As an executive, nothing excites you more than signing up a new client. The satisfaction you get from knowing a customer is putting his or her trust in you is exhilarating, and the positive financial impact is always welcome.

You’ve probably heard it more times than you can count by now: Customer service is a crucial differentiator for businesses. Simply hearing that message repeated frequently may make you a little numb to it and take away some of its power—but don’t let that happen; the message is of such significance that you should keep it uppermost in your thoughts. As an executive, what matters most to you when planning strategies, however, is empirical data, because the more information you have at your disposal, the more likely you are to make a sound business decision.

In that spirit, we’ve compiled a “lucky seven” pack of statistics that clearly illustrate just how critical the customer experience is in today’s marketplace, and how important improving customer service in your organization will be moving forward:

1. Some 68 percent of businesses planned to increase customer service spending in 2014—Call Center IQ, 2014 Call Center Executive Priorities Report

2. By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator—Walker, Customers 2020: The Future of B-to-B Customer Experience

3. At least 62 percent of companies view customer experience provided through contact centers as a competitive differentiator—Deloitte, 2013 Global Contact Center Survey

4. A full 88 percent of consumers speak with live representatives on the phone at least some of the time—NICE Systems, Global Customer Experience Survey

5. In 2013, 51 percent of U.S. consumers switched service providers due to poor customer service experiences, up 5 percent from the previous year—Accenture, 2013 Global Consumers Pulse Survey

6. As much as 63 percent of 1,620 consumers tested under laboratory conditions said they felt their heart rate increase when they thought about receiving great customer service—American Express Service Study

7. About 84 percent of survey respondents said their company’s executives are fully committed to their company’s customer experience goals—Temkin Group, Data Snapshot: CX Expectations and Plans for 2014

Rapid growth is the ultimate dream for any small business manager, especially in today’s competitive marketplace, where 80 percent of entrepreneurs who start a new business fail within the first 18 months, according to research from Bloomberg.

The voice of the customer is valuable. In the contact center realm, time is of the essence. In only a matter of seconds, customers can decide to leave your business completely or choose to upgrade their account, solely based on their interaction with an agent. Making sure agents are prepared to effectively handle customers is indispensible to retaining and fostering new customer relationships. Get the most out of your agents with an evaluation tool that allows supervisors to collect interaction data and sort through it automatically for the “golden nuggets” of data in each call. Voice of the Customer (VOC) analysis can give you an edge over the competition by addressing issues early on. While other companies may merely respond to preexisting complaints, your company can get ahead of this curve and begin instituting trends, a huge advantage.

Even when it may not be blatantly obvious, agents nowadays are constantly gathering valuable data about customer likes and dislikes, habits and tendencies. Envision’s VOC offers an interaction evaluation survey that immediately tells what customers ordered, the process that was followed, what they complained about, why they complained, and any possible patterns emerging. Agents can then use this data—right from their desk—to map out what to improve on in future interactions.

The Internet is full of statistics about so many topics that it can be difficult to drill down to truly critical nuggets of information. In particular, the Web is replete with facts about the importance of improving customer service. So, to help you avoid wearing out your keyboard with search engine queries, we decided to compile 10 of the most compelling business-related customer service statistics you’ll find anywhere:  

By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. – Walker, “Customers 2020: The Future of B-to-B Customer Experience”

All too often, contact centers are referred to as cost centers. While they certainly play an important role in ensuring customer satisfaction (i.e., answering customer inquiries, solving product and service-related problems and monitoring call quality), contact centers are viewed as having little to no real impact on bottom line results. Businesses, however, are starting to realize the value of the contact center as a potential revenue driver. 

People love to talk, especially when it comes to customer service. Today’s consumers are flocking to the web to discuss their experiences with companies—good and bad. In fact, 46 percent of American consumers say they always tell others about good service experiences; however, an even greater number (60 percent) say they talk about poor service experiences, according to the American Express 2014 Global Customer Service Barometer.

It is much less expensive to retain customers than to onboard new ones. And a loyal customer is worth his or her weight in gold. In fact, while only 12-15 percent of customers are loyal to a single retailer, they represent between 55-70 percent of sales in some verticals, according to the Center for Retail Management, Northwestern University.

In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for a customer to dial into an 800 number, wait on hold for over an hour and then be routed to an inexperienced, unpleasant customer service representative who couldn’t answer a simple inquiry.

Today’s best-in-class organizations know that delivering world-class customer service is no longer a value-add, but a must. After all, it’s nearly impossible for a company to survive without its customers.