• by Ray Schultz , March 28, 2019

A new study from UserTesting should sober up email marketers, and just about anyone involved with the customer experience.

Of 1,600 professionals surveyed, 85% say their customer experience needs improvement. 

Worse, 44% have never heard of the term digital transformation -- a key part of improving customer engagement -- if you believe the report. And digital transformation ranks near the bottom of present and future trends.  

The study shows that 34% in the process of undergoing a digital transformation. Another 28% don’t know what that is, and 16% are simply not doing it. Only 22% say they are done. 

Conducted every year, the study identifies three key trends this time around:

• Digital transformations are off to a slow start
• CX trends don’t reflect current customer needs
• Scaling customer research is more important than ever

“Our report shows a strong need to empower all teams within an organization to gather customer insight quickly, so they can make high-confidence decisions at the speed of digital business,” states Michael Mace, VP of market strategy at UserTesting.

He adds: “New technologies ranging from today’s mobile to tomorrow’s virtual reality continue to alter the rules for every industry. To stay on top of those trends, companies have to find ways to bring customer insights into every decision, in real-time.”

The study cites McKinsey research showing that 70% feel their digital transformations are failing to meet their goals. 

That term once meant digitizing or computerizing, but has since broadened. “As our world becomes increasingly driven by digital interactions, companies are constantly challenged not only to keep up with the pace of customer expectations but to continually leverage the right tools, resources and processes to work efficiently and stay competitive,” the report notes. 

In another finding, designers say 66% of their projects lack user research help. And 70% of CX researchers want team across their organizations to be able to conduct their own user research. 

Moreover, 85% of C-level executives want more people within their firms to be able to conduct user research. 

The respondents see these trends as the most important in 2018 and over the next five years: 

• Virtual/augmented reality
• AI 
• Wearables
• Voice interaction 
• Gesture-based interaction
• Globalization
• IoT 
• Multi-device interaction 
• Omnichannel
• Digital transformation 
• Design thinking
• Accessibility
• Touch interfaces 
• Smartphones 
• Tablets