FICO World Survey: The Customer Experience

The theme of our final FICO World 2013 survey was “The Customer Experience,” which aligns with the overall theme of this year’s conference – “Big Data Analytics and the Customer Revolution.”

Our first question in the survey was “What percentage of your customers do you believe are willing to share more information in exchange for a more personalized experience?”

Based on the answers we received, it looks like a lot of customers are willing to trade information for service. The top answer was “approximately half,” which was given by 48 percent of our respondents. That was followed by “approximately three-quarters” (29 percent), “approximately one-quarter” (17 percent), “close to 100 percent” (3 percent) and “close to 0 percent” (3 percent).

Our second question was “How important is improving the customer experience at your company?”

It turns out that improving the customer experience is VERY important to almost all our respondents.  Over 90 percent of the folks we surveyed said improving the customer experience is either a “high priority” (49 percent) or the “top priority” (43 percent).  Far behind those answers were “no more or less important than in prior years” (8 percent) and “it’s not a priority for us this year” (less than 1 percent)

Our final question was aimed at the many bank executives and technologists who attend FICO World. We asked “What do you believe is the top reason why customers switch banks?”

The most common answer was “unhappy with current bank's service” (71 percent), followed by “better pricing” (20 percent). Less popular answers were “convenience” (6 percent), “bank reputation tarnished” (2 percent) and “victimized by fraud” (1 percent).

Overall, I found this to be an extremely interesting set of questions and answers. Despite the highly publicized concerns about data privacy voiced by various stakeholders and organizations, 80 percent of our respondents believe that more than 50 percent of their customers are willing to volunteer more information in exchange for a more personalized level of service.

And our second question appears to show that business people recognize the growing customer demand for better service. It’s hard to get 92 percent of any survey respondents to agree on almost anything, but that’s how many of our respondents agree that improving the customer experience is important for their companies.

Even our last question, despite being industry-specific, found that poor service is thought to be more than 3 times as likely as high prices to cause the loss of a customer.

Although this survey is only one data point in a very large discussion about the customer experience, findings like these are why we are focusing so much of our energy on applying predictive analytics to help companies improve the customer experience. We want our clients to able to deliver timelier, more relevant and more personalized service that reduces customer churn, increases loyalty, and drives profitability.