As Indians look for seamless, safe and personalised online shopping experiences in the social distancing times, online fashion site Koovs.com has topped the digital retailer rankings for customer experience this year, beating out Flipkart, Myntra, Amazon and Snapdeal, a new report said on Tuesday.
According to Forrester’s ‘India 2020 CX Index’, Koovs.com also scored at least 3 percentage points more than the next digital retailer (which was Flipkart at 72.3 on a scale of 100).
Koovs.com scored 75.6 on a scale of 100 while Amazon scored 69.6 while Myntra did better with 70.4. The industry average was 70.6.
In addition, the digital retail industry had the lowest industry average score, behind the auto manufacturers, credit card issuers and banks.
In general, seven in 10 customers had good experiences with Indian brands — with 10 percent even reporting having excellent experiences despite COVID-19.
“Lack of differentiated experiences is a problem that Indian brands must solve,” said Amit Bhatia, Senior Analyst at Forrester.
The first step to creating differentiated CX is understanding the customers’ goals and what they need to achieve them.
“CX Index data shows that even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can increase revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet,” Bhatia said.
The findings are an eye-opener as the country is nearing the festive season which is expected to fetch record sales this year despite the pandemic.
Even though the pandemic has led to a dip in consumer spending and overall sentiment, three brands — Toyota Kirloskar, Mahindra & Mahindra, and American Express — provided consistently excellent experiences to their customers.
“When we examined how customers rated how effectively brands meet their needs, standouts like Toyota Kirloskar and American Express have a 12-point and 8-point advantage, respectively, over the average in their industries,” Bhatia said.
Based on a survey of more than 7,000 customers, Forrester’s CX Index benchmarked the CX quality of 28 brands across four industries, including automakers, banks, credit card issuers, and digital retailers.
In all four industries, the survey revealed that the ranked brands are unable to differentiate from the competition.
As a result, the brands are unable to realise the full benefits of consumer experience, which include growing revenue faster, charging more for products, and forgiveness for any missteps.
“In the digital retail industry, for example, among customers who felt disappointed, just 32 percent plan to remain with the brand, 30 percent plan to spend more with the brand, and 30 percent will recommend the brand to friends and family,” the findings showed.
Similarly, in the auto industry, 83 percent of customers who felt confident during their service experience plan to return to the same brand dealership for their next service, 81 percent plan to spend more on the brand’s services, and 84 percent will advocate for that dealership.
“The Indian consumers are expressing a high level of anxiety. Eighty one per cent of Indian online adults are worried that there will be a multi-year economic recession or depression while 75 percent say they’re anxious about their current economic situation,” said the Forrester report.
People will be loyal to brands that don’t add to this sense of unease through poorly designed and executed customer experiences.
“After all, how an experience makes customers feel influences their loyalty to a brand more than effectiveness or ease in every industry”.
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