Customers have more information available than ever before to assist them in their buying decisions, and winning their loyalty has become an increasing challenge for companies. Just around 30 per cent of chief marketing officers (CMOs) and marketing executives fully understand the point in the customer experience where trust is eroded, and only half are able to address negative experiences at the customer touch point, according to a new report by EY and Forbes Insights - Building Trusted Relationships Through Analytics and Experience.
About 91 per cent of CMOs feel that building trusted customer relationships is a significant focus of their departments’ strategic and competitive vision, says the report.
Eighty seven per cent of CMOs say their strategic vision includes the customer experience, and they recognise that they need to embrace the latest data and analytics technologies in order to build credibility and long-term relationships with customers. About 38 per cent of respondents strongly agree that they are leveraging analytics to understand where trust is being eroded in the experience life cycle.
Over the next two years, 81 per cent of CMOs say that data and analytics will be an important tool with which to build and measure trust. And almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of marketers say they use analytics to check if the brand promise is being kept throughout the customer’s interaction with the company.
Most executives (51 per cent) believe that there is a significant opportunity in the use of analytics for customer insight and in expanding the use of external data sources. Just 37 per cent say they have the capability to use analytics to tailor communications and outreach to the customer. This is a low number considering that many marketing executives see personalisation as the next big trend in marketing.
Marketers at the executive level are collaborating more across various business units to manage and improve the customer experience. Sixty-seven per cent of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the customer experience requires collaboration outside of marketing.
The report features insights from a survey of 301 US-based executives from a variety of functions and several in-depth interviews with leading marketing executives from a range of industries.
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