Salesforce recently cited frightening new research about the growing impact of poor customer experiences on businesses. According to an Arizona State University study, customer rage has become all the rage, largely due to poor experiences with companies:
- 74% of customers experienced a service or product problem in the past year, with 63% feeling rage about the negative experience.
- The number of people seeking revenge for the bad experience has tripled in less than three years.
- 32% of these annoyed customers named and shamed the offending brands on social media, a 2x increase since 2020.
As expected, the business impact due to customer rage is significant, with the same survey estimating that businesses are risking $887 billion in future revenue due to mediocre complaint handling (up from $494 billion in 2020). When also factoring in the rapid growth of “revenge” on social media related to poor customer experiences—compared to just three years ago—companies must act now to get ahead of this trend. While we agree with Salesforce, and others, that generative AI is exciting and shows massive potential, we also implore business leaders to consider a more fundamental approach, especially when inventory is at the center of the customer experience.
Operations 360 Takes Center Stage With Customer 360
We’ve blogged about the power of reverse logistics (a.k.a. returns management) on Salesforce before and we’ll get to it again, in a moment. What we propose first, is business leaders think about how to utilize a new approach on Salesforce that benefits from both Customer 360 and Operations 360. The powerful combination of putting customers AND inventory at the center of a venn diagram is critically important for solving struggles related to poor customer experiences. Consider a few common challenges that can lead to customer dismay, and where they fall within the 360 arenas on Salesforce:
As you can see from these common use cases related to purchasing an item, the customer journey complexity often lies in the relationship between a business, customer and inventory. It’s difficult for companies to effectively manage the customer experience because it spans most departments, which leads to small problems growing over time (e.g. death by a thousand cuts) or large problems occurring rapidly, which ultimately leads to dismayed customers in any scenario. We agree that “digital empathy” which Salesforce describes is critical, however, it is only one part of a complete picture for a truly better customer experience.
Real World Example of Operations 360 + Customer 360
In closing, to improve the customer journey companies must invest in a better system to address the customer and operational aspects related to purchasing physical products. Salesforce is a uniquely positioned platform to address these challenges, especially when partner-driven applications like Ascent Solutions, that specialize in Operations 360, extend Salesforce Customer 360 for a complete view into customers, inventory, and companies.
Learn more about Ascent Solutions 100% native applications on Salesforce AppExchange or contact us today.
