Delighted customers share more data: SAP

octomedia

28th Jun 2016

Want customers to trust you with their data? Build a strong digital experience.

A new report from SAP has found consumers who are “delighted” with the digital experience from a retailer are more willing to provide private data to brands, such as buying preferences (39 per cent), health records (24 per cent), web browsing history (24 per cent) and their personal finances (21 per cent).

“Notwithstanding, most of this information is actually already available on the web, via Facebook etcetera, [but] it’s about sitting there and saying ‘I’m actually willing to give that to you now because I’ve had a good experience’,” Stuart O’Neill, head of business, SAP Hybris Australia told Internet Retailing.

The 2016 Australian Digital Experience Report ranked almost 1100 digital interactions with the country’s largest grocery retailers, and nearly 1100 digital interactions from the consumer goods sector to determine a digital experience score. The digital experience score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Australian consumers satisfied with their digital experience from the percentage of those who were delighted.

The report also noted that delighted consumers are nearly five times more likely to remain loyal to a brand than those who are unsatisfied.  

“Loyalty is quite important and that correlation between great customer experience and customer loyalty is one of those areas where we can start to create an emotional connection,” said O’Neill.  

O’Neill argued creating an emotional connection will help supermarkets in particular move away from using price as the only means to earn — and keep — customer loyalty.

“That’s where we are going to see some differentiation in the grocery market,” said O’Neill. “At the moment it all seems to be about price, and loyalty seems to be one of those things that is disappearing fairly quickly. But if you can maintain that emotional connection, if you can maintain that loyalty, I’m willing to give you more information about who I am. Which means you’re able to personalise that experience… if you do that you start to build that emotive relationship and I’ll keep on coming back.”

More broadly, the report found Australia’s largest retailers have improved their digital performance since 2015’s inaugural study, but a sizeable gap remains between the experiences brands deliver and what consumers expect.

“We are seeing that gap close in Australia as we see the larger retail brands start to spend the right amount of money around this digital problem and also blend their online and offline experiences so it is consistent,” said O’Neill.

“Everything is moving in the right direction. Is it moving quick enough? No I don’t believe it is.”

O’Neill argues digital transformation for retailers is much broader than an e-commerce offering.

“We need to ensure that our boards are starting to understand the importance of digital to their brands,” said O’Neill.  “It is not about e-commerce anymore. You need to remove the ‘e’ — it’s about commerce. It needs to be part of your end-to-end brand solution.”