EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

To understand how a bad customer experience can affect consumers’ behavior, we asked 10,000 U.S. consumers about their recent interactions with 294 companies across 20 industries. We then compared the results to similar studies we’ve conducted in previous years. We also created a Sales at Risk Index for all 20 industries by combining the percentage of customers in an industry who reported having a bad experience with the percentage who said they decreased their spending after a bad experience.

The data come from the Qualtrics XM Institute Q2 2019 U.S. Consumer Benchmark Study – an online study of 10,000 U.S. consumers. Survey respondents were representative of the U.S. Census based on quotas for age, income, ethnicity, and geographic region.