Making life easy is one of the biggest factors driving customer experience

Most of us wish life was more straightforward, according to research by Ipsos Global Trends, with 60pc of us craving simplicity.

The pandemic has super-charged this need, with customers now expecting everything to be simple, digital and personalised, says Aimie Chapple, Chief Executive officer at Capita Experience.

Chapple says: “Every organisation is trying to interact with their customers in so many different ways, we are having to think about how to make all of those interactions seamless. You are no longer competing with the experiences you have in your own industry. People have also been comparing their [personal] experiences with their bank, local shop or church during the pandemic.”

Chapple says that two years of doing many things digitally has led consumers to expect that sort of simplicity in their dealings with providers.

Capita identified ease as one of the key pillars of customer experience in its CX Index, which offers a standardised benchmark of customer experience, based on interviews with 3,000 customers.

The CX Index research suggests that customers need to feel confident that organisations can not only resolve their issues, but that it should be a seamless experience.

Overall, providers are falling below on expectation of delivering on this pillar, Capita’s research showed, with just 31pc of all customers agreeing that their providers make things easy for them.

That figure is higher in the financial services and telecoms sectors, where 33pc agree, and lower in utilities, where 27pc agree.

Just one quarter of customers (25pc) feel that their providers are delivering a seamless experience, dropping to just 21pc in the utilities sector.

Customer effort is an increasingly important measure for companies, says Jamie Thorpe, Head of Experience Management at IPSOS, who carried out the research.

Thorpe says: “People want frictionless experiences, we see it in everything from cashless environments, Amazon’s ‘just-go-in-and-pick-up-what-you-want-and-walk-out type’ stores. That’s what everyone’s trying to get: to keep it simple, keep it frictionless, because the more effort a customer has to put in, the more touch points there are around which they can potentially just decide to go another route. So ease of effort is really on the up. It’s on the increase, massively.”

Just 25pc of customers feel it is clear what to expect when dealing with their provider, Capita’s research shows.

Providers need to ensure that customers feel heard, Thorpe says.

Tech for good

Capita is a consulting, transformation and digital services business. Every day 55,000 colleagues help millions of people, by delivering innovative solutions to transform and simplify the connections between government and citizens, businesses and customers.

Capita has partnered with Telegraph Media Group to help tell the story of how it works with its clients to provide the insight and cutting-edge technologies that give time back, allowing them to focus on what they do best, and making people’s lives easier and simpler.

For more information, visit capita.com or download the full CX Index report.