• by Ray Schultz , September 24, 2019

Content personalization is one of the two most effective tactics in improving the customer experience, according to Strategies, Tactics And Trends For Customer Experience, a study released on Tuesday by Ascend2.

Of the companies surveyed, 45% see personalization as a boon, compared with 57% who list customer feedback collection. Social media engagement comes in third, at 38%, and fourth is customer journey mapping, with 28%.

In addition, 28% cite brand-building campaigns, 27% cite loyalty/rewards programs and 21% cite marketing technology/AI. 

And whatever their tactics, companies are achieving a great deal with their customer experience programs, with 51% saying they are best-in-class and 47% indicating that they are somewhat successful. Only 2% are failing at it.

And customer experience budgets are going up, moderately for 71% and significantly for 15%. Only 15% foresee decreases, 3% significant ones.

But brands face critical challenges, including:

• Improving customer retention/satisfaction — 61%
• Increasing value/reliability to user — 54% 
• Improving interactive design/ease of use — 30% 
• Increasing data-driven personalization — 27%
• Increasing use of real-time marketing — 24%
• Improving self-service preference center — 18%
• Improving channel flexibility of user — 16%

Those challenges largely correspond to company goals for their customer experience programs:

• Improving customer retention/satisfaction — 79%
• Increasing value/reliability to user — 58%
• Increasing data-driven personalization — 30%
• Improving interactive design/easy of use — 28% 
• Increasing use of real-time marketing — 17%
• Improving self-service preference center — 15% 
• Improving channel flexibility of user — 9%

How do companies measure customer experience success? The metrics are:

• Customer retention rate — 65%
• Customer satisfaction — 65%
• Customer lifetime value — 42%
• Visitor intent/completion — 26% 
• Likes/comments/shares — 14%
• Customer effort score — 12% 

But 41% measure these metrics only occasionally, and 12% measure them rarely or never. In contrast, 47% measure them frequently.

Of these companies, 60% use a combination of outsourced and in-house resources to conduct their customer experience programs, while 29% do everything in-house and 11% rely entirely on outsiders.

Ascend2 and its research partners surveyed 301 marketing influencers, with 40% in B2B, 39% in B2C and 21% in both equally. Of the respondents, 43% were at the owner/partner/C-level.