Consumers And Brands Disagree On Customer Experience, Poll Finds

Consumers and brands are on a collision course over what makes a good customer experience.  

Ask marketers, and 82% think they’re doing a fine job of providing one, according to Deliver The CX They Expect, a study by Acquia. But only 10% of customers strongly agree.

That seems to indicate that everything, from the email to the website, needs improvement.

Here’s what consumers want: 

Of those polled, 90% desire a convenient online experience. But 68% believe that their engagement with brands should be easier.

In addition, 80% of consumers want greater personalization and 76% say they’re more likely to be loyal to firms that deliver it. But 60% often feel that “brands who should know me don’t know me very well.” 

Worse, contrary to what many marketers believe, 60% of consumers feel “brands do not do a good job using my personal preference to predict my needs.”

And 66% say they feel like "I am treated like any other generic customer, not as an individual with my own needs." 

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But shoppers haven’t lost hope — 80% say technology should make their brand experiences more valuable.

There’s a penalty for doing a bad job — 63% of consumers often abandon a brand due to a poor experience, and 72% will jump the first time it happens. 

Not that consumers want to give data away in return for a good experience — 51% are not comfortable with that. And 61% are not confident hat bran have their best interests in mind when sharing or storing their personal data. 

In addition, 77% say brands should not “be able to use my personal data to send me more marketing messages/advertisements. 

How can you send personalized emails without data?

Here’s what marketers think.

Of those polled, 84% consider customer security “an essential part of my marketing and CX exchanges.” And 83% say they are compliant with the latest regulations. 

At the same time, 79% of marketers say they have a way to capture customer data in real-time and the same percentage say they have a way to quickly act on it.

A full 85% of marketers also think that technology alone doesn’t cut it — you also need a human touch. Here’s where consumers agree — 75% say that pure tech interactions are too impersonal.

The company surveyed 6,013 consumers in Australia and several countries in Europe, the Americas. In addition,  it also polled 600 marketers. 

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