Focus on customer experience processes is growing at a rapid pace, and companies see the trend continuing in coming years. This, according to a study from Marketo and The Economist Intelligence Unit that explores how companies view the growth of CX, as well as the ways in which they’re adapting to the shifting landscape.
According to the survey of almost 500 CMOs and senior marketing executives, 86% of companies will own end-to-end customer experience by 2020. The report, titled “The Path to 2020: Marketers Seize the Customer Experience,” emphasizes the need for brands to engage in two-way communications with customers over a variety of channels.
“Technology's rapid evolution allows customers to engage with brands across myriad new channels in real time, translating to billions of marketing-driven touch points,” said Sanjay Dholakia, Chief Marketing Officer at Marketo. “With 86% of CMOs and other marketing leaders of the mind that they will own the customer experience by 2020, it is essential that organizations maintain a singular, comprehensive view of their customers. This is the key to building enduring customer relationships and ultimately successful brands.”
In the past, mass media has been a preferred channel through which brands communicate with consumers. This mainstay method may be on its way out, however, as surveyed marketers indicate that they will utilize increasingly more direct methods of marketing as opposed to traditional advertising.
These alternative channels include, in order of prevalence according to respondents, social media (63%), World Wide Web (53%), mobile apps (47%), and mobile web (46%). Among other factors, these channels are those that can be most tailored to individual consumers, a critical feature going forward.
Positive customer experience provides a variety of tangible benefits, tops being higher customer loyalty and improved brand perception (each named by 53% of those surveyed).
Of the multitudes of technologies available to today’s marketers, Marketo says that the most influential are as follows:
Mobile devices/networks, 53%
Personalization technologies, 45%
Internet of Things (IoT), 39%
These rankings are unsurprising, considering the prominence of mobile engagement and 1-to-1 direct marketing. IoT technology (the ability for objects to sense and communicate with one another) has yet to reach its full operation potential, setting the stage for a shift in these rankings within the next several years.