Thus, many French people point to a relationship with brands that is now more fluid than before, according to the 2015 edition of the AFRC Customer Effort Barometer. And yet, French brands still seem very unconvincing when it comes to Customer Experience, as shown by the latest Customer Experience Index published by the Forrester institute... Explanation of this apparent paradox.
1- Simplifying the customer journey, a first step on the right track
"For 60% of French people, the customer experience in France has become simpler, for the first time in three years," says the AFRC study conducted by Médiamétrie.
This is really good news, rewarding the efforts of many companies committed tocontinuous improvement in customer relations !
69% of customer journeys required no particular effort, according to those surveyed. This is a clear improvement on the figures for 2014, when only 60% of French people felt that brands made their lives easier. A 9-point gain over one year is a significant improvement, and a cause for celebration!
Beware, however: this figure masks major disparities between sectors and according to the stage of the journey assessed. No single sector stands out as the "big winner" in this improvement trend, but several are benefiting from it, particularly in specific areas such as :
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- the use of loyalty cards for supermarket chains
- online shopping in e-commerce,
- activation of a bank account
- or signing a new energy contract (electricity or gas).
We can see that, while companies have taken great care to reduce the effort required of customers at the subscription and purchase stages, the same cannot be said of the cancellation stage! For 41% of customers, this remains one of the most difficult parts of the process, particularly in the insurance sector!
2- Multi-channel is seen as an enabler, not a killer of stores
If customer journeys seem simpler today for many French people, this is due in particular to the facilitation provided by multi-channel. In 2014, the AFRC noted that omnichannel was making inroads into everyday life, but that it was giving rise to a number of fears: the disappearance of physical and local retailing, and the complication of purchasing paths due to companies' poor mastery of different channels (lack of coherence between them).
Today, these fears seem to have evaporated, and consumers are asking for more, according to Eric Dadian, President of the AFRC, speaking in the columns of columns of Les Echos newspaper :
" The freedom of choice has multiplied. The range of possibilities helps consumers to find the paths that are best suited to them. The barometer also reveals that a proportion of them would be prepared to pay more for better customer service ".
Consumers have more choice thanks to a variety of channels, but are not turning their backs on physical stores. While the web channel is cited first by 59% of information seekers, visits to retail outlets (18%) are nonetheless on the rise. This return to the store is palpable in certain sectors, notably telephony. When it comes to renewing their cell phones, the French prefer direct, personalized contact .
3- Yet the Customer Experience is still far from satisfactory!
Does this mean that all is well in the best of worlds? That customer journeys are at last perfectly in tune with consumer expectations thanks to multi-channel, and that their experience has been significantly enhanced as a result?
Not according to the latest Customer Experience Index published by the Forrester Institute... quite the contrary! This annual barometer ranks 203 European brands from eight business sectors according to the quality of their customer experience and consumer loyalty.
In France, the winners don't get off scot-free, as 55% of brands are rated "mediocre", and not a single one of them delivers a superior experience: MAIF, Yves Rocher and Crédit Mutuel Assurance, the three French brands ranking highest in the index, are gratified with a mere "acceptable". Mediocre results shared by other European countries such as the UK and Germany.
A disappointing finding, especially when you consider that 3/4 of French managers say that improving the customer experience is one of their top strategic priorities!
4- Why this apparently paradoxical result?
The Forrester study indicates that the most important vector for the quality of the customer experience is the emotional factor. Taking this "emotional" aspect into account in customer interactions and relationships is what differentiates the notion of customer experience from that of customer satisfaction, for example (for a reminder on this subject, you can reread our article Are you sure you've mastered the 3 key approaches to building customer loyalty? ).
It seems that this is where the problem lies for our companies, which have above all seized on the "efficiency" lever in their efforts to improve the customer journey. Emotion is certainly a notion they find harder to grasp: it is by definition less "rational" , and therefore seems difficult to control and measure.
And yet, it's the systematic and sustained application of this approach that produces the most tangible and striking effects in terms of customer loyalty! Some sectors have been aware of this for a long time, and are faring much better: this is particularly true of the insurance and mutual insurance sector, which accounts for 7 of the 13 top-rated brands in the Forrester index!
While an important step seems to have been taken in terms of simplifying customer journeys, there is still work to be done when it comes toimproving the customer experience. A challenge that presupposes careful consideration of the subject of listening to and understanding customers too: in the USA, a study published by IBM in the first quarter of 2015 thus indicated that 81% of companies surveyed believe they have a complete view of their customers, but only 37% of them confide that the company really understands them... So the gap is very real, even if the gap is narrowing.
KESTIO works with a large number of companies (from small businesses to major corporations) on these issues:
