A Look at the Current State of Customer Experience

At Loyalty360 we often hear from brands about personalization, digital customer experience, social media, and physical and digital integration. These crucial pieces can help form an overall seamless customer experience that leads to customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

A new Customer Experience Index Study from IBM reviewed seven areas of the omnichannel shopping experience.

Personalization: Only 19 percent of brands offer more than a basic level of personalization of the online experience. Brands struggle to personalize the omnichannel shopping experience and to provide self-service customization capabilities.

Digital experience: Although half of the brands provided online shopping functionality rated either Very Good or Excellent, the digital experience for consumers remains inconsistent. What’s more, 47 percent of brands offered only basic search functionality or none; 71 percent of brands offered no product comparison functionality.

Omnichannel supply chain: The study found that 53 percent of brands offered consistent, basic inventory data for consumers, but just 17 percent offered more than limited in-stock, out-of-stock information; 30 percent of brands offered inconsistent or no supply chain data across channels.

Physical and digital integration: 64 percent of brands did not allow customers to specify their preferred delivery day or time slot, while less than 40 percent of brands did not provide Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS) services.

Social media: While 76 percent of brands offered a social media experience rated good or better, and 71 percent of brands were active in four or more social channels, the study reveals that the social media experience needs to be more responsive; 45 percent of brands took more than 24 hours to respond to customer inquiries or didn’t respond at all.

Mobile experience: Although mobile is the device of choice for many consumers, 38 percent of brands provided either a poor mobile experience or none. What’s more, 31 percent of brands allow customers to access and manage their account details through a mobile app.

Store experience: Given a selected range of in-store services, from recognizing customers when they walk in the door to offering product comparison tools, the majority of brands provided only limited capabilities or none at all. For example, 84 percent of brands did not offer any in-store mobile services, and 79 percent did not give associates the ability to access customer account information via mobile devices.

So, what does this all mean to loyalty marketers moving forward in 2017?

Evan Magliocca, brand marketing manager for Baesman Insights & Marketing, offered Loyalty360 his take on the study.

“It’s not surprising brands are behind on-site personalization,” Magliocca explained. “It seems easy, but there are many complexities that marketers can get caught up in—specifically data overload and muddled attribution models. It’s difficult to set up a streamlined attribution on-site with so many variables. There’s also a level of personalization paralysis that happens on-site, whereas, with other direct channels, the personalization strategy is a bit clearer.”

Magliocca said the digital customer experience is all about the roadmap for brands with finite technology resources.

“During the past couple years, we’ve seen brands have been tackling the low-hanging fruit first—projects with the most impact and return,” he explained. “Examples include enhanced product pages, evolved navigations, and streamlined browser behaviors. That’s why the majority are going to have a ‘very good’ rating. Product comparison modules and similar projects have less ROI and are perceived as less impactful for consumers. Nonetheless, look for some of those projects to be implemented this year as brands move through their road maps.”

What’s more, the store experience is critical, Magliocca noted.

“Stores are the place with the most turmoil right now and the most radical changes taking place,” he said. “But it really comes down to the customer experience. You want customers to come to your store? Give me a reason to choose you over a third-party aggregator or e-commerce. You can’t beat Amazon on price and you can’t beat e-commerce on convenience—so win on experience and service. The easiest step is to empower store associates with data such as account information and customer product affinities.”  

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