SYDNEY, Today: Adobe has today released the Adobe Experience Index which purports to show that consumers in Australia and New Zealand are leading the world in customer experience expectations.
The global index surveyed 1000 consumers from Australia and New Zealand and found that seamless and personalised experiences are key to keeping customers happy. Seventy-nine percent of ANZ consumers demand tailored experiences from organisations and 66% are happy to have completely automated interactions if done well.
Consumers rated potential customer experiences on a continuum from neutral (“I would expect this”) to strongly positive (“this would delight me”) and those scores were converted to a scale from 0-100. According to the research, consumers are most impressed with online retailers providing samples as part of their loyalty programme (score of 61), automated hotel settings and preferences on arrival (55) and using mobile apps as hotel keys and no need for check-ins (55).
Consumers aged over 35 are more likely to agree that brands know and respect them as well as delight them at every turn. The survey shows that if these expectations are not met, businesses’ bottom line could be impacted with almost half of all ANZ online shoppers (48%) saying they have abandoned their shopping carts due to a poor customer experience.
In fact, the top three experience breakers (those that anger consumers) are a lack of returns policies for marketplace sellers (47), hidden fees (50) and no-cancellation policies for travel packages (51).
Surprisingly, younger people are the most patient when it comes to poor customer experiences. Fewer than two in five (38%) 18-34-year-olds say they would abandon their shopping carts due to a poor customer experience, compared with over half (52%) of shoppers aged 35 and over. Bad customer experience also turns away potential repeat customers, with over a quarter (28%) of young consumers and over a third (38%) of people 35+ saying they would stop buying from a company altogether.
“Brands need to keep young people onside as their reputation may be at stake – 18-34s are twice as likely as their older counterparts to complain about a bad experience on a review site or social media.”
However, brands need to keep young people on their side as their reputation may be at stake – 18-34-year-olds are more than twice as likely as their older counterparts to complain about a bad experience on a review site or social media.
Sydney-based Adobe ANZ managing director Suzanne Steele said: “It’s no surprise that Australians and New Zealanders have high consumer expectations.
“In the past few years, we’ve seen an explosion of online businesses in the region, which has given consumers more choice than ever before. I believe we are at a crossroads, where managing customer experiences is becoming business critical.
“Organisations that listen to what their customers want and leverage data to deliver personalised, seamless experiences in real-time will be the ones that succeed in this increasingly competitive market.”
According to the Adobe Experience Index, the financial services sector was the standout winner in customer experience across most metrics, rating highest for customer service (68%) and online experience on both apps (81%) and websites (79%). Travel and Hospitality had the highest rating for ease of checkout across all sectors (74%), while Media and Entertainment struggled to meet customer expectations and was rated the worst at accessing content via a website (66%).
When it comes to the future of customer experience, the research indicates brands should focus on time-saving and convenience innovations. The findings showed that synced vehicle touch screens at drive-throughs and smart checkout lines at stores were seen as the most impressive technologies of the future.
The new findings reinforce data from the Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing: 2019 Digital Trends report released earlier this year, which revealed that while customer experience is a key consideration for businesses, implementation is low, with more than half (54%) of global companies categorising their customer experience maturity as either ‘not very advanced’ (46%) or ‘immature’ (8%).
Share this Post
