There’s an almost never ending stream of reports talking about the dire state of customer experience. The 2025 Consumer Trends Report from Qualtrics doesn’t break the trend, predicting that a titanic $3.8 trillion dollars is at risk from bad customer experiences.
“We have found that the cost of bad experiences — so the amount of sales that companies across the entire world are putting at risk going into 2025 is — $3.8 trillion,” Isabelle Zdatny, XMP, CCXP, head of thought leadership, Qualtrics, XM Institute told CX Lore, the podcast of CXM.
“This is up from last year, where it was $3.7 trillion. [2022] was $3.1 trillion,” she added.The report released in October also highlighted that customers were more fickle and that the cost of bad experiences was on the rise.
Although the research found the percentage of customers reporting bad experiences did in fact drop year-on-year, that good news was offset by a 3% increase among consumers who would reduce or stop spending with an organisation following a bad experience.
Faced with a situation where customer loyalty is harder to win, and easier to lose, brands need to focus on building trust into every interaction with their client-base. “Trust is the unspoken theme underlying a lot of issues. As we head into 2025, consumers are placing a premium on trust,” explained Zdatny.
“The number one cause of bad experiences was communications.”Isabelle Zdatny, XMP, CCXP, head of thought leadership, Qualtrics, XM Institute
The biggest challenge facing most organisations looking to build trust is communication. Clear, reliable, transparent communications are ‘basic table stakes’ for good, lasting relationships with customers. But a lot of organisations are getting it wrong.
“The number one cause of bad experiences was communications… Companies aren’t delivering that,” she added.
Building trust with customers is vital for brands if they are to fulfil demand for greater personalised services. That throws up its own challenges. Consumers may demand personalised services, yet they don’t want to sacrifice their privacy.
According to the report, two thirds of customers want to buy from companies who tailor their experiences to their needs, but over half are ‘highly concerned’ about privacy and personal information.
“This leaves companies walking a very hard tightrope,” said Zdatny.Only 45% of consumers said that they felt comfortable with companies using their purchase history to personalise their services. “This stems from a lack of trust. I think we need to prioritise transparency and control,” added Zdatny.
“[It] is not just that consumers are providing less feedback to companies. We found that they’re just sharing less feedback.”Isabelle Zdatny, XMP, CCXP, head of thought leadership, Qualtrics, XM Institute
Planning further CX strategies could be about to get a lot harder, if the fall in customer feedback continues. Over the four years, the report has been compiled it has recorded an annual, year-on-year drop in feedback. This year, feedback after a bad customer experience tumbled by an unprecedented 8%.
It’s not just the well-documented drop in survey responses. Fewer consumers are posting comments, reviews, or making recommendations.
“Fewer consumers are posting about it on social media or third party review sites, which in theory companies could scrape for unstructured data,” she added.
The drop in feedback is partially blamed on a lack of trust between brands and consumers. If customers don’t think their feedback makes any difference, they’re less likely to share it.
“It’s a reflection of that erosion of trust,” explained Zdatny.
To find out what else Zdatny had to say on consumer trends, messy data, consumer privacy and CX leadership click here and listen to the full podcast.