SAS study shows companies facing issues in executing customer experience strategies

Only 40% of marketing executives in EMEA are very confident that their company’s current Customer Experience (CX) strategies are capable of winning and retaining customers. With high-quality products and affordability rated as some of the most important drivers of loyalty, more must be done to digitise the customer journey. This is according to the findings of an international CX study conducted by SAS, one of the world’s leading providers of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, in partnership with the CMO Council.

The task at hand is to coordinate an excellent customer journey that encompasses all essential aspects, ranging from digital self-help to significant customization, privacy, and confidence, as well as effortless omnichannel integration, including a combination of physical and digital experiences. Despite unpredictable geopolitical and macroeconomic circumstances, customers desire a smooth and gratifying experience when purchasing high-quality products at reasonable rates.

For EMEA businesses, the majority are working on accommodating existing digital and physical engagement models (87%), balancing personalisation and privacy (87%), adjusting to supply chain issues (81%), reacting to customers in real-time with personalised interactions (73%), and managing the frequency and volume of customer interactions (70%).

The coordination between departments continues to be the main issue with implementing the CX plan. Just as few study participants (11%) believe their company has reached a sufficient level of maturity when it comes to implementing CX measures against the backdrop of a completely transformed digital infrastructure. Only 11% of EMEA marketing executives believe their company is well positioned in this area.

Leveraging augmented, virtual, extended, or mixed reality had the lowest number of mature ratings across all 13 of the CX capabilities. The technologies that are predominantly invested in are marketing analytics, AI, and machine learning, according to approximately two-thirds of the survey participants in each case. Marketing attribution and technology for measuring success play an important role, as confirmed by 55% of respondents in EMEA.

In light of the phasing out of third-party cookies, survey participants in the EMEA region have expressed their intention to rely on contextual targeting (44%) and experimenting/testing with ads (44%) to monitor and aim at customers with programmatic advertising. Notably, 79% of marketing executives in the EMEA region consider the need for a hybrid CX, integrating both digital and physical experiences, to be a crucial requirement in the upcoming 12 months.

Many consider this to drive personalisation, innovation, and customer engagement. However, it is much easier to deliver hybrid CX on top of a completely transformed digital infrastructure that provides a 360-degree view of the customer and their experience with the brand. And yet, fewer than 1 in 7 marketers say they have a mature digital infrastructure. The good news is that brands are working hard on this.