In today’s edition of TheCustomer Quick-Take: Correct me if I’m wrong here but wouldn’t you want to know what your customers expect before attempting to meet / exceed those expectations? Just sayin. Also, customers are feeling their oats (twice), CX continues to get corporate budget love, and retail media is no longer just for the big boys.
Feature: The Case for Customer Expectations as CX’ North Star
CX professionals need to start by understanding their customers’ expectations for doing business with them because meeting and exceeding customer expectations is literally impossible if you don’t know what they are. There – I said it. READ MORE
CONSUMER RESEARCH
Consumers Wield Their Purchasing Power
Now, more than ever, consumers wield their purchasing power in an intentionally selective manner. McKinsey reports that 35% of U.S. consumers have tried a new brand since the pandemic began, while 77% demonstrated new purchasing behaviors, including new channels, stores, and brands.
AI
Economist Says AI Is a Doomed Bubble
According to a pair of experts in a scathing essay in Salon, the frothy hype cycle surrounding chatbot AIs is doomed to be what investors fear most: a bubble. When popped, they argue, it’ll reveal Large Language Model (LLM) -powered systems to be much less paradigm-shifting technologies, and really just a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.
CX-1
CIOs to Grow CX investments Despite Economic Woes
Nearly 4 in 5 CIOs say they’ll increase spending on customer experience in 2023, according to the Logicalis Global CIO Report 2023. The employee experience is top of mind for technology executives this year, with 3 in 5 expecting to adopt new technologies to improve worker experience.
CX-2
Customer Expectations at an All-Time High: Only 28% of Businesses Excel
The latest peak season has come to an end, but growing consumer expectations require flexible fulfillment strategies at any time. The Körber Supply Chain Benchmarking Report reinforces the mission-critical role of the supply chain. However, while 92% of supply chain professionals recognize that supply chain performance has a critical impact on customer satisfaction, only 28% excel in end-customer experience.
CONSUMER SENTIMENT
Brands Think They’ll Get a Break When Times are Tough
With brands currently operating in an environment where they’re having trouble hiring and are looking for ways to cut costs — typically causes of degraded customer engagement — 62% of consumers say they’re actually more critical of how brands engage them now than they were a year ago. For example, 57% of consumers say long wait times matter more to them now than they did a year ago. Troublingly, 77% of brands believe the opposite.
TECHNOLOGY
The Benefits of Headless
A recent Yottaa survey of ecommerce leaders found that 62% are looking to headless commerce to improve engagement and conversions. By separating front-end interface applications from the back-end systems managing details such as inventory and order management, headless jumpstarts innovation.
RETAIL MEDIA
IGA Joins Forces with Ideal to Create 1st Indie-Focused Retail Media Network
All independent grocers, not just IGA operators, can take part in the CPG-funded platform that seeks to compete with major national grocery chains.
See you next week!
