By nickjohnson - September 17th, 2014
We’ve been conducting some surveys with your peers over the course of the last few weeks. They’re still ongoing, but the preliminary results are worth sharing.
The relationship between individual consumers and brands was changing before the advent of social media. Now, it seems those customers — comfortable with the new power they wield in the discussion around your brand—are expecting a better experience from the brands they interact with.
88% of marketers working for large brands say that customer expectations are higher than they were five years ago—with 74% saying those heightened expectations are hard to match.
88% say that customers have more power to influence brand perception than they did five years ago, with 60% going so far as to say that customers have as much—if not more—power to ‘define’ a brand as the company itself.
External Pressures Changing Internal Organisation
Learn more about how brands can respond to changing customer expectations at the forthcoming Incite Summit:East in NYC
Amidst this changing landscape, large companies have realized that current organizational models are not fit for purpose.
No less than 75% of marketers say that shifting customer expectations have changed internal organization at their company.
What does this change look like? Well, the majority (65%) point out that the dividing lines between the marketing, communications, IT, data and customer service departments are blurring. And 85% of those executives say that’s a response to the demand for better customer experience, in place of product delivery.
There’s a long way to go — only 18.75% of our respondents say they would describe their company as even becoming ‘customer-centric’.
Evidently, we’re at the starting point of some pretty comprehensive changes in how the customer/brand relationship works, and we’re only beginning to see how large companies will respond.
Please do complete the survey, and have your say. We’ll report back as more information comes in.
Cool headline image by Fotolia