Customer Satisfaction Rates Continue To Decline in 2021: Here's Why

As we close out the first quarter of 2021, most remain hopeful for a return to normalcy and swift recovery after a year of economic uncertainty. However, with all of this optimism and emphasis on positive growth, we are still struggling to improve our continually decreasing customer satisfaction scores in the US.

After announcing that the 2020 fourth-quarter scores represented the lowest since 2005, we knew that customer satisfaction was on the decline, but the American Customer Satisfaction Index just announced another drop in satisfaction. This leaves satisfaction levels on the steepest decline documented in 15 years — with little indication why.

These consistent decreases represent a challenge, as the firm notes that increasing customer satisfaction shifts demand curves upward and, in turn, encourages spending and economic growth. A decline in satisfaction may have the opposite effect, which puts us in a difficult position after a year of economic insecurity. 

What’s interesting is, that while the prior report unpacked a few reasons for the decrease in satisfaction, ACSI’s latest report has less to say about the cause of this consistent decline. The firm outlines the usual suspects of inflation, unrealistic consumer expectations, and market concentration, but mostly debunks all of them.

While rising customer expectations are a common theme within the customer service landscape, ACSI notes that although expectations are often ranked higher than satisfaction indicators, the gap between expectations and satisfaction has remained constant. This is noteworthy because many consider heightened customer expectations to be incredibly influential in raising the current standards and metrics for success. 

But, it still does not seem productive to entirely discount rising expectations in our customer satisfaction scores, especially within digital channels. By actively working to meet or exceed customer expectations, companies should be able to effectively close this gap to improve satisfaction scores. If we are painting satisfaction as an all-encompassing measurement, there is likely more deviation when considering expectations on a digital channel versus a more established phone interaction — and understanding the difference may help to decrease the gap.

Other areas the firm identified, like market concentration, are also apparently not to blame with leading tech companies like Apple and Amazon consistently performing well on the satisfaction index. 

However, ASCI has suggested one cause relating to the presence of complex and improperly utilized consumer data. 

This is not entirely new; the last report outlined the issue of a consistent lack of cause-and-effect analysis stemming from an increased reliance on customer data patterns instead of causal data. By uncovering their customers’ true intent and underlying sentiment, companies can gain a greater understanding of the origins of these patterns to implement more precise and effective solutions.

The Q1 report furthers the idea by stating that companies have yet to perfect their methods of separating signals from noise in their customer data. It supports the concept by noting that our current customer data needs filtration to eliminate ‘data noise’. To better explain the root cause and effect of these patterns, ASCI recommends that companies upgrade their data analytics to turn data into genuine information.

Beyond identifying the ‘cause and effect’ behind our current data, it’s also worth including more qualitative assessments when collecting information. Customers are willing and able to provide a wealth of knowledge beyond just their points of interaction and strategic behaviors. In actually asking customers about their experience and satisfaction in a more open-ended format, companies can uncover opportunities for improvement they may never have recognized in structured data sets. 

Customer Satisfaction Remains Most Important 

These insights are critical and incredibly relevant as CCW’s latest market study found that customer satisfaction and first contact resolution rates remain the most important indicators for success in the majority of contact centers. If companies are so reliant on customer satisfaction scores, they must look to improve their data analytics strategies to increase these historically low rates. 

Additionally, 43% of companies say that their top priority for improving agent performance is leveraging better analytics. By gaining access to more comprehensive and thoughtful customer insights, agents will be better equipped to handle all interactions, improving the end-to-end experience. Also, with improved analytics companies can actively integrate more coaching and performance management opportunities as they gain a more direct line of sight into the obstacles agents are facing. 

On top of these improvements, a deeper understanding of customer analytics may also uncover hidden pain points in the digital customer experience. CCW Digital research found that messaging and chatbots are the lowest-rated channels in terms of customer satisfaction, therefore filtering through the abundance of data in these digital channels can improve these individual sources of declining satisfaction.

Ultimately, these findings indicate that although companies have access to a myriad of customer data, it’s not enough to simply identify commonalities — companies must be actively searching for intent within these intricate data points. In identifying the root cause of customer pain points and successes, companies can work to implement more effective solutions that actually solve the true problem to ensure long-term success.