In this week’s TheCustomer QT – Now we know why CX fails, guess which state killed their data privacy bill, the golden opportunity in returns, and Amazon guilt is a thing.
Happy skimming!
CX
2020 Provided Many Customer Experience Lessons
Quick-take: Their immediate response showcased empathy through a radically unexpected CX decision. Did the company lose income in the short-term? Perhaps. However, the goodwill and relief generated by the move positioned the brand as sincere, compassionate, and conscientious.
Prioritizing The CX Metrics
Quick-take: According to a recent survey of enterprise contact center leaders across various industries, these are the most critical metrics for measuring and evaluating CX success in 2021.
#15: Customer Lifetime Value: 28%
Editor’s Note: The priority of this one statistic explains so much about the failures of CX.
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DATA & PRIVACY
Experts File Brief in Support of Census Bureau
Quick-take: Twenty leading experts, in data privacy and cryptography along with lawyers from Bondurant Mixson & Elmore filed an amicus brief in support of the Census Bureau’s use of “differential privacy”—a mathematically rigorous way of providing provably and future-proof privacy-infused statistics— to protect the privacy of census respondents.
Sen. Moran Reintroduces Federal Consumer Data Privacy Bill
Quick-take: 83 percent of voters feel data privacy regulation should be an important congressional priority this year, and said that was the impetus for reintroducing the bill.
Florida lawmakers reject data privacy
Quick-take: The measure, which had broad bipartisan support in both chambers, would have required Florida businesses to tell consumers what data they’ve collected about them and how they’re going to use it. But it was vigorously opposed by the largest businesses in Florida, which warned the bill would cost them millions to comply. There were 343 lobbyists hired to lobby the bill, most of whom were attempting to kill it.
Editor’s Note: Uyh.
Bad Data is Bad News for Marketers
Quick-take: The 2020 Nielsen Annual Marketing report, which surveyed more than 350 global marketers, found that data quality is shockingly not one of their highest priorities. Instead, marketers prioritize audience targeting, ad creative, and audience reach. But none of those efforts will hit their mark if marketers aren’t approaching them with the right information.
LOYALTY
Restaurant Loyalty Programs Find Their Stride
Quick-take: In its recent survey of 500 restaurants, merchant services company Square found that 42 percent of restaurants planned to invest in customer loyalty programs. And for good reason. The pandemic accelerated consumers’ adoption of digital technologies as millions downloaded branded restaurant apps and ordered food through digital channels.
R/GA Uncovers Serious Slide in Brand Loyalty
Quick-take: Notably, two thirds of respondents from Singapore don’t just appreciate but now expect a seamless brand experience, and when something is expected, R/GA reminds us, it’s no longer a competitive advantage.
How Loyalty Programs are Helping to Solve Privacy Concerns
Quick-take: New online polling conducted by YouGov among 1,200 U.S. adult consumers in April 2021 revealed that 88% were willing to share their information if they saw value in the exchange. Consumers aged 18–29 were slightly more likely to say they would share their personal data with a brand in exchange for something of value such as discounts, free products or rewards — 90% versus 88% of Americans overall, a statistically significant difference.
Drive Loyalty in the Online Return Era
Quick-take: In the 2020 State of Returns study from Narvar, conducted in September, 76% of first-time customers who had an easy/very easy returns experience said they would shop with the same retailer again, while 33% of repeat customers who had a difficult/very difficult experience said they would not do business with the same retailer. Digging deeper, customers defined “very easy” returns as those with convenient drop-off locations, prompt refunds and prompt notifications about the status of a return. Overall, convenience and communication were cited as top reasons for continuing to shop with a brand.
Editor’s Note: Returns are often the Last Significant Interaction in retail transactions. As such, LSI events carry an overweighted importance in customers’ recall and can make or break feelings of loyalty & continued patronage. Huge opportunities to score customer brownie points here.
AI
Building Ethical AI is Not Easy
Quick-take: As per one research from Deloitte, one in three cybersecurity managers rate ethical threats as one of the top three AI-related enterprise concerns. Subsequently, building ethical use of artificial intelligence that we can trust should be at the core of its plan and development.
AI Thinking to Improve Customer Experience
Quick-take:You’ve probably heard: AI is destroying jobs! But this is the wrong way to think about AI. AI isn’t about jobs, it’s about tasks. In business, a collection of tasks make a process. A collection of processes make a job. AI thinking forces you to break down “work” to the task level
4 Key Misunderstandings in AI
Quick-take: The field of AI is replete with vocabulary that puts software on the same level as human intelligence. We use terms such as “learn,” “understand,” “read,” and “think” to describe how AI algorithms work. While such anthropomorphic terms often serve as shorthand to help convey complex software mechanisms, they can mislead us to think that current AI systems work like the human mind. Mitchell calls this fallacy “the lure of wishful mnemonics”.
CONSUMER SENTIMENT
Internal Data Unlocks Improved Consumer Experiences
Quick-take: Marketers need to consider what consumers consider creepy, as 63% of respondents say they would stop purchasing products and services from companies that take personalized marketing too far.
Editor’s Note: If there is a question as to whether practices have crossed the creepy-line, assume they have.
Consumers Have Guilty Feelings when Shopping at Amazon
Quick-take: The survey revealed 40% of shoppers want to reduce the amount of shopping on Amazon and 30% feel guilty, and that group represents 43% of Gen Z, 37% of millennials and 34% of Gen X. Yet 86% of Baby Boomers feel no guilt.”The online shopping behavior has shifted and some online sites are clear winners, but the consumer is now fickle enough that the Amazon stronghold can be broken.”
DIGITAL WELLBEING
Google Testing a Heads Up Feature That’ll Remind You to Look Up
Quick-take: The setup screen of ‘Heads Up’ says “If you’re walking while using your phone, get a reminder to focus on what’s around you. Use with caution. Heads Up doesn’t replace paying attention.” The reminders include notifications with instructions like “Watch your step,” “Stay alert,” and “Look up.”
Editor’s Note: Uyh.
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Photo by Will Porada on Unsplash.
