Why do customers and business leaders diverge on client experience views?

Finextra

21 hours ago

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This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.
Customers aren't 'buying' companies' improved customer experience (CX) claims or promises, and company leaders aren't buying the value of spending more to delight the customer. At least not in large percentages on either side of the commerce spectrum, according to a recent global study.
When it comes to the leaders of the companies surveyed, responses to another question revealed a fundamental lack of understanding by many of them of the main purpose or definition of customer experience itself - prompting observers to ask: Do most business leaders even know what CX really is? How effectively current and future leaders respond to this question will likely determine how successful and mutually profitable a company - and its client relationships - will be.
Not just differences, but pronounced disconnects shown in survey results
There were substantial differences in viewpoints regarding client experience perceptions, effectiveness, and the importance (as judged by business leaders) of investing in and providing fulfilling experiences to their customers. These were just a few of the key findings that emerged from a recent survey by cloud consulting, digital engineering, and customer experience design firm Amdocs Studios. The company commissioned the outreach to almost 1,000 business leaders across 14 industries and 2,000 consumers in 14 countries in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North America to ask them a number of questions. All queries centred more or less around expectations and performance when it comes to client experience as detailed in the survey results, entitled 'CX20 Report: CX Without Illusions' and published a couple of months ago.
Of course, this isn't the first such survey or analysis of client experience attitudes, needs, and trends. In addition to, for example, Forrester's annual CX Index and report, a recent Finextra community article by Chris Brown noted just how important focusing on customer experience can be for regulated industries like financial services with constantly changing rules. Especially for 'digital-first' clients from Gen Z age groups and likely those to follow, Brown wrote that 'By modernising CX strategies with the right tools, financial service providers can strike the right balance between meeting complex compliance needs and delivering standout customer journeys.'
Digital transformation not really delivering for clients, with most AI tools yet unproven
This may be true. The problem is, client surveys don't yet bear out that people using companies' products across many industries – no matter what their generation – truly feel better served by the 'modern' technology and tools that have been introduced. That applies to both financial services companies and organisations in other fields. In fact, many of these studies show that today's digital, online customer experience is perceived to be getting demonstrably worse than it used to be in 'standard' non-electronic interactions and environments.
In financial services, early Gen AI applications, notably chatbots used as alternatives to speaking to a human for assistance or guidance, are appreciated by some and exasperate many others. Beyond such first-phase, often limited-scope and reduced-capability implementations of customer-facing AI technology, it's too soon to see how now-emerging Agentic AI solutions will fare in the marketplace. Agents are being tested and actively planned for rollout in many organisations. Their purpose in general is to supplant or aid humans to support many use cases and client interactions, ostensibly to enhance and extend traditional generative AI to enable 'autonomous decision-making, collaboration, and learning to revolutionise financial services.'
Gaps across the board, more like chasms between perceptions of same issues
As far as the Amdocs CX 20 report goes, it's not just about financial services, and in fact, Nikola Klacar, a senior researcher for the company, confirmed in an interview with Finextra that only around 10% of the company leaders it surveyed for the 2025 report were from the banking and financial services sector.
However, given the frequent client interactions required and how prominent financial matters are in nearly everyone's lives, the findings of the survey are nonetheless searingly instructive. Individually and collectively, they raise powerful questions about client experience myth vs. reality - in an ever-evolving financial marketplace and amid ever-increasing customer expectations.
The huge variances between group responses are the most fascinating part of the study. The CX20 framework narrowed down 20 gaps between companies and their customers into what they call five core 'experience gap' categories where differences found 'systematically undermine CX' of these relationships.
Perceptual: when companies and customers see the experience differently
Operational: Internal inefficiencies that negatively impact CX
Technological: Innovation that fails to drive real outcomes
Communication: Poorly managed touchpoints and messaging misalignment
Data: Missed opportunities to leverage insights for CX measurement and improvement.
To start with, the survey found that 80% of business leaders believe they're delivering a great customer experience, but only 24% of consumers responding agreed. This is puzzling, because while 92% of companies say CX is a "priority' and 88% say that positive client experience is critical to revenue growth, many of these same companies are clearly 'overlooking critical gaps that drive customers away.' Amdocs claims that this – per a 2024 study by Qualtrics - puts $3.8 trillion in sales at risk. Poor customer experiences, according to the same estimates, directly result in more than a third as much in annual business losses, and 'very poor CX' drives away hundreds of billions worth of customer revenues every year.
Companies aren't convinced on how to fix things, even if they say they agree on the why
It seems like the obvious solution – if it's judged to be so important to their revenue growth – is for companies to plan and invest to improve client experiences. Yet, astoundingly, of the same leaders asserting how vital a positive client experience is to their organisations' financial (and reputational) success, only 28% of them believe that CX is important to invest in.
We asked Klacar for an explanation of why there is a huge disconnect between survey responses on the same topic, and he ventured that it likely reflects a combination of factors that influence the views of company leaders, including real and recent experience. One survey question addressed this issue, with 63% of business leaders admitting 'they aren't realising meaningful outcomes' from digital transformation, while 43% asserted 'the benefits' of such efforts 'don't justify the investment' required.
'I think a lot of digital transformation that they engaged with before hasn't panned out the way they thought it would,' Klacar explained, going on to note that inconsistent or unclear metrics might be the culprit, or simply that 'some executives just haven't been seeing the impact' or return on investment (ROI) expected – or promised - from digital innovation initiatives.
There's also the problem of making assumptions, then making decisions based on those misapprehensions that exacerbate the problems of 'misplaced' or poorly designed new programs. 'Sometimes it just comes down to playing catch up, right? Let's say a company had a CX initiative. It didn't pan out. Now [company leaders] say, 'Let's quickly look to patch the problem with something else, and then just layer technology upon technology' or worse, they create siloes across the organisation to manage all the data, in different departments."
Klacar said, 'customers might think these are all internal issues, but they do see them,' and if the measures don't deliver as expected for those customers, don't actually help them operate more efficiently, then the battle for a better customer experience is lost. Along with it, perhaps confidence by company leaders that more 'tries' to fix the failings involved would be worthwhile.
Misunderstandings of fundamental concepts yield ineffective steps, inaction, unhappy clients
A big part of the problem, the survey report asserts, is that 'leaders still don't get' that customer experience is not just 'customer service' as imagined in the past. 30% of business respondents still defined CX that way, and 48% failed to recognise that the true definition of customer experience includes the sum total of 'all brand interactions' clients have with the company. Predictably, businesses continue to make decisions based on incorrect assumptions as well as a limited understanding of the problems or failings their customers are facing with their products, services, and performance.
With these telling findings exposed, it shouldn't be a surprise that most efforts to improve customer experience in an increasingly digital-forward world are treading water, at best. That signals an even bigger problem now and continuing into the future for customer retention and revenue growth, because another data point from the survey was that 85% of loyal customers will 'consider switching after repeated bad experiences' and further, that 54% of them may 'disengage' after 'just four or fewer' negative experiences with that company.
Companies say AI is 'crucial' to CX success - customers? Not so much
Many are now sounding calls and staking claims that new AI tools are the answer to solving the customer experience problem – for banks as well as other industries. Business leaders surveyed concurred: 85% of them agreed with the statement 'AI is crucial to CX success,' and more than two-thirds reported they are already using AI, with 27% planning to adopt AI tools and applications soon to improve their customer experience performance.
But the survey findings illuminated yet another major disconnect: consumers aren't buying those lofty predictions or promises. Only 33% of them who responded are 'excited about AI improving their experiences' and 36% are 'indifferent' or not really sold one way or the other. 30% are outright 'concerned' that AI will hurt, rather than help them have a better customer journey.
Loyalty, increased revenues reward companies that offer better customer experience
What's at stake for those who 'do customer experience' right? One question in the survey asked about the rewards to companies for providing a great customer experience. 50% of respondents said they'd 'switch brands for better CX, even if it costs more,' and 67% and 60%, respectively, said they'd 'spend more' or 'recommend brands' based on positive customer experiences they'd had.
On the flip side of this question's results, we wondered, is it true that only between 33% and 50% of customers are really concerned about customer experience – to the extent they'd either switch, spend, or refer others to a provider? Why is this cohort's 'bar' set so low for client experience expectations?
Klacar surmised that there were perhaps three key reasons for this. 'First, they may feel they have no other options,' to replace the product or service in question. Second, 'financially, it's a good deal' for them, so they're willing to look the other way and accept less-than-stellar client experience performance to keep those cost advantages in play. The other key factor is not a big surprise in the financial services world, especially. 'It's painful, difficult, and sometimes also costly to change' bank accounts and relationships, Klacar pointed out.
If companies think they have ample wiggle room to avoid investing money, time, or people in ratcheting up their customer experience efforts in meaningful ways, they might want to consider another finding from the survey: 80% of business leaders 'think they're delivering great CX' according to their responses, only 24% of customers surveyed agree, and 74% of them expect companies 'to be fully equipped to meet their needs,' yet are failing to do so.
'Satisficing' won't deliver wins, but improving CX, just might
Who's going to fix this huge gap between customer experience reality, expectations, and perceptions?
Klacar said it comes down to careful planning, continued commitment, and execution. Right now, he asserted, many companies are doing what he called 'satisficing' - or just finding short-term, 'patchwork' solutions that deliver experiences that are 'something between satisfying and satisfactory' to their customers. That won't suffice to bring long-term success to the client experience, nor preserve or grow company revenues. But improvements might start incrementally.
'It comes down to the executives in the company making decisions like 'we're going to eliminate the silos.' Everybody is going to implement these new procedures. It might come down to one department, showing what incremental gains [in customer experience] can really, really do' for the company as well. But ultimately, he concluded, 'It's everybody together, not just a single department or a single person making a choice,' but a company-wide culture change that's required.