Brands who haven’t invested in CX are suffering a ‘digital inequality’

Paige Murphy
By Paige Murphy | 4 March 2020
 

Businesses leading in customer experience (CX) are three times more likely to have exceeded 2019 business goals, according to Adobe’s Digital Trends 2020 Report.

Adobe APAC head of digital transformation Scott Rigby told AdNews that the report discovered a “digital inequality” for those who had not invested in CX earlier.

“Those that made those early investments into [customer] experience and into digital have really continued to lead the pack,” Rigby says.

He says that those who invested in CX later on can still catch up, however the results are showing for earlier adopters.

The report, compiled in partnership with Econsultancy, surveyed over 13,000 marketing, advertising, ecommerce, creative and IT professionals, working for both brands and agencies in markets across Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe and North America, on their priorities for 2020.

It found that APAC organisations are focused on optimising the customer journey in 2020, with 19% identifying better CX as their most exciting opportunity for this year.

Companies in the region will also be leading global CX technology investment with 57% planning to invest more in CX technology, compared to 51% in Europe and 41% in North America this year.

Rigby says this greater investment is more likely related to APAC’s maturity in CX lagging behind the rest of the world.

“The CX maturity for APAC isn’t as great as what we see in North America and Europe. APAC is catching up,” he says.

Just 7% of APAC organisations consider themselves mature in this space, compared to 12% in North America and 11% for the rest of the world.

To maintain their advantage, CX leaders globally are focused on obtaining and developing great talent.

Two in five CX leaders said that attracting and retaining talent in digital, data and CX-related areas was their most significant concern for 2020.

Over a quarter stated that finding and keeping the right people with the right skills is a barrier to creating successful digital experiences.

To retain and develop talent, CX leaders are 27% more likely to invest in training compared to 20% of non-CX leaders, with a focus on teaching business concepts beyond a narrow definition of marketing.

“Obtaining and developing great talent is a huge challenge for marketers and requires businesses to add and improve skills on an ongoing basis,” Rigby says.

“This challenge also brings opportunity. Investing in people, technology and processes are all key ingredients for effective customer experience. Supporting talent early on will help businesses benefit in the long-run.”

The report also noted that automation through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will empower marketers.

APAC already leads against Europe and North America on the adoption of AI and ML technology, with 54% of APAC businesses using or planning to use these tools.

Businesses in the region are demonstrating their commitment to bridge the CX maturity gap in their IT budgets, with 34% of APAC businesses planning to invest in ML and AI compared to 25% globally.

Rigby says that being a younger market than North America and Europe, APAC has a greater risk appetite as it has watched and learned from other markets.

“APAC customers tend to be willing to have a high degree of risk to take on these new technologies and explore how they can lead from what the rest of the world is doing,” he says.

In Europe and North America, many companies initially chose a best of breed approach when adopting technologies.

Rigby says the downfall to the approach was that not all integrated well, which is something that the local market has learned from.

“North American and Europe were out the gates really early on, buying individual technologies from multiple different vendors,” he says.

“What they found very quickly was that those technologies are really hard to integrate.

“So we've seen [with] APAC, they made an investment into a technology platform and stack where they’re not having to spend as much time - or as little time as possible - integrating technology behind the scenes and dedicate more resources to driving more experiences at scale to their customers.”

Over the last ten years, Rigby says the report has shown the increased importance of CX to not only marketers, but also businesses as a whole.

“The Digital Trends 2020 report is now in its tenth year and the data clearly shows us that businesses focused on customer experience are sailing ahead,” said Rigby.

“Today, we’re able to interact with and understand our customers in more ways than ever before. The power of technology and data combined means that businesses are starting to operate in new ways, making CX a business imperative, not just a marketing objective.”

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