The world’s leading data, insights and consulting company recently conducted a study on whether brands across different sectors have met the five performance pillars of customer experience. The sectors which were taken into account included shopping malls, furniture chains, retail banks, e-commerce,  after-sales service for cars, telecom services, and car insurance. The five performance pillars were: clear brand promise, empowered employees, empowered customers, lasting memories and exceptional delivery of the experience. The study was conducted both in the UAE as well as in KSA.

According to the study, brands in the UAE performed well only on three fronts: 79% of consumers voted positive for brands providing clear communication of what they stood for. 79% of consumers also felt empowered to be able to do things their way through seamless digital and omni-channel portals and 80% experienced memorable experiences throughout the customer journey.

However, only 60% of customers were satisfied with the proactive, responsive service by the employees. Ultimately, the lack of empowered employees also pulled down the delivery service satisfaction to 61%.

The responses were similar in KSA where people voted 79%, 78% and 81% for clear brand promise, empowered customers and lasting memories respectively. Similar to the UAE, brands in KSA need to improve their performance in terms of employee empowerment (66%) and exceptional delivery (65%).

The study also focused on the direct relationship between brand promise and customer experience. Based on the results,

• 41% of customers are unlikely to stay as customers if the brand fails to deliver on their promise.
• 56% of customers would not recommend the brand to friends and family.
• 62% are unlikely to buy additional products or services from the brand.

“Experience may be critical to success, but is only one half of the puzzle. The other half is your brand promise, and whether the experience of your brand lives up to it or exceeds it. Even if the experience is great, if it doesn’t meet the promises you’ve made, then the customers are going to be left feeling disappointed. Applying customer experience thinking to your business is all about identifying and actioning a customer-centric approach which will bring the biggest improvement to your customer experience,” said Satish Dave, director of customer experience, Kantar.