Consumers still want the human connection, even in digital age
• Winning brands perform consistently across physical and digital channels
The 2022/23 Ask Afrika Orange Index reveals a shift in the interplay between brand, customer experience and emotion. The index, the most referenced customer experience benchmark in SA, shows that customer satisfaction has improved with strong performing brands benefiting from a focus on fairness, the overall service experience, emotional satisfaction, channel satisfaction and reputation. Winning brands build seamless customer centric channel relevance and have a good understanding of their customers.
“We are moving into a contactless world where physical experiences have digital alternatives, such as online doctor consultations, online gym sessions, contactless payment options, online university lectures or virtual tours,” explains Sarina de Beer, MD at Ask Afrika. “It’s really about making digital experiences convenient, meaningful and relevant.”
While a growing number of businesses are talking about digital strategies as opposed to segment or sales strategies, the reality is digital remains a mechanism in the growth and engagement value chain rather than its own pillar, says De Beer.
“In contrast to 2021, this year’s index reveals that human channels are outperforming digital channels. In fact, winning brands provide a consistent performance across both physical and digital channels, giving customers significantly more predictability.”
However, she says challenges around customer experience persist. “The basic transactional dimensions are slipping with many brands not providing an authentic sense of connection or understanding of their customers. All too often there are inconsistencies around reputation which is something that is likely to be even more problematic with future generations.”
She adds that customer experiences need to remain human. “The answer is not to automate everything. To succeed in this area, businesses need to make thoughtful decisions about what is best for the customer and enabling for their employees.”
The index found that since the pandemic, there has been a shift back to what is convenient and relevant to customers. Not only do customers want businesses and the brands they support to show they care, but contextual influences matter.
“Customer experience strategies need to factor in customer behavioural and attitudinal shifts. They also need to acknowledge the higher prevalence of mental health issues post the pandemic including heightened anxiety and depression,” says De Beer.
However, to achieve this requires an in-depth knowledge and understanding of customers. “There have been major shifts in what people value: goal-setting and motivation, for example, have become more important to many people as has how they spend their time. Post the pandemic, many people are more focused on renovating and upgrading their homes. They’re also engaging more with food delivery apps.”
That includes knowing how they like companies to engage with them. This year’s index found that when it comes to digital engagement, while apps continue to be favoured, customers get frustrated with chatbots, interactive voice responses and SMS.
Constrained household budgets and limited disposable income means consumers are increasingly being forced to make purchase decisions based
BRANDS NEED TO BE TRUSTED, THEY NEED A SOLID REPUTATION AND TO BE ACCESSIBLE TO CUSTOMERS
on affordability. “A significant 39% of people are concerned about rising food prices and 35% admit to using a carefully planned shopping list when they buy groceries. More than a third of consumers say price increases have forced them to choose cheaper alternatives,” says De Beer.
Customer experience strategies, she adds, need to fit into consumers’ lives. “Post the pandemic there is a growing sense of frustration — and perhaps even resentment — that banks, telcos and insurance companies, for example, don’t understand their customers sufficiently. To ensure lifetime value from a customer, a different engagement model is required, one that is based on a sustainable relationship based on fairness, trust, an assurance of value for money, reliability and convenience.”
The customer experience landscape has changed significantly in recent years.
“Customer experience and, more specifically, service strategies, were historically positioned more independently within corporate structures. The interplay between brand and customer experience are now significantly more integrated.”
The 2022 Orange Index data indicates the transactional dimensions of customer experience are contributing 17% towards advocacy. De Beer says an authentic connection with the brands embedded in a sense of a relationship between customer and brand accounts for 33% of advocacy, while the brand itself accounts for 50%.
“Brands are held accountable for customer experience, connection, relevance and the sustainable relationship with their customers. Customer experience strategies cannot stand in isolation in corporate structures anymore, but need to be integrated and shared across the corporate value chain and structure.”
She explains that during a more fragile and fraught time for society, the emphasis on brand is a reflection of hope, or a need to believe or hope.
“At a time when trust has imploded, social values are breaking down, and crime — including gender-based violence — is up, people want something positive that they can cling to. All the better if that something positive are brands they can trust.”
De Beer maintains that society currently is in a period of transition. “At this stage it can go any which way. Business need to portray understanding and empathy for their customers as opposed to only being focused on knowledge and the next transaction.”
She argues it’s incumbent on businesses to drive a successful transition; one that incorporates positive human values.
“Knowing our customer is simply not good enough — we need to step up into a deep understanding and start playing a leadership role. A successful customer experience and brand position is unrealistic without a deep understanding of the impact on how customers feel.”
The engagement journey is about understanding the fundamentals and the level of tolerance. Foundationally, brands need to deliver on building an emotional connection with their customers: they need to be trusted, they need a solid reputation and to be accessible to customers with an ability to resolve issues at the first point of contact, she says.
“A sustainable relationship will also need a relevant and convincing value proposition in an increasingly competitive environment. Once that is in place, customers will show some degree of tolerance for service failures.”
Benchmarks such as the Orange Index, she adds, are powerful in showing the tipping point of tolerance, which dimensions are most critical and what the tolerance levels would be by looking at performance standards and benchmarks.
Ultimately, she says, consumers are looking for companies that are honest in their dealings with the consumer, that offer products that meet their needs, and that are reliable. If the correct value proposition is offered, then customers are likely to be more tolerant.