In a recent article by Jim Tierney at Loyalty360, Jim examines the relationship between investments in consumer products and the overall customer experience. According to a Gartner report Jim references in the piece, half of all consumer product industry investments in 2017 will focus on bringing innovation to the customer experience. Perhaps even more significant, the research also found that nearly 90% of companies believe the customer experience will be their primary basis for competition by 2016.
In the piece, Tierney discusses the hyper-competitive environment that has developed as a result of consumers’ increasing access to information on companies’ products and services, and how this has damaged the traditional reliability of brand loyalty. In order to compete amongst the abundance of product information now available, organizations will need to focus on improving the customer experience to attract and maintain the consumer base.
However, if companies are truly expected to invest 50% of their consumer product spending into improving the customer experience, they will still need to find a better way to use their customers’ data. According to recent surveys, only a quarter of customers feel that their overall experience is improving as a result of companies using their personal data. Organizations clearly need to find ways to better integrate this information into their strategies if their focus on innovation with the customer experience is to deliver any real improvements in their business outcomes.
Another important development that the article speaks to is an inevitable shift towards mobile commerce. Gartner’s research revealed that customers’ mobile engagement currently generates 22% of digital revenue in the U.S., and by 2017 this number is expected to increase to 50%. Given this trend, companies will need to expand improvements to the customer experience (and therefore customer data integration) across not just traditional channels, but mobile-focused ones such as text and social media.
Interested in learning more? Click here to check out the full article on Gartner’s predictions for upcoming trends in consumer experience spending.
BroadSoft is very active in implementing effective customer service analytics and customer retention strategies for call centers.
