Research

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

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

Ask any CEO how much a great customer experience matters to their business and you will get a consistent reply: it is crucial.

The impact of poor experiences on customer attraction, retention and cross-buying has been well documented over the past decades. But today, more than ever, ‘Customer Experience’ has become the hot topic in business circles.

In a recent (June 2010) Foviance / Econsultancy survey, 92% of businesses said their organisation recognised a link between long-term business performance and customer experience – two thirds reporting a strong link . So what makes customer experience so relevant today?

To download the whitepaper a valid e-mail address is required, however Foviance will not contact you unless you specifically request it.

Background

Alfred Dunhill, the mens luxury retailer identified that their online channel is increasingly important not just as a direct sales channel but also as way to create more engagement with its customers.

As part of their ongoing development of their site, Alfred Dunhill commissioned Foviance to undertake some independent research of its online audience to gather quantitative data on what visitors thought of the current customer experience. This would help them identify strengths and weaknesses of their main site and start to build a much richer idea of what their online audience wanted from an Alfred Dunhill site.

Methodology

Foviance developed an opt-in survey from the Alfred Dunhill homepage that recruited visitors with specific objectives for visiting the site. They then completed their journey and were asked a series of questions once they had completed their intended goal.

The survey was launched during the busy run-up to Christmas and was live throughout the festive period itself to capitalise on the increased traffic rates. In addition the exposure rate of the survey was controlled so that is was unlikely someone returning to the site that had declined to participate in the past would be shown the participation message again on the homepage.

Results

Over 200 responses were gained throughout the duration that the survey was live. Overall over 84% respondents said they would visit the site again and a net promoter score benchmark was captured. The survey captured user feedback on the look and feel of the site and allowed Alfred Dunhill to see if these were inline with its brand guidelines. In addition it highlighted several areas where the site could be improved. This has helped develop the business case for additional development work. Alfred Dunhill intend to use this methodology again at regular intervals to help measure site performance and get regular customer feedback as the site develops and grows.

Foviance is proudly sponsoring Econsultancy’s one-day conference dedicated to helping you and your team be the best you possibly can. There will be  40 international experts and the brightest minds in on and offline marketing on Wednesday 13th October at Old Billingsgate, London.

JUMP 2010 will focus on how we can make our marketing more effective by having a joined up approach.

Foviance’s Paul Blunden will be presenting research findings on the Multi-channel user experience.

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