In this edition of TheCustomer Quick-Take: CMOs get vindicated, the rise of the belief-driven consumer, there’s a LOT of loyalty money on the table, and guidance for your digital transformation.
Happy Wednesday!
CMOs
Infinitely More Complex
Quick-Take: At issue is the need for chief marketing officers to become masters of multiple disciplines, with insights, expertise and relationships putting them at the strategic center of the transformation of banking. Data and customer experience are keys to this expanded role.
TECHNOLOGY
If You’re Not Investing in AI …
Quick-Take: By 2025, 95 per cent of consumer interactions with a brand will be via AI.
If You Can’t Trust Your Implementation Partner …
Quick-Take: The Marketing State of Play Report found close to 30% of marketing leaders don’t feel like they can trust implementation partners or can’t find the right partners to support them.
CONSUMER TRENDS
Will The Trend Become a Habit?
Quick-Take: Digital spending went up 60% for every person in the past year, according to the third iteration of SYNC Southeast Asia, an annual report by Facebook and management consulting firm Bain & Company.
Trust Value Becomes Measurable
Quick-Take: The twentieth edition of Edelman’s Trust Barometer research found that 74% of employees agree with the statement, “CEOs should take the lead on change rather than waiting for government to impose it.” The study also found 64% of consumers identify as “belief-driven buyers” who will “choose, switch, avoid and/or boycott a brand based on its stand on societal issues.” These trends are more pronounced in younger generations and thus will only become more important.
The Case for Getting the Basics Right
Quick-Take: According to a recent survey, 71% of marketing respondents say that brands do not understand consumer fundamentals. Therefore, 66% of marketers said they want brands to invest more to build customer awareness and relationships.
Reimagining Customer Values
Quick-Take: Accenture found that just 17% of participants, which it classified as “traditional consumers”, said they were unchanged by the pandemic. One-third, classifed as “evolving consumers” were unsure or were changing their mindset. But 50%, classified by Accenture as “reimagined consumers”, said the pandemic had caused them to rethink their motivations.
The findings of the survey, published in Accenture’s Life reimagined report, show that 72% of people who have reimagined their motivations expect the companies they do business with to understand and address how their needs and objectives change during times of disruption. The authors of the report note that although price and quality have long been – and remain – the dominant motivations in consumers’ choice rationale, they have lessened in influence among “reimagined consumers”.
UX
Design Thinking Re-thinking
Quick-Take: The other dirty secret is that human-centered design frequently assumes humans design all of the UX, services and interfaces. If the solution to experience bias is to create tailored variations based on users’ different needs, this hand-crafted UI model won’t cut it, especially when the teams making it often lack diversity. Prioritizing a variety of experiences based on user needs requires either a fundamental change in design processes or leveraging machine learning and automation in creating digital experiences — both necessary in a shift to experience equity.
LOYALTY
Meeting Expectations of Dissatisfaction
Quick-Take: According to Kasre’s data, more than 70 percent of customers who are members of loyalty programs are dissatisfied. Each year, 98 billion dollars are left on the table because of customers’ mediocre service experience. In the US alone, there are currently 100 billion dollars in registered points that no-one is using. More than a trillion dollars a year remain unutilized because companies simply don’t know who their customers are or what to do with the information that they gather about them.
QSR Loyalty by the Numbers
Quick-Take: A PYMNTS study of loyalty program users found that money-saving rewards remain the top priority among pandemic-era diners. Free food and discounts — at 78% and 66% respectively — were the most common rewards diners wanted to receive from loyalty programs. These perks were popular especially among QSR customers, with 81% wanting to earn free food and 72% wanting to earn discounts. The survey also found that loyalty program users were most likely to engage with restaurants’ loyalty programs in the same way they place their food orders: via smartphone. Mobile check-ins topped the list of ways loyalty program users wanted to interact with restaurants, at 54%. Fifty-three percent of users wanted to receive rewards via mobile app, and 50% wanted to receive them via text message. QSR customers were especially interested in using restaurants’ mobile apps to receive rewards, at 58%. Twenty-eight percent said they would like to interact with loyalty programs by receiving rewards via digital wallet, and 13% preferred receipt via third-party provider apps.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Better CX for Better Digital Transformations for Better CX
Quick-Take: As leaders look at opportunities to drive investments in business transformation and better customer experience outcomes, a shift in mindset is required. Organizations should view customer issues as a symptom of a greater problem rather than the root cause of frustrations along the customer journey. This involves the use of process transformation and data to uncover inefficiencies and drive specific, quantifiable outcomes that can lead to immediate value realization and improved CX.
Digital Transformation’s Missing Ingredient
Quick-Take: According to Gartner, ROI for customer engagement digital transformation programs is stunted by poor user experience. Boards and CXOs are also taking note of the negative impact of going “digital without transformation” in customer engagement. Getting value from digital transformation investments requires businesses to not only put in place digital connectivity (plumbing) for easier customer connection but also modernize their knowledge management to serve relevant, personalized content that flows through the plumbing.
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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
