Zendesk Benchmark: Declining Customer Satisfaction During the Holiday Period (Germany)

February 11, 2014

<center<Seasonal decline greater in 2013 than in previous years; Norway, Denmark and Canada top Q4 2013 customer satisfaction ranking; Germany not in the top ten

SAN FRANCISCO, CA/ BERLIN, GERMANY – February 11, 2014 – Worldwide customer satisfaction fell in the fourth quarter of 2013 by two percent, driven in particular by performance lows during (pre-)Christmas period. This is the finding of the quarterly benchmark report from Zendesk, the provider of the cloud-based customer service software of the same name. The average customer satisfaction rating fell to 80 percent; particularly hard hit were the travel and retail industries with declines of seven and six percentage points respectively. With an overall rating of 78 percentage, Germany was able to improve its international ranking to 12^th, thus making up two places over the third quarter.

The lower customer satisfaction can primarily be traced to an increase in customer inquiries during the busiest time of the year, especially for the travel industry and retail. Although the fourth-quarter decline was anticipated, retail suffered a much larger drop than even in 2012. At that time, customer satisfaction fell by only two percentage points.

“The holiday season means more purchases and, logically, more customer inquiries. If processes for handling and managing such peak inquiry periods are not professionally organized and established, customers will be dissatisfied with support,” states Steffen Teske, Director for Central & Eastern Europe at Zendesk. “Companies should take these figures as a wake-up call to be better prepared for seasonal peaks.”

Customer satisfaction by country: Norway on top

Customer satisfaction by industry

About the Zendesk Benchmark Report

The quarterly Benchmark Report from Zendesk examines customer satisfaction and tracks service trends. The report examines interactions between 16,000 organizations and their customers in 125 countries. The 40,000 customers of Zendesk, who use the customer service platform to provide support for more than 300 million users, serve as the database for the study. The benchmark report measures key performance indicators associated with customer support efficiency, self-service behavior of customers, and level of customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction measurements are based on the percentage of positive responses to the question whether or not a customer was satisfied with the customer service interaktion. The Zendesk Benchmark Report for Q4/2013 can be downloaded for free at: http://de.zendesk.com/blog/der-zendesk-benchmark-q4-2013

About Zendesk

Zendesk provides cloud-based customer service software that brings companies and their customers closer together. More than 40,000 companies use Zendesk and provide customer service for over 300 million people worldwide. Customers include Groupon (Germany), Jenoptik and Disney. Zendesk was founded in 2007, is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in eight other countries. The company is funded by Charles River Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, GGV Capital, Index Ventures, Matrix Partners and Redpoint Ventures. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.