There’s no doubt about it. American Express (AMEX) is an outstanding leader in customer service and customer relationship management (CRM).

Just last month, the company, which is an ATG Live Help customer, was named a winner of the coveted 2010 Forrester Research Voice Of The Customer Awards. Harley Manning, vice president and research director of Forrester Research, said, “The quality of this year’s nominees is evidence that voice of the customer programs are advancing rapidly … The best VoC programs demonstrate that executive involvement, measurement, and insights that are tied directly to action are critical to customer experience success.”

In addition, AMEX today unveiled the results of its American Express Global Customer Service Barometer. The study surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers in April and its findings were just shared in 1to1 Media’s “Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog.”

Here are some of the highlights:

• 28 percent of respondents said that companies are now paying less attention to good service, even though 61 percent of those consumers said quality customer service is more important to them than ever
• 91 percent of Americans consider the level of customer service important when deciding to do business with a company
• The three most influential factors that help consumers decide which companies they do business with include personal service (98 percent), a company’s reputation or brand (92 percent), and recommendations from family and friends (88 percent)
• 81 percent have decided never to do business again with a company because of poor service

Jim Bush, executive vice president of world service at American Express, said, “Many consumers say companies haven’t done enough to improve their approach to service in this economy, and yet it’s clear they’re willing to spend more with those that deliver excellent service, suggesting substantial growth opportunities for businesses that get customer service right.”

We couldn’t agree more, Mr. Bush. Congrats to you and your team on receiving one of this year’s Voice Of The Customer Awards and thank you for sharing the results of this insightful study!

In the fourth quarter of 2009, we conducted a survey of more than 1,000 consumers to determine what channels they use to research, browse, and purchase products and services, and why they might switch from one channel to the next during their buying process. Though we’ve long been urging businesses to adopt a more tightly integrated, cross-channel strategy as a means to satisfying customer demands and ensuring business growth, the results of this study were eye-opening, even to us.

Our new report, “Cross-Channel Commerce: The Consumer View,” just went live today and provides an in-depth look at how consumers are using commerce channels like the Web, brick-and-mortar stores, catalogs, mobile devices, and customer service representatives.

Here are a few highlights that I found particularly interesting:

• Nearly one-third of consumers say they jump between more than three different channels from the time they start researching products and services to when they complete the purchase; 78 percent use at least two or more channels
• The vast majority (78 percent) of consumers are still browsing catalogs, but more than 40 percent of consumers said they never make purchases through a catalog
• 15 percent of consumers between the age of 18 and 34 are making purchases on their mobile phones on a monthly basis and 8 percent are doing this weekly

We invite you to take a closer look at this research and draw your own conclusions, but based on what we’re seeing, there’s a great opportunity for merchants to enhance their cross-channel approaches, provide consumers with the consistency they need and want, and benefit from the opportunity to close sales faster, more regularly, and with greater efficiency.