Report: How a brand's digital experience impacts customer loyalty
SAP's Australian Digital Experience Report ranked the individual performance of 34 of Australian brands across six industry segments including utilities, telecommunications/ISPs, insurance, banking, retail- consumer and retail - groceries.
The research identified a link between the digital experience and business outcomes with poor digital experiences potentially translating into loss of customer loyalty and advocacy, which can impact a brand's revenue.
About 3000 respondents took part in the report, with half of them being unsatisfied with their digital experiences. The respondents rated about 7000 digital interactions against 13 core attributes including engagement, personalisation, responsiveness and simplicity.
The grocery retail industry stood out as the leading performer, yet on the whole still had more unsatisfied consumers than delighted ones. Banking and insurance were the next best performers, with telecommunications and utilities coming in last.
The survey suggested that the telco industry could make fast gains by investing in tools to better understand and deliver more control to its customers.
"Brands need a much deeper understanding of their digital-experience performance if they are to keep their customers and stay competitive," SAP A/NZ president and managing director, John Ruthven, said.
"With our research, we're helping Australian organisations not only identify the link between digital experience and business outcomes, but offering a framework that helps them measure and manage their digital-experience performance from their customers' perspective."
So what makes up a delightful digital experience Out of the 13 digital experience attributes, three key consumer preferences stood out including being able to predict their relevant preferences without infringing on privacy, an engaging experience that allows the consumer to control their interaction and providing a simple service that works anytime, anywhere. "The perfect digital experience depends on how well brands understand and engage relevantly with their individual customers and at the same time how well their processes and people are aligned to deliver," he said. "Consistent across the best performing brands in our research is a data-driven approach to the digital experience that brings the front and back office together to delight the customer. This sets them apart from their competition."
The report indicated that customers that were delighted with their digital experience, were four times more likely to remain loyal to a brand and that the digital experience needs to be simple, make customers feel important, be interactive and responsive.
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Suncorp Insurance scored highest for the digital-experience attributes, scoring positively across 11 of the 13 attributes. Kogan.com scored the highest among consumer goods retailers, delivering the third-highest score across industries. Kogan.com executive director, David Shafer, said the team continually improves the shopping experience on its website, but importantly the systems and processes at the backend that power their operations as well.
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