PRESS RELEASE

SAN ANTONIO – June 1, 2021 – Rackspace Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RXT), a leading end-to-end multicloud technology solutions company, today announced the results of a global survey revealing that, in addition to allowing products and services to stand out, modernizing technology and applications to improve customer experiences (CX) drives real-world, bottom-line benefits. 

According to the survey, How Applications Impact Customer Experience, organizations that adopt an “experience-led” focus enjoy 1.6x higher brand awareness, 1.5x more employee satisfaction and nearly double their rates of customer retention, repeat purchases, average order values and customer lifetime value. The research underscores the impact that modernizing applications to provide better customer experience can have on competitiveness and growth. 

The global survey included 1400+ respondents in IT and non-IT business units, from companies with $300M annual earnings and above, including both decision makers and application users. The results overwhelmingly confirm that CX is a main strategic priority (48%), ahead of IT security, compliance (45%) and IT strategy (41%), and that technology is the key to driving customer experience. Over half (55%) of survey respondents credit applications with enhancing customer experience. Moreover, almost all organizations surveyed understand the importance of CX, with 94% reporting that some form of user experience initiative is underway within their organization. Only a small percentage (6%) report having no CX strategies or initiatives in place. 

“The results of our survey are further evidence that modernizing applications through a user lens is not just a ‘nice to have’ from a customer satisfaction perspective, but also delivers a wealth of tangible, quantifiable benefits to organizations,” said Jeff DeVerter, CTO, Rackspace. “Applications are a foundation of customer experience, and it is encouraging to see an increased focused on and rising enthusiasm for customer experience improvements.” 

Applications and Customer Experience  

Applications play a key role in customer experience, providing mobile accessibility, simplifying application submission, processing customer data, and delivering immersive experiences. Over half (55%) of survey respondents credit applications with enhancing customer experience. Additional areas of significant benefit include providing more availability to services (48%), security (45%), engagement with products and services (41%), and process improvement (39%). 

A large majority (88%) of respondents believe that non-technical C-suite executives recognize the bottom-line benefits of applications, and 90% report that senior management has a better understanding of the benefits of applications in their business than they did just five years ago. As expected, CIOs (55%) and CTOs (53%) are ranked as the most aware of technology benefits. However, CEOs rank close to CIOs and CTOs at 49%, with a noticeable drop off across the rest of the C-suite. 

With this high level of awareness among the C-suite, technology is taking the driver’s seat in corporate strategy in many ways. Six out of ten (63%) respondents are using technology to drive automation efficiencies and over half (51%) are using it to drive IoT and cloud native initiatives. While both categories have an indirect impact on customer experience, technology initiatives focused on real-time data analysis (44%) and customer engagement (30%) have a more direct impact on building and refining customer interactions. 

Barriers to Application Technology Adoption 

Although the survey result point to a heightened focus on the use of applications to enhance customer experience, organizations still face a number of barriers to application technology adoption, including:  

·       Fear of negatively impacting existing CX (28%)  

·       Legacy IT systems (26%)  

·       Limited budget (24%) 

·       Lack of staff with the appropriate skill sets (22%)  

·       Lack of expertise to lead transformation activities (18%)  

·       Cultural resistance to change (16%)  

·       Lack of buy-in to digital transformation strategy (16%)  

·       Lack of support from leadership (13%)  

To download the full report, please visit https://www.rackspace.com/solve/customer-experience-and-technology. 

Survey Methodology  

Conducted by Coleman Parkers Research between March and May 2021, the survey is based on the responses of 1,420 IT decision-makers across manufacturing, digital native/technology, financial services, retail, government/public sector, and healthcare sectors in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The survey questions covered customer experience, application modernization and future plans. 

About Rackspace Technology 

Rackspace Technology is a leading end-to-end multicloud technology services company. We can design, build and operate our customers’ cloud environments across all major technology platforms, irrespective of technology stack or deployment model. We partner with our customers at every stage of their cloud journey, enabling them to modernize applications, build new products and adopt innovative technologies.