s effectiveness and consistency.

The lack of collaboration stems from misaligned leadership and insufficient cross-departmental accountability. Business units that operate separately also contribute to the lack of cooperation, which can fail the entire customer experience program.

To ensure collaboration, team leaders can set up team-building events. Practicing working together helps foster strong relationships and good communication that translates into better teamwork in the CX program.

Additionally, team leaders can implement tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Suite — that will make communication and collaboration easier among teammates and help them meet deadlines.

4. Business leaders aren’t fully supported

To ensure the success of customer experience programs, unambiguous leadership is essential. While the efforts of multiple individuals are crucial, without a single entity leading all processes, the program is likely to fail.

Business leaders must be fully aware of their roles in the program, and team members must support them. They can do this by sharing their individual technical knowledge with other team members to foster learning and improve teamwork.

Additionally, the team leader must be responsible for reinforcing and sponsoring the team’s holistic efforts. They should encourage collaboration and communication among team members and ensure that each of them understands their role in achieving the team's objectives.

More importantly, functional leaders must communicate with each other to integrate proper CX strategies. Upskilling is essential — it promotes continuous learning to increase productivity and your business’s innovation. Additionally, it helps open new opportunities and challenges that can benefit your business.

5. Employee adoption isn’t encouraged

Most customer experience programs fail because companies don’t boost their employee adoption. When your programs rely on technology, it’s even more critical to upskill your employees to ensure they are comfortable with your innovations.

Part of upskilling employees involves hands-on training sessions for employees. Workshops and demonstrations also help employees understand the new CX program and ensure they are fully equipped to implement it.

It’s normal that some employees fear technology — especially those who belong to the older generation. To prevent this issue, business owners can offer incentives to employees who adopt the technology, such as performance bonuses, to help improve customer support and attract clients.

Additionally, business leaders can provide additional support to employees —extra training sessions or one-on-ones — to make employee adoption easy and straightforward.

6. Businesses forget to listen to customers

CX programs often fail because businesses neglect to actively listen to their customers both before and after the purchase. Although some companies successfully attract customers to their brands and products, they often don’t prioritize ongoing customer engagement and support, leaving them feeling forgotten and underserved.

To prevent this, program owners can send out feedback forms to learn how customers are responding to their new customer experience programs. From there, they’ll need to make adjustments and tweaks to their program to ensure it’s meeting customer expectations and improving operations.

Listening and monitoring your customers drives better interactions, allowing your brand to create deeper connections with your clients — which can be good for the bigger picture. Listening to your clients helps them to rely on your business and make return purchases.

7. They don’t tie into business value

While it’s common for customer experience programs to have their own metrics and KPIs, you should remember to tie them into your brand’s business value — that helps with company-wide adoption, gives you a clearer view of what your customers need, and enables you to determine priorities based on client demands.

For example, a solid CX program should measure eCommerce fulfillment performance such as on-time delivery, order accuracy, and returns rate.

Analyzing these metrics helps identify areas for improvement and provides insights to improve the customer experience. By incorporating fulfillment into CX programs, businesses can create a positive experience for customers, build trust, and ultimately drive customer loyalty and repeat business.

8. The programs are implemented too slowly

No matter how innovative customer experience programs are, they are useless if they’re implemented too slowly. These programs should be your companions in driving more sales and attracting more clients — but you must act fast in order to stay ahead of competitors.

It’s important to note that many programs aren’t well-planned: sometimes small tasks don’t get completed, leading the project to fall behind. The easiest way to avoid this pitfall is to create a detailed plan which breaks down the implementation into small, manageable tasks and sets clear deadlines and goals to keep the project moving.

Additionally, the lack of momentum can discourage potential buyers from trying out your brand and establishing trust. CX programs must be quickly implemented to engage customers, making them feel more confident in repurchasing from your brand — which can be good for your brand’s image.

How to Avoid Becoming a Part of the 60%: Preventing Customer Experience Program Failures

Far too many businesses fall into pitfalls that lead to failed CX programs. However, there are a few ways to avoid your customer experience programs crashing and burning.

Making your plan adaptable to change, constantly innovating, clearly defining your purpose and moving forward, and fostering strong inter-team collaboration are just a few of the ways you can ensure your CX program succeeds.

Keep these reasons why CX programs fail in mind and look for ways to avoid them happening to you. Doing so is what will keep your business moving forward and ensure positive outcomes from your CX program.

Blog Author

Alex Selwitz is the Director of SEO for Red Stag Fulfillment, an eCommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of eCommerce. He has years of experience in eCommerce and digital marketing. In his free time, Alex enjoys playing guitar and learning about new trends in the digital world.

The Shocking Failure Rate of Customer Experience Programs: Why Do They Fail?

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