Forrester Analyst, Megan Burns, blogged this week about the results of the Forrester’s 2012 Customer Experience Index (CXi). Impressively, Kohl’s and USAA, both HiSoftware customers, earned excellent scores. I believe both companies’ accessibility policies played to the strength of their customer experience. More to come on that…

There were three main takeaways from the report as said by Megan:

• Customers’ expectations of their experiences are getting higher. They’re accustomed to more options, greater control, and a worldwide platform to tell others what they think about the way brands treat them. What brands in one industry do affects what people expect from other industries, raising the bar for everyone at lightning speed.

• Parity is a moving target. Companies hoping to differentiate on the basis of customer experience (and there are a lot of them!) will have to work even harder just to catch up to the leaders in their industry. Case in point: The gap between the high and low scoring bank in our study grew by 10 points this year, in part because USAA widened its lead in this category by 6 points in a single year.

• No one can afford to be complacent when it comes to customer experience. While many scores rose this year, many also fell. Perennial leader Barnes & Noble dropped 7 points in one year, and was one of 23 brands whose scores fell by 5 points or more since 2011.

A customer’s experience presents huge revenue opportunities, but only if a site is working properly. And beyond consumers wanting and expecting a great online experience, comes the benefits of ensuring an accessible site.

Kohl’s was able to design a site for 100% of the population, rather than excluding 20% of the population with disabilities: a significant population that wants to use the Web freely and easily. While the legal team at Kohl’s drove the accessibility initiative, improved SEO was an added bonus that we are sure plays a role in benefiting the customer’s experience.

An inclusive design offers significant benefits beyond accessibility to include:

• Making a site more useable for everyone – by 35%*
• Platform independence – mobile to grow by 400% by 2015, iTV to embrace web apps
• Reduces page weight, bandwidth and maintenance
• Improves search engine rankings
• Future-proofs Web site/applications

USAA is taking the website another step further to ensure accessibility, but also to check against site quality. Site quality can have a great benefit or detrimental impact on the overall customer experience. In fact, analysis shows that a simple spelling mistake can impact revenue for a website.

Forrester’s recognition of Kohl’s and USAA is well deserved. Now if the can just get all businesses to recognize the role accessibility had in improving the customer experience, we’ll all benefit.

Check out the webinar with AbilityNet that promotes the benefits of an inclusive design to reaching new customers and improving the overall experience.

*Disability Rights Commission (DRC) ‘The Web – Access and Inclusion for Disabled People’ report 2004 (ISBN 0117032875)

For the last 6 years, Dan has helped HiSoftware customers in meeting Web Compliance requirements, specifically in the area of Accessibility and Privacy.