consumer experience/CX

Insights2020: Facing 2020 with 20/20 Vision

• Posted: October 5, 2015

During Advertising Week in New York, Millward Brown Vermeer presented the initial findings from the Insights2020-Driving Customer-Centric Growth Study.  This study was undertaken in partnership with The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), ESOMAR, LinkedIn, Kantar, and Korn Ferry.

Insights2020 examines the drivers of customer-centricity and describes how being a customer-focused company impacts business and financial performance. The research revealed a number of striking differences between over- and under-performing organizations, and all tie back to three key dimensions of customer-centric growth: Total Experience, Customer Obsession and Insights Engine.  

Among these findings:

-74 percent of companies that over-perform on revenue growth create customer experiences based on data driven insights as opposed to only 30% of the under-performing companies.

-83 percent of revenue growth over-performers link everything the company does to its brand purpose, as opposed to only 31 percent among revenue growth under-performers.

-62 percent of over-performers leverage insights and analytics to drive consistency across all customer touch-points, only 26 percent of under-performers do.

-In 78 percent of over-performing companies, customer-centricity is fully embraced by all functions whereas this is only true in 12 percent of the under-performing companies.

-66 percent of all over-performers are working to link their disparate data sources, compared with only 33 percent of under-performing companies doing so.

-The Insights and Analytics function reports straight into the CEO in 33 percent of over-performer companies; this is true for only 13 percent of the under-performers.

This study was based on more than 325 in-depth interviews with senior marketing and insights leaders, and 10,000+ interviews with practitioners across 60 markets

These initial findings are being presented this week at the ESOMAR Annual Congress in Dublin, Ireland; as part of Advertising Week in New York with the ARF; and in Austin, TX, at The American Marketing Association (AMA) Annual Meeting.

The attached press release provides additional details about the differences between over-and under-performing organizations and the impact of customer-centricity.

 

Creating Personal Digital Experiences For Customers

• Posted: August 17, 2015

Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, CMO and co-founder of Hippo, analyzes the factors necessary to create a relevant digital experience for each customer in this iMedia Connection’s article.

Factors include:

-Providing responsive design.

-Developing contextual awareness.

-Building a profile of the individual website visitor’s interests, preferences, and intent based on engagement with the online content.

-Delivering relevant content.

Both B2C and B2B companies need to understand the needs of their customers and to provide relevant, contextually appropriate content for their online business. This relevant content  has two goals:

-To support the customers at any stage of their relationship with the brand.

-To expand the reach of the customers’ journey.

The goal of creating a personal digital experience and relevant online content is to develop a customer who is engaged, who will return to the site, and who will advocate for the business and the brand.

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For more on this topic, check out the Media Tab in Morning Coffee.

 

 

 

Immediacy and Its Importance to Digital Sales and Service Channels

• Posted: July 13, 2015

 

Scott Heron, writing for ClickZ, discusses the gap between consumer expectations of digital sales and service channels and the ability of companies to meet these expectations.

Customer inquiries or complaints need to be handled quickly, but how quickly?

More than 50% of Twitter users expect a response in less than two hours, according to Heron.  He points out that the response time depends on the complexity of the customer’s request, and the degree of input required from legal or product specialists.

In terms of purchasing, Amazon, Google, and Facebook are all involved in launching or piloting one-click ordering systems.  The goal is to remove the friction in the sales channel for the consumer.

Both corporate revenue and reputation will be positively impacting by satisfying the consumer’s demand for immediacy.

 

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For more on this topic, check out the Advertising Tab in Morning Coffee.

 

 

 

Customer Service and the Expectations of Millennials

• Posted: May 4, 2015

A study from Aspect Software analyzes the customer service expectations of different generations.

Millennials expect a rapid and convenient channel for customer service interactions.  Texting represents an opportunity for brands to address the customer engagement preferences of Millennials.

Jack Loechner, writing for the Research Brief From the Center for Media Research, summarizes the findings from this study, which includes these points about Millennials and customer service:

-56% moved their business from at least one company during the past year due to poor customer service.

-More than 50% reported that their customer service expectations have increased over the past three years.

-69% feel good about themselves and the company they are doing business with when they can resolve a problem without speaking to customer service.

-This generational segment is more “experience-loyal” than “brand-loyal.”

An effective customer service strategy will address the preferences of Millennials for omni-channel support and self-service.

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The Critical Importance of the Customer Experience to Corporate Success

• Posted: April 27, 2015

Victor Milligan, Forrester Research’s CMO, discusses how the creation of a superior and differentiated customer experience (CX) is a crucial priority for his organization as well as for most companies.

He points out that putting this priority into action is a challenge for many companies.  Focusing on the  customer experience is a new kind of operating model.  It is not an attitude, tagline, or one-time corporate initiative.

Among Milligan’s observations::

-CX is about the customers, on their terms and in their voices.

-CX analytics must consider the quality of the customers’ experience.  Customer satisfaction and advocacy metrics are no longer sufficient.

-CX improvement must be connected to operational changes and requires a committed financial investment by the company.

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