• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 15, 2021

Email marketing may not be the first problem on marketers’ minds when enhancing their customer experience strategy. But it’s up there, according to Customer Experience Design, a study by Ascend2.

Of the marketers surveyed, 30% say they will focus on improving email in the year ahead. But email ranks behind website optimization (44%), social media (44%) and personalization (44%). 

Yet email is ahead of mobile communication (24%), digital advertising programs (23%), on-site chat communication (18%) and the order/purchase process (14%) as an area for improvement.   

It’s all part of the effort to deliver an effective customer experience -- a task that most say is important, and 60% cite as very important.

And they’re apparently pretty good at it, with 21% rating themselves as best in class, and 75% rating themselves as somewhat successful. Only 4% say they’re unsuccessful.  

But they face challenges, the main ones being: 

• Lack of time and resources to execute — 42%
• Insufficient budget — 37%
• Difficulty creating engaging content — 26% 
• Lack of a defined strategy — 26%
• Lack of quality data — 23%
• Difficulty making data actionable — 20% 
• Lack of appropriate technology — 18% 
• Difficulty attributing ROI — 18% 
• Siloed data — 12%
• Lack of organizational/executive buy-in — 11%

What does it take to deliver an effective customer experience? The respondents list these design elements:

• Quality content — 53%
• Personalization — 46%
• Efficiency/response time — 41% 
• Brand trust — 38% 
• East of interaction/ability to make purchase — 31% 
• Consistency across channels/touchpoints — 25% 
• Product reviews and testimonials — 20%
• Convenience of support — 20%

But failing to deliver on these design elements can lead to:

• Missed opportunities for revenue — 65%
• Wasted staff time/resources — 46%
• High customer churn — 31%
• Weakened/damaged brand — 30%
• Inefficient use of budget — 30%
• Lower employee morale — 15%
• Cross departmental tension — 13%

All that aside, 89% believe live/human interaction nest allows them to meet customer expectations, while 11% cite automated experiences. 

And 83% say live interaction accounts for the majority of their overall experience them deliver, with the remainder citing automation.

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 327 marketing professionals and research subscribers during the week of March 21-28. Of these, 32% were B2B, 46% B2C and 22% an equal mixture of both. In addition, 65% work at companies with fewer than 50 employees, 19% at firms with 50 to 500 and 16% at larger companies with more than 500.