Australian brands struggle to maintain customer experience
Australian brands are struggling to keep up with customer expectations and favour convenience over customer experience (CX), according to new research by Forrester.
Australian brands lagging in customer experience
Forrester’s CX Index, which surveys more than 18,000 online adult consumers, found the quality of CX in Australia has fallen, with none of the 36 brands ranked in the survey scoring within the excellent category.
The index aims to identify how well a brand's customer experience strengthens the loyalty of its customers, but revealed stagnant scores for most brands, with many falling backward on the previous years’ achievements.
The report found 11% of brands in the Australia CX Index are languishers, which refers to brands that have had relatively high scores in previous years but have failed to record a statistically significant score change for at least two years.
The customer experience leaders across five industries were: Bendigo Bank (traditional banks); Commonwealth Bank of Australia (credit card providers); RACQ (auto and home insurance providers); The Good Guys (traditional retailers); and Kogan.com (digital-only retailers).
Forrester said the report showed Australian brands continue to focus on providing convenience for their customers, rather than creating positive interactions with their customers.
According to Forrester Data, top-tier brands provided an average of 17 emotionally positive experiences for each negative one; while the lowest-performing brands provided only six emotionally positive experiences for each negative experience.
The research follows Forrester's Global Customer Experience Trends 2017 report in June, which found just 0.5% of global brands are predicted to achieve customer 'excellence' within the next two years.