If you have shopped either online or in-person in the past year and noticed a drop in your overall customer experience, then you are not alone.

“The second year of Covid-19 will be remembered by many consumers as the era in which they couldn’t order stuff they needed, waited months for shipped items, and took hours to reach a customer service representative on the phone.”

The quality of customer experience took a dip in the past year, with 19% of brands experiencing a decline, according to a recent Forrester Research study on CX.

The report polled over 96,000 U.S. consumers and their perceptions of 221 companies and federal agencies. Here are some key findings:

• The average CX score is 71.3%, down from 72.0 in 2021.
• Brands rated “good” dipped from 25% to 22% and scores of “poor” and “OK” increased.
• The 19% of brands that experienced a CX rating decline is the highest to drop in one year since the report first launched in 2016.

Contributing factors, according to Pete Jacques, Forrest principal analyst and report co-author, includes staffing shortages and supply chain glitches. In addition consumer patience and its increasing lack is also playing a role in CX scores.

Needless to say, companies need to bring their customer service game back up and getting consumer feedback is a great place to start.

Read more about the report in the Wall Street Journal article.