In this edition of TheCustomer Quick-Take: Evidence that convenience isn’t all that, Where to put your digital transformation efforts, You don’t get to define personalization, Finding the Deus in your AI Ex Machina, How one brand is leveraging loyalty to leapfrog supply chain issues, and a virtual cornucopia of consumer trends.
Happy Wednesday!
CONSUMER TRENDS
Maybe Convenience isn’t King After All
Quick-Take: In a survey of more than 1,000 consumers, just 7% said they were loyal to Instacart, down from 16% in Barclays’ influential 2019 survey. The percentage of respondents who said they are loyal to their favorite grocers bumped up to 29% from 22% in 2019.
Customers Don’t Care About Your Supply Chain Issues
Quick-Take: Delivery delays and supply chain issues might be a worry for shoppers, but the issue aren’t going to change consumer behavior this holiday season. That’s the prime finding of the fifth annual holiday survey from Convey by project44 regarding consumer shopping preferences.
Respond Quickly but By All Means Respond
Quick-Take: Not only do 31% of U.S. consumers expect a same-day response to a question or comment on social media, but 47% also have a favorable opinion of brands that address customer inquiries and complaints via social.
CX
Inextricably Intertwined with EX
Quick-Take: The more you look at it, the more it becomes apparent that enhancing the employee experience will almost always have either a direct or indirect impact on the experience that customers receive. You could even go further and say that paying adequate attention to EX is essential to achieving CX excellence.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Where Does Your DT Effort Stand?
Quick-Take: Last year, 60% of respondents said that COVID-19 forced them to alter their digital transformation plans. That number increased to 62% this year. Digital transformation priorities also changed year over year. In 2020, the majority of survey respondents (68%) focused on implementing remote digital tech that could facilitate collaboration, digital and online training (56%) and IT and business process automation (39%). Not all digital technologies delivered a win. According to respondents, digital technologies such as social media (23%) and IoT devices (14%) failed to deliver.
PERSONALIZATION
The Customer Defines Personalization
Quick-Take: These findings are all echoed in NTT’s 2021 Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report. But, the report warns that “organizations and consumers have different views of what personalization means”, with consumers saying that personalization is “not about how well the organization knows them, but how well the organization is listening to them, and how efficiently and effectively they respond to needs.”
HOSPITALITY
Customers Willing to Go Direct
Quick-Take: Direct bookings soared during the height of the pandemic last year as travelers looked to learn more information directly from the property on everything from available amenities to sanitization protocols. Now as travel continues to rebuild in many markets and consumer confidence returns, bookings are once again shifting back to other channels like Brand.com, OTAs and GDSs.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Watching for AI Bias
Quick-Take: “Part of the appeal of algorithmic decision-making is that it seems to offer an objective way of overcoming human subjectivity, bias, and prejudice,” Sandel says. “But we are discovering that many of the algorithms that decide who should get parole, for example, or who should be presented with employment opportunities or housing … replicate and embed the biases that already exist in our society.”
Watching for Self-Justification
Quick-Take: It’s become something of a pattern when software developers explain some difficult, amazing or intractable process as, “machine learning handles that,” sidestepping how thoroughly or carefully this important set of steps works. For modern technology, it’s a clumsy application of a two-thousand-year-old plot device: the “Deus ex Machina”
LOYALTY
Loyalty Shores Up the Supply Chain
Quick-Take: Best Buy is one company that’s warning of product shortages and shipping delays as part of its annual membership program. It’s giving members access to hard-to-find holiday items and special prices beginning next Monday.
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Photo by Hanna Morris on Unsplash
