According to the survey, carried out with more than 6,700 consumers from 15 countries, including Brazil, 80% of customers say that the experience offered by a brand is as important as the quality of the products and services it offers. In addition, more than half (57%) of all respondents would not hire a service or buy a product from a brand because they had a better experience with a competitor. Among Brazilians, expectations are even higher: 89% of customers declare that the experience that the brand enables is as important as the products and services sold. They believe a key factor in this is being treated like a person and not just a number (94%).
“Research shows that trust and the balance between personalization and privacy are key factors in meeting customer expectations in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and this is influencing the way consumers think and act,” explains Daniel Hoe, Salesforce Marketing Director for Latin America.
So personalization remains more important than ever for customers around the world, who are willing to switch to the competition if it offers a better experience (54%). And much of that experience depends on trust: 95% of respondents say that if they trust a company, they are more likely to be loyal to it.
Furthermore, integration into customer relationship management is a decisive factor for the majority of end consumers and corporate in all countries surveyed: 70% of respondents say that connected processes, represented by fluid communication between departments/relationship channels and contextualized interaction based on previous attendances are very important to become or remain a customer of a company. “The customer no longer accepts being treated as a number and having to enter the CPF or the subscriber code several times in the same contact, he wants the company to anticipate his problem and inform him that it has already been resolved”, says Hoe.
Customer experience and technology
Technology plays a special role in changing customer expectations around the world: 59% of study participants say companies need to deliver state-of-the-art digital experiences to keep their customers, while 59% say they are open to organizations using artificial intelligence (AI) ) to improve your experience. And while some emerging technologies are still trying to take hold, most respondents say they have changed (or are changing) their expectations: Internet of Things (60%), voice-activated personal assistants (59%) and AI (51%) are some of them. . Among Brazilians, 68% of consumers – end or corporate – confirm that AI is already actively transforming their expectations with brands.
To deliver the expected experience and demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of each customer, companies need new technologies and massive amounts of data. But, as recent events show, not all of them are living up to the trust they have received in using this data and technology: 62% of respondents worldwide say they fear more for the security of their information today than they did two years ago and almost half (45%) not sure how organizations use this information. Interestingly, despite the security concerns, 82% of customers would agree to share personal data to achieve better and more humane experiences, and 85% would agree to share relevant information to receive proactive service.
When asked what actions could increase their trust in companies, respondents in Brazil responded that brands should be transparent about how they use customer data, show commitment to protecting such information, and give consumers control over what can be collected.
The report State of the Connected Customer 2018 complete is available on here.
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