People today are alert to how brands are performing in terms of sustainability. Only one in four job seekers will consider working for a company that doesn’t share their values—which include environmental responsibility—and the latest EY Future Consumers Index shows that:
- 87% of surveyed consumers are striving to avoid wasting food
- 85% are exploring ways to conserve energy
- 36% intend to start purchasing more secondhand products
- 24% buy less—or not at all—from brands that don’t seem to help the environment
That last number may be the smallest, but it’s arguably the most impactful, concretely demonstrating a top-of-mind impression’s profound effect on the bottom line. So that shows us how much sustainability can help—or hurt—customer experience (CX).
Can CX help with sustainability, creating a cycle of positive brand impact and impression? The answer is ‘yes.’ Here are three avenues organizations can explore to make that happen:
- Outside
CX can be critical for businesses to make their sustainability efforts better known since companies can fall into the trap of thinking that, because they’re doing it, the public must be aware of it. CX experts know how to turn this fallacy into fact, guiding not just the companies themselves but customers to make smarter choices.
- Inside
Like all organizations, CX businesses use many resources – particularly energy. For most contact center operators, for instance, the lights are always on, both figuratively and literally. So harnessing more eco-friendly practices, policies, and energy sources can make an enormous difference – directly to the environment and indirectly to their clients’ sustainability profiles.
- In-between
67% of survey respondents say high prices keep them from buying sustainable products. With data analytics, CX can help change this, delivering insight into what items consumers seem to be seeking, as well as how much they are and aren’t willing to pay, thereby identifying where margins can be made toward improved results in both company profit and customer value.
Some may think CX doesn’t have a significant environmental impact, being a service industry, compared to shipping or manufacturing. But “everything counts in large amounts,” as the song says – and as customers tell us, through the choices, they make as they evolve.
