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Friday, 04 November 2011

The experience of shopping with a tablet PC is much less satisfying than with your desktop computer. Although the iPad reinvented the tablet computer, unfortunately it appears that the actual surfing experience does not live up to expectations. In a survey of nearly 5,000 people undertaken by Foviance, a global Customer Experience consultancy, it’s clear that the customer experience of tablet computing is relatively poor – customers are up to 18% less happy with their tablet experience compared to their desktop PCs.

The study, which looked at what customers thought of customer experience in the retail, banking, travel and mobile phone markets in the 2nd Annual Customer Experience survey, commissioned by Foviance in association with Econsultancy.

Whilst companies are rushing to create apps on Apple, Android and Nokia stores it seems that they are not delivering for customers. The Apple store now has more than 200,000 apps, far more choice than the 40,000 products in a branch of Tesco but apps are not delivering the experience of their full-blown desktop cousins.

According to the survey, people are looking for efficient customer service (51%) and high-quality products (39%) at a low price (49%). Apps don’t appear to be robustly designed and have service issues. One customer, Muir MacDonald, explained that his new Skype app for iPad2 stopped working when he updated iTunes and he said “I delete a lot of apps that just don’t work as suppliers tend to ignore complaints and don’t fix them”.

Foviance also surveyed 650 companies and asked them about their commitment to customer experience. Only 10% felt that apps were ‘integrated’ with their overall customer experience, as compared to 48% with their website experience.

Companies are also failing to keep pace with the changes in technology. 40% of companies said that the major barrier to improving customer experience was ‘complexity of customer experience’.

Other findings:

1. In general, people seem to be fairly happy with their customer experience, for example, 87% of people thought their overall retailing experience was good or excellent
2. 69% of people will recommend a company based on a good customer experience
3. Customers are increasingly moving online, however, the face to face experience is still important, with the call centres and brochure being relegated to less important ways of buying
4. Mobile customer experiences are generally weaker – even if you’re a mobile phone company!

Download the report from the Foviance website

London, UK, 4 November, 2011
Business executives back multichannel customer experience but fail to ‘walk the walk’.

Boardroom executives typically understand the importance of multichannel customer experience, but are failing to invest in the processes and frameworks to make this happen, according to research published today.

The Second Annual Multichannel Customer Experience Report, published by Foviance in association with Econsultancy, is based on a survey of more than 650 companies and agencies carried out earlier this year.

The research gives a state-of-the-nation perspective on the extent to which organisations are committed to delivering an integrated experience in a world where the customer journey is becoming increasingly complex due to evolving technology and the proliferation of devices.

The study, which looks at what the most successful multichannel companies are doing differently, has found that ‘mature’ companies have overcome technical challenges and are using a much wider range of data sources than other companies to understand the customer experience.

A commitment to customer experience from the top of the organisation is regarded as a key requirement by just under half of companies (46%) surveyed, higher than for all other organisational attributes deemed to be important. More than half of responding companies rate themselves either as ‘excellent’ (21%) or ‘good’ (37%) in terms of internal buy-in at the top of their organisations.

But only 26% of respondents say their companies have a well-developed strategy in place for improving customer experience, just a slight increase on 22% last year.

The research has also found that ‘complexity of customer experience’ is now seen as the greatest barrier to improving multichannel customer experience, overtaking ‘organisational structure’ since 2010.

Richard Sedley, Commercial Director at Foviance, said: “Companies that have benefited most from improving their multichannel customer experience are those that have recognised the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative customer insights. If your company isn’t already capturing ‘voice of customer’ via onsite surveying and social listening and integrating it with data from web analytics and search there has never been a better time to start.”

As part of this year’s research, responding organisations were asked to rate themselves across five key areas which are crucial for delivering a joined-up and compelling multichannel customer experience. These are systems & processes, leadership & culture, alignment with brand, customer touch points and use of insight.

‘Mature companies’ are those which scored highly across the five key pillars of the Foviance Multichannel Customer Experience Maturity Model.

In addition to this survey, Foviance carried out five consumer surveys about customer experience, covering retail, travel, online banking, mobile phone providers and gaming / gambling. It highlights that 69% of the 4,000 consumers surveyed have dealt with a company online and 73% of people would be likely to recommend a retail brand based on good customer experience.

Econsultancy Research Director Linus Gregoriadis said: “The understanding about the importance of customer experience is there, but many business leaders are talking the talk without walking the walk. Evidence of ownership of customer experience among company executives has not necessarily translated into clearly-defined strategies, frameworks and processes for making it happen.”

The research found that mature companies are more likely to have overcome technology and data-related issues. ‘Immature’ companies, because they are still worried about technology and systems, are losing sight of the importance of customer service and empowered staff.

Other findings from the 2011 Multichannel Customer Experience Report:

• Just over a quarter (28%) of companies say there is ownership of customer experience at board or ‘c- level’, but without full commitment across leadership teams. Almost a fifth of companies (18%) say there is ‘c-level ownership of the total customer experience’.
• The gap between mature companies and others is typically more pronounced for integration of digital channels, such website, email and internet advertising, into the overall customer experience.
• The gap is less obvious for offline touch points (for example retail outlets, direct marketing and events), with the notable exception of telephone support and sales where mature companies are way ahead of the curve.
• The research also shows how mature and ‘immature’ companies have a different perception of the attributes required for delivering a positive customer experience. Mature companies are far more likely than the least mature organisations to regard motivated and empowered staff and efficient customer service as being among the most important attributes.
• In contrast, immature companies are more focused on visibility of customer behaviour across channels and the need for a single or joined-up customer database.

Download the reports:

2nd Annual Multichannel Customer Experience Report

Multichannel Customer Experience Report Consumer Survey Results

For further information: Contact Richard Sedley: Tel:+44 (0)8450 546 500, e-mail: info@foviance.com,
web: www.foviance.com

About Foviance

Foviance is a leading multichannel customer experience consultancy that helps some of the world’s best known global brands to deliver better customer experiences that drive improvements in customer satisfaction for increased customer loyalty and better financial performance.

About Econsultancy

Econsultancy is a global independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and e-commerce, and used by over 240,000 internet professionals every month.

Our hub has 105,000+ members worldwide from clients, agencies and suppliers alike with over 90% member retention rate. We help our members build their internal capabilities via a combination of research reports and how-to guides, training and development, consultancy, face-to-face conferences, forums and professional networking.
Call us to find out more on +44 (0)20 7269 1450 (London) or +1 212 699 3626 (New York)

Could understanding what triggers emotional engagement in your customers make the difference for your brand?

London, UK, 12 October, 2011 – Today, a new website was launched on Emotional Engagement, uncovering a ground-breaking technology that enables businesses’ to understand if they have engaged with their customers on an emotional level.

Foviance, the expert in customer experience, worked with SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI), a world leader in computer vision applications and developed their Emotional Engagement Measurement™ (EEM™)  service, which is a fresh approach to customer experience research. The Emotional Engagement Measurement™ service combines a variety of Foviance’s user research methods, eye tracking data collected with SMI solutions and brain data on emotional states collected with a specialised neuroheadset.
Measuring emotional engagement has always been a challenge for customer experience professionals because emotions are largely driven by unconscious processes.

Electroencephalography (EEG) data provides a view on how the brain responds to different experiences, revealing unconscious emotional states. Foviance’s expert consultants are able to use this brain data to offer clients actionable insights on how to increase the effectiveness of marketing and improve customer experience.
In a pilot project with Foviance UK, SMI developed a special interface to integrate the Emotive EPOC neuroheadset with the SMI Experiment Suite 360 ° eye tracking software and the SMI RED eye tracking device, which successfully delivered a service to analyse home, product and landing pages, as well as banner and email content.

By adding eye tracking to EEM™, each emotional reaction can be objectively associated with the focus of visual attention at a certain time. Or in plain words: “In an EEM™ study, we get deeper knowledge on the process of information processing because we know where someone was looking when the brain reacted in a certain way”.

Foviance is really excited to have this resource available, which will become the knowledge base of emotional engagement worldwide.

Explore the Emotional Engagement website

About Foviance 
Foviance is a leading customer experience consultancy that helps some of the world’s best known global brands to deliver better customer experiences that drive improvements in customer satisfaction for increased customer loyalty and better financial performance.

About SMI
SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) is a world leader in dedicated computer vision applications, developing and marketing eye & gaze tracking systems and OEM solutions for a wide range of applications.

PRWeb recently published a fantastic piece about Scottish Friendly boosting online sales by 25% with their new website. We were fortunate enough to be part of this project with Scottish Friendly.

“In particular the website project saw us all working together with one of the UK’s leading usability agencies, Foviance, to produce excellent results.” Ross Laurie, Managing Director of Line

To read the full article published by PRWeb please click here.

At the end of this week Paul Blunden, Foviance’s CEO, will be stepping down from his position as the head of our company.

Paul has been with us for over 10 years and CEO for the majority of that time.

Foviance’s hard-earned reputation for the excellence of our work and staff is in no small part down to the vision and leadership Paul has provided us. Everyone at Foviance would like to thank him for all his efforts and wish him well in all his future ventures.

Former CEO of Wheel and Foviance Board Chairman Philip Hunt will assume the role of Executive Chairman. Paul will continue his association with us as a Non-Executive Director.

22 July 2011

This article was originally published by Seb Joseph, NMA

When it comes to determining the usability of mobiles, it’s vital to know how people use them and what differs to their use of PCs. Research by Foviance looks at the variances.

The phrase ’mobile usability’ is something of an oxymoron. While users are consuming more content on their mobile devices, the experience is blighted by download delays and awkward input. The lack of usability guidelines from platform owners means brands are struggling to create content that’s as emotionally engaging for consumers on mobiles as it is on PCs.

Part of the challenge for brands is capitalising on the different cognitive interactions users have with content on mobile devices versus PCs.

According to research by usability consultancy Foviance, an increasing number of 18-30-year-olds are using their handsets primarily for entertainment and social interaction.

Surveying 278 candidates aged 18-30 nationwide, the report found that a notable proportion (75.4%) said they only used their handsets to manage their social media profiles, while half claimed they only used their PCs for work-related activity.

In addition, nearly 70% said they typically spend between one and two hours a day on their handsets, compared to the 73% who spend four hours or more on a PC (mainly at work).

The instantaneous nature of interaction on a mobile suggests that people are thinking less about the content they upload to the web via a handset, whereas their use of the PC reveals more contemplative thought processes.

Social media was the most prominent activity carried out on both PCs and handsets, with 90% of those asked saying they accessed social networks on both platforms.

“Social media content is becoming the most important thing people do on both their smartphones and their PCs,” says Catriona Campbell, founder and director of Foviance. “The difference is what aspects of social networks people are using when on either platform.”

We have launched the follow up to our ground breaking Multichannel Customer Experience Report. Last year’s report provided insight into how businesses were thinking and acting in the area of multichannel customer experience.

The 2011 survey covers:

•         What attributes are important for delivering a great customer experience? 
•         How well does your organisation (or your clients) integrate different touch points?
•         With questions around organisational maturity, measurement and challenges

Last year we used our maturity model to look at the progress organisations were making across five important dimensions of customer experience: Leadership and culture, brand, customer insight, customer touch points and systems and processes

We believe if an organisation can capture these five dimensions in their roadmap, then they are likely to gain the business performance improvements they are searching for, to implement a multichannel customer experience strategy.

We will be using our maturity model to see if companies have changed their behaviours in these five areas, over the past year. To enhance the report further, we will also be running a second B2C survey alongside this one but we will keep you updated on that before it is launched in July.

Complete the Multichannel Customer Experience survey here, and receive a FREE copy of the full report in advance.

Guy Stephens joins as senior consultant in social customer care, while Richard Sedley becomes commercial director, overseeing expansion of client development

London, UK –15 December, 2010 – Foviance, the UK’s leading customer experience consultancy and usability specialist, has appointed Guy Stephens as senior social customer care consultant, and Richard Sedley as commercial director. Both will be based at Foviance’s London headquarters.

Paul Blunden, CEO of Foviance said: “We’re delighted to have both Guy and Richard on our team here at Foviance. Both appointments are indicative of the company’s growing emphasis on providing more strategic value to all of our clients.”

In his new role as senior social customer care consultant at Foviance, Guy Stephens is already exploring how social media is changing the way companies and customers work and communicate with each other. Fundamental shifts in how customer service is provided over the last two years as a result of social media, are presenting businesses with a new and very different set of challenges. Guy will use his considerable experience and expertise in this field to ensure Foviance is able to help clients undergoing this transformation. Before joining Foviance, Guy was customer knowledge manager for The Carphone Warehouse where he began use of social media within customer service, primarily through Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Facebook.

As Foviance’s new commercial director, Richard Sedley will oversee the expansion of the company’s client development team as well as working to increase the value of the multi-channel services that Foviance already successfully delivers for its clients. Additionally, as course director for social media at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Richard will ensure that Foviance clients are always best placed to take advantage of developments in the social web. Prior to joining Foviance Richard worked at cScape where he launched its Customer Engagement Unit, creating bespoke customer engagement strategies comprising audience research, metrics, analysis and segmentation, multi-channel engagement campaigns and communication optimisation.

Paul Blunden said: “Foviance is recognised as a leader in the field of customer experience consulting. Guy and Richard’s considerable experience of customer engagement and customer service within social media complements and extends our existing analytics, research and user experience skills to offer our clients an unrivalled customer service offering.”

For further information please contact:

Paul Blunden, CEO

Tel: +44 (0)8450 546 500
Fax: +44 (0)8450 546 501