Keeping up with Customers, Not Competitors, is Becoming Greatest Challenge to Brands, Accenture Interactive Study Finds
June 22 2016 - 8:57AM
Business Wire
Small group of high performers is using digital
to drive higher customer experience value
More than nine in ten companies are struggling to deliver
digital customer experiences that exceed their customers’
expectations, according to a new study from Accenture Interactive.
The finding reflects the huge challenge brands are facing as
customer expectations are becoming “liquid” and changing at a
lightning pace. The study, “Expectations vs Experience: The Good,
The Bad, The Opportunity”, is based on a survey of 702 customer
experience decision-makers from companies in 14 countries and was
launched at the Cannes Lions Festival today.
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While 52% of all respondents said that they’re ahead of their
competitors at providing digital customer experiences, only 7% said
their company exceeds the expectations of their actual customers.
Another 67% stated they ‘meet’ these expectations.
“Meeting customer expectations is by no means a small
achievement,” said Anatoly Roytman, managing director, Accenture
Interactive Europe, Africa, Middle East, Latin America. “However,
it’s not enough anymore. Customer expectations are changing faster
than ever and what people learn to love in one industry
increasingly defines what they expect in other areas as well – we
call this ‘liquid expectations.’ It’s now your customer who’s
setting the bar, not your competitor.”
Shifting expectations require companies to stay closer to
customers to learn their needs and preferences directly from them.
The reality is that businesses often think “inside out” and take
customer experience initiatives without consulting customers
directly. While 81% of all respondents believe that it is important
to involve customers in customer experience efforts, only 57%
actually take this “outside-in” perspective. The findings show that
many companies fail at measuring what they know they should, too.
For example, 90% see value in churn metrics, but less than 40%
capture them.
What defines customer experience high performersThe study
identified a group of customer experience high performers (18%)
which scored highest across eight key metrics as a result of using
digital technology to improve the customer experience.
Significantly more high performers than their peers report “better
than expected” outcomes for increased brand relevance, cost
savings, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, market
differentiation, return on investment, revenues, scale and
efficiency. Additionally, more high performers than other companies
are able to at least ‘meet’ customers’ expectations (85% vs.
63%).
These outcomes parallel four distinct behaviors high performers
are showing – indicating that customer experience is a mindset:
High performers’ senior executive sponsorship for customer
experience initiatives is fully aligned.
- They have adapted to a state of
constant flux, treating digital customer experience transformation
as an ongoing initiative rather than a project.
- They are analytics-focused and
data-driven around customer experience.
- They have built strategic partnerships,
not just vendor relationships, to help them with skills and
resources they lack but need in order to continuously transform the
customer experience.
These winning traits may be helping high performers stay ahead
of the competition now. But the next wave of customer experience
disruption is at hand, a development that Accenture calls Living
Services. These are smart digital services that leverage the
Internet of Things to wrap around the consumer and respond to them
in real-time according to their individual needs and
environments.
“The next wave of digital services will completely transform
customer experience as we know it,” said Roytman. “Every business
will have to truly rally around the customer and become even more
digitally savvy in order to take advantage of it.”
Accenture Interactive commissioned Forrester Consulting to
survey 702 customer experience decision makers from companies in 14
countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil,
Mexico, India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and China). High
performers were identified by analyzing the data with an artificial
intelligence and cluster analysis solution by Accenture. Check out
the full study here for more details on the sample and research
methodology.
For further information on this research, please join an
upcoming webinar with Accenture and guest Forrester on July 12,
2016 at 11:00 AM ET/16:00 PM GMT/17:00 PM CET and register
here:http://webcast.accenture.com?event=expectations-vs-experience.
About AccentureAccenture (NYSE:ACN) is a leading global
professional services company, providing a broad range of services
and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and
operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills
across more than 40 industries and all business functions –
underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture
works at the intersection of business and technology to help
clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for
their stakeholders. With more than 373,000 people serving clients
in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve
the way the world works and lives. Visit us at
www.accenture.com
Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital, helps the
world’s leading brands drive superior marketing performance across
the full multichannel customer experience. It was recently named by
Ad Age as the world’s largest and fastest-growing digital agency.
Accenture Interactive offers integrated, industrialized and
industry-driven digital transformation and marketing solutions. To
learn more, follow us @Accenture Social and visit
http://www.accenture.com/interactive.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622005160/en/
AccentureJens Derksen, + 175 57
61393jens.derksen@accenture.comorAccenture (on site at Cannes Lions
Festival)David LaBar, + 1 646-456-4505david.labar@accenture.com
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