COVID-19 is changing how CMOs view the customer experience, with their focus now moving beyond the simple elimination of pain points to build differentiation and delight.
Experience agency Isobar terms this ‘creative experience’. The first wave of ‘Customer Experience’ or ‘CX’ focused heavily on removing friction and eliminating pain points, it says in a new report, but in a one-click (or no click) world, such brands risk becoming increasingly indistinct – and increasingly invisible.
This conclusion is contained in its Isobar Creative Experience Survey 2020, for which it surveyed over 1,350 global CMOs to assess the evolution of customer experience design in the age of Covid-19.
The study found that 64% of CMOs have “completely or moderately” changed their CX strategy in response to the Covid-19 crisis, with one in five having “completely” changed their approach.
Among those CMOs who have changed their strategy, investment in innovative new products and services is the most popular strategy among businesses of every size and scale, adopted by 45% of all CMOs, and 49% of CMOs of larger organisations.
CMOs are also placing bets on innovative use of technology (58%) and the importance of a galvanising organisational idea (50%) as key ingredients for building differentiated customer experiences.
Commerce has emerged as a clear priority with 39% of CMOs having made commerce a greater focus and 36% having implemented Direct-to-Consumer approaches.
Alongside creative ideation / thinking (36%), innovation capabilities (35%) and the ability to create new products (33%) were listed among the top three requirements of an agency partner in order to deliver superior CX strategies.
The report found that CMOs in the technology sector have proved most responsive to the impact of COVID-19, with one in three having completely changed their CX strategy as a result, followed by those in the Energy (29%) and Finance Sectors (26%). Those in Leisure, Media and Entertainment are least likely to have changed their approach.
CMOs in the Automotive and Telecoms industry are most likely to have invested in innovative new products and services, at 65% and 64% respectively.
This article first appeared in www.warc.com
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