40 Customer engagement statistics you should know in 2024

What is customer engagement and customer experience?

A wise man once said, “The journey is the destination.” 

It’s doubtful that whoever first uttered this phrase had customer service in mind, but we find it to be perfectly applicable regarding the customer experience (CX). Consumers often value their path to a purchase as much as they value the actual purchase itself.

CX refers to a customer's comprehensive relationship with a brand from the beginning until the end. CX encompasses every touchpoint a customer has with a business, from the initial consideration to post-purchase support. Many customers consider CX the most critical factor in their purchasing decisions. More on that below.

In comparison to CX, customer engagement is primarily concerned with the communication between the customer and the brand. It includes customer service, loyalty programs, and feedback that encourage a customer to participate actively with the brand. Essentially, customer engagement is a component of CX; it’s slightly narrower in scope, specifically focusing on the communication aspects.

Why do customer engagement and customer experience matter?

Simply put, CX should be important to your customers because it’s important. Almost three-quarters of consumers say that CX is a significant factor in their buying decisions.

A well-employed CX strategy can increase loyalty, and brand differentiation, and reduce customer support costs. Personalization is another key component of CX and can lead to higher conversion rates by engaging consumers with communication that’s relevant to their individual preferences.

What are some major customer engagement components?

Many factors tie into providing efficient customer engagement and experience strategies. Let’s look at a few of them:

Customer service: The quality and responsiveness of customer service play a crucial role in CX. Facilitating a well-rounded support system increasingly involves providing AI-based customer service software to deflect more immediate and routine inquiries while offering human agents to handle more complex requests. Proper training of AI and real-world reps is key in fostering cohesive and accurate responses across all channels.

User experience (UX): The design and usability of your product, service, or website significantly impact the overall customer experience. Continuously solicit and analyze user feedback to better recognize areas in which you can improve. Providing a sound UX can substantially impact the probability of future purchases.

Personalization: Customizing CX involves tailoring your communication to each individual user based on their preferences and behaviors. Well-executed personalization can increase customer loyalty and retention by strengthening your relationship with unique users. As you’ll see below, consumers are beginning to emphasise customisation more, and employing it successfully can make or break your CX strategy. 

Post-purchase interactions: Ensuring a positive experience after the purchase includes follow-up communication and ongoing support. Reach out to customers to verify they’re satisfied with their purchase, and if they’re not, take steps to rectify the issue. You can also utilize customer segmentation to send them future recommendations or offers based on the products or services they’ve bought.

How can these statistics improve your business?

Data insights are always helpful in fine-tuning business procedures and allow for a better understanding of your consumers. We’ve done the hard part for you by gathering all the customer experience statistics – all that’s left for you to do is analyze them and determine how they relate to your unique business needs.

For instance, you’ll find that 72% of customers will ONLY interact with personalized communication. Knowing this, you’ll likely want to use customer segmentation to send different messages to distinct groups of customers based on their preferences, purchase history, and past interactions. Employing AI’s proactive analysis abilities can also be useful here, as it examines data insights to identify when specific users may require assistance before they actually do.

40 customer engagement statistics you should know in 2024

Customer experience (CX) focused stats

86% of customers are open to paying more for a great customer experience. Premium services and products are directly tied to premium support; consumers anticipate a high-end experience in all facets from beginning to end.

73% of customers say CX is their top consideration when deciding whether to purchase from a company. A satisfactory experience takes precedence over other facets such as pricing and advertising, in the minds of most consumers – businesses should apportion their resources accordingly. 

After just two poor experiences, 86% of consumers will opt for a competitor. This stat showcases the need for businesses to constantly monitor feedback and ensure that all representatives are sufficiently trained. If you don’t, customers will seek out a brand that will. 

72% of customers will share a positive CX with six or more people, whereas 13% of unsatisfied customers will share a negative experience with 15 or more people. The most efficient form of advertising is word-of-mouth, meaning that a solid CX strategy can play a significant role in your business’s promotional efforts as well. On the other hand, a poor CX blueprint can result in customers avoiding your products or services altogether.

Companies that offer a satisfactory CX rake in 5.7x more revenue than competitors that don’t. This direct correlation between CX and increased revenue is unsurprising, as customers have routinely indicated that experience is the most important factor in purchasing decisions.

40% of customers’ future buying choices are influenced by their current CX with your business. Future customer retention begins with your efforts today, and customer experience plays a major role in those efforts. You may notice a trend in how a continuous investment in superior CX results in significant gains for other business areas.

Customers who were satisfied with past CX increased spending by 140% over those who had negative interactions. Positive CX is intricately tied to brand loyalty, and customers who are loyal will almost always spend more with you. Consistency is crucial here, as the stats show that just one or two negative experiences can cancel out a lifetime of positive interactions.

US businesses miss out on an estimated $35.3 billion annually of customer churn caused by negative CX issues. That’s a lot of money that’s not only being lost by your company but being gained by your competitors. Constantly analyze your competition’s CX to ensure your support remains at the top of the market.

Customer expectation stats

55% of customers anticipate improvements in a business’s CX year-on-year. If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward and it would appear this mantra remains true when applied to customer experience. Invest proper resources and continue educating your staff to ensure your CX is constantly improving.

46% of customers will switch to competitors if employees can’t properly resolve their issues. Sufficient training of your support representatives is critical in ensuring that consumers’ inquiries are answered accurately and receive cohesive responses. In addition to onboarding training, provide continuous education on new products or services and a comprehensive knowledge base with all relevant organizational information.

Customers are 2-4x more likely to remain loyal to a brand when their issues are resolved quickly. Retaining customers is much more cost-effective than recruiting new ones, highlighting how properly executed CX can ultimately pay for itself. Increased brand loyalty can also result in positive online reviews and word-of-mouth exposure, which can significantly attract new customers.

Personalization is paramount: 63% of customers expect businesses to be be familiar with their unique needs and preferences. This attests to the need for a cohesive, well-integrated system that shares customer data across all platforms. With the relevant information, support agents can access purchase history and past interactions to customize communication and meet the expectations of each unique customer. 

84% of customers share that their expectations weren’t exceeded in their last communication with customer service. Since customers have indicated that CX is one of the biggest factors concerning brand loyalty, allocating resources to improve your CX can provide a major advantage over competitors who aren’t doing the same.

86% of customers expect easy-to-use communication options across multiple platforms. Simply put, “meet your customers where they are.” A sound multi-channel strategy should utilize data insights to discover your customer base's most commonly used platforms. Popular channels include email, social media, live chat, and more.

Customers who call in for issue resolution report the interaction taking longer than anticipated 75% of the time. Voice calling is optimal for handling personalized and complex issues, but has room for improvement when it comes to speed and efficiency. This can be achieved by hiring additional representatives or providing better training to resolve issues faster. 

Specialized treatment is expected for 48% of consumers who consider themselves to be “good customers.” For example, banking customers often expect overdrafts and late fees to be waived if they do a significant amount of business with the institution. Forgiving trivial fees and providing special perks usually pay for themselves when dealing with customers who frequently utilize your services.

AI stats and personalized experiences

Among retail organizations, 63% have utilized AI to improve customer support. Chatbots and virtual assistants are able to help consumers check for order updates, provide basic troubleshooting, and offer personalized recommendations. The number of organizations adopting AI-driven support has grown exponentially over the past few years, and we anticipate this trend will continue. 

Just 18% of customers report being “very confident” that they can differentiate AI from human support. AI customer service is constantly utilizing machine learning (ML) to improve past interactions and better simulate human-like conversation. The idea that, now, few users can distinguish AI from real-world agents demonstrates ML's efficiency and offers tremendous promise for the future.

AI increases customer satisfaction scores by an average of 12%. In its infancy, many customers dreaded interacting with AI-powered support, but it would appear that’s no longer the case. With improvements in its technology and increased acceptance by the general public, customers now appreciate the opportunity to engage with AI before escalating to a human representative.

73% of customers think that AI can positively impact CX. AI working with real-world agents can provide a robust support infrastructure that offers efficiency, accuracy, and personalization to improve customer satisfaction. The option to direct basic inquiries toward AI while escalating more nuanced requests to human reps gives customers options, which is never a bad thing

AI’s predictive analysis abilities can result in a 20% increase in customer satisfaction. Predictive analysis involves examining past purchases, interaction history, and preferences to offer support to customers before they reach out for assistance. The ever-improving proactive nature of AI helpdesk has been a critical development for businesses over the past few years.

By 2025, AI is anticipated to handle 95% of all CX. Constantly evolving through machine learning, AI is growing and will continue to grow to be able to answer increasingly complex questions and recognize emotions to better tailor its responses. By next year, there will be only a small number of tasks that AI-driven CX is incapable of carrying out.

81% of customers prefer self-service options before escalating to a real-world agent. Customers have grown to expect companies to offer AI support and are often disappointed when they don’t. Self-service options allow customers to find answers to their inquiries quickly before spending additional time interacting with a representative.

57% of all businesses say that personalizing CX is their top reason for adopting AI. Customization is largely built around knowledge bases, essentially digital libraries containing your company’s unique information. AI will utilize your knowledge base to respond quickly and accurately to various queries. Personalization has proven paramount for customers, and thus, is paramount to your business. 

Statistics surrounding company data gathering and how it impacts customer engagement strategies

Survey response rates can exceed 85% when potential respondents are motivated and the survey is well-executed. As the average response rate for email surveys is only 24.8%, properly segmenting and putting maximum effort into your survey strategy can make all the difference. 

52% of marketers adjust their strategies based on customer feedback. Experienced marketers listen to their customers and analyzing feedback is one of the best methods for discovering what’s important to your base. 

When businesses seek out and apply feedback, 77% of customers view them more positively. Two birds, one stone: data gained from feedback is a valuable tool in adjusting your strategies and also improves perception among your customers. Even if you don’t necessarily receive a large number of responses, the mere fact that you asked for it can be beneficial.

85% of customers offer feedback after a positive experience and 81% provide it after a negative one. The numbers drop significantly for consumers who report an average interaction (48%), so you’ll learn the most from experiences that garnered an emotional response, either good or bad.

94% of service leaders say real-time insights are important in meeting customer expectations. This can include examining website analytics, mapping customer journeys, and studying transaction data. Utilizing these metrics, businesses can better understand which values are important to their base and which channels they prefer to connect on.

62% of B2B businesses and 42% of B2C companies to place an emphasis on collecting customer feedback. These numbers seem relatively low compared to the value that feedback offers, signifying that there's a significant opportunity for your business to rise above the competition in this arena. 

81% of customers ages 65+ will give feedback after purchase when asked, whereas 72-76% of younger customers will provide it. That’s a high percentage of your customer base willing to provide their thoughts for free – all you have to do is ask!

Surveys are one of the most popular methods companies use to obtain data insights – 68% utilize them to better understand their customers. Ensure your surveys are relevant to the areas for which you're seeking additional data and optimize them to appeal to the segmented groups you're distributing them to.

Strictly personalization stats around customer interactions

76% of customers are more likely to purchase from businesses that customize CX. Personalizing customer experience can increase brand loyalty and alert customers to special offers and new products that are more likely to appeal to them. This can be achieved by employing data insights and customer segmentation strategies to increase the probability of conversion.

60% of millennials don’t mind sharing personal information to receive customized offers and messages. Younger consumers believe that revealing personal data is a fair trade in order to receive communications tailored to their preferences. It’s essential to be transparent here and obtain explicit permission before gathering customers’ personal data.

Providing a customized experience is considered a challenge by 63% of marketers. Identifying trends in your customer base as a whole is a well-established practice, but it’s proven more difficult to recognize tendencies in each unique consumer. Employing a sound personalization strategy should involve data analysis, customer outreach, and AI utilization.

Effective personalization can lower acquisition costs by up to 50% and increase revenue by 5 to 15%. Customers who feel their CX is customized to meet their needs tend to stick with your company longer and make more purchases. This decrease in expenses and increase in revenue results in a more desirable bottom line, sure to make your business’s experience more enjoyable as well!

72% of customers will only interact with personalized messaging. This number is shockingly high and shows that you’re missing out on a significant number of connections if you’re employing a one-size-fits-all CX strategy. 

When businesses understand how specific consumers are using their products or services, customers are 70% more likely to purchase. Recognizing how customers are utilizing your offerings can lead to more specialized communications concerning other goods that may be complementary to what they’ve already bought. 

Non-personalized CX frustrates 76% of customers. As we established earlier, it only takes two negative support interactions for the vast majority of consumers to switch to a competitor. Frustrated customers are unhappy customers – optimize your personalization strategy before your competitors do!

60% of customers are open to becoming repeat buyers after a personalized CX. This statistic strengthens the argument that CX is among the most important considerations for customer retention.

What to pull from these statistics?

We know – that’s a lot to unpack.

To sum things up, some of the major takeaways from these customer experience statistics are that consumers are willing to pay more for a better CX, increasingly enjoy interacting with AI-powered support, and value personalization more than you probably think. Analyzing data and requesting feedback is also crucial; when you begin to understand what your customers want, you can start taking the steps to give it to them. An initial investment in providing a unique and satisfactory CX will eventually come back to you tenfold in increased revenue, lower operational costs, and improved customer retention.

Here are a few trends that we can pull away from this:

• Omnichannel customer engagement is continuing to grow as a way of driving customer engagement.

• Customer engagement metrics are continuing to be key indicators for satisfying customer needs, building customer relationships, and generally being a more “customer-centric” company.

• Customer engagement metrics continue to be leading indicators of revenue growth, driving loyal customers, and impacting business KPIs like LTV (lifetime value) and customer churn.

• Personalized experiences (whether AI or not) continue to drive more fully engaged customers during service requests. And in turn, resolve more issues.

Freshworks’ Freshdesk Omni Freshdesk is your one-stop shop for everything you need to provide your base with an exemplary customer experience.