Customers in 2020 are highly impatient and significantly less loyal than they used to be. That comes as no surprise. People can buy the same product from a variety of providers with almost no differences in price, packaging, or delivery. Therefore, in a highly commoditized market, brands need to differentiate on aspects that are important to their customers, if they want to outperform their competitors. Customer effort is one of the most important factors that impact customers’ experience and long-term engagement, so it makes sense that smart companies use friction as a means to differentiate. A Gartner study predicts that

Uncertain environments always favor nimble and innovative companies. If an entire market is undergoing sudden changes and low demand challenges, it becomes clear that the business-as-usual practices will not be enough for a company to overcome the situation. This also applies to the insights that companies gather to better understand their customers and to build specific strategies. The business world nowadays is obsessed with numbers and statistics. These figures can provide great clarity about the success and the outcomes of different decisions. Although they are a fundamental part of successful business administration, they are often not enough. Numbers are great

Are Consumers Trapped in Sludge? While the concept of sludge is not exactly a mystery, understanding it in the context of consumer experience and engagement certainly requires deeper analysis. Sludge commonly defined as “thick, soft, wet mud or a similar viscous mixture” is better interpreted as an analogy that describes any activity with excessive frictions. An unnecessary, dreary and frustrating process, that has real, quantifiable costs to customers and companies, is sludge. Ultimately, we see it as an obstacle or barrier that impairs and reduces consumers’ freedom when it comes to enjoying products, services or brand benefits. To understand sludge

During the past years we’ve seen a renewed interest from companies toward growth and investment, but with a rigorous focus on cost containment. As recent research points to high employee engagement as one of the top 3 factors of business success[1], it’s no surprise that companies started monitoring engagement levels and prefer redirecting budgets toward measurement, before starting to implement actions to improve engagement. Gallup found that employee engagement drives business growth. Practically, this means that it is directly tied to business performance, in terms of predicting key performance outcomes. Take for example, business metrics such as: department productivity, safety

Today, more than ever, brands have the power to control and develop meaningful relationships with their customers. Through digital interactions, brands are directly engaging with them, improving the shopping experience and gaining valuable data at every point along the purchase journey. According to statistics, global e-commerce sales reached around $2 trillion in 2017 and are expected to double by 2021. Although online shopping is more convenient, brick & mortar will always have its place in the retail world. As we’ve shown in our previous article about offline retail, customers are still looking for social interactions, they want to touch &

What recent years have taught us is that customer experience can be a game changer for business success. As Forrester Research’s Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine insightfully pointed out, customer experience is “the best predictor of business success… It’s not just customer service – it’s every interaction, from the point at which they discover you to the moment of purchase to each of the touchpoints in the ongoing relationship.” Because each product and every process in your business is part of the customer experience ecosystem you want to build, tracking and improving those can be a real challenge. From customer