PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

NTT DATA, Inc., a leading business and IT services provider, today released the company’s latest business analysis, “Your Customers Are Experiencing Friction – Now What?” and its proprietary Customer Friction Factor (CFF^SM) framework to help businesses evaluate, understand and improve how they interact with their customers.

“The NTT DATA Customer Friction Factor assessment helps our clients understand and mitigate interactions that negatively impact a customer’s experience, which provides an opportunity to increase loyalty and influence financial performance,” said Brad Rucker, senior vice president at NTT DATA. “Our comprehensive approach allows businesses to proactively understand the customer experience and leverage the findings to help reduce customer friction, improving the experience for the customer.”

Unlike traditional customer surveys, Net Promoter Score (NPS) or sentiment analysis, NTT DATA’s CFF^SM uses a four-step process to benchmark customer friction, as well as competitor comparisons and recommendations for improvement. The CFF^SM employs a quantitative, objective and proactive approach to measure customer friction in five categories:

• Engagement Friction - Related to any touchpoint with the customer
  
  (Example: Five minutes of hold time)

• Technical Friction - Driven by a challenged technical solution
  
  (Example: Web page not designed for mobile platform)

• Knowledge Friction - Caused from use and misuse of customer/organization knowledge
  
  (Example: Customer preferences not available during future interactions)

• Ecosystem Friction - Created through integration with the extended enterprise
  
  (Example: Shipment tracking information not relayed to customers)

• Process Friction - Associated with the activities and channels involved in a process
  
  (Example: Email, call center and fax required to complete a transaction)

As part of the CFF^SM assessment, NTT DATA measures each category against competitors and recommends focus areas to reduce overall customer friction. Recommendations include specific goals for understanding, redefining and improving a company’s customer experience, along with expectations for the amount of customer friction reduction within each area.

To date, NTT DATA has completed successful CFF^SM engagements with clients in the retail, manufacturing, financial services and insurance industries. For more information on NTT DATA’s CFF^SM assessment — visit The Customer Friction Factor Assessment webpage or download the report: “Your Customers Are Experiencing Friction — Now What?”.

About NTT DATA

NTT DATA is a leading business and IT services provider and global innovation partner with 80,000 professionals based in over 40 countries. NTT DATA emphasizes long-term commitment and combines global reach and local intimacy to provide premier professional services, including consulting, digital, managed services and industry solutions. We’re part of NTT Group, one of the world’s largest technology services companies, generating approximately $100 billion in annual revenues and partner to 85% of the Fortune 100. Visit www.nttdata.com/americas to learn more.

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