Delivering world-class customer experience continues to rise up the agenda for marketers. But despite UK brands ploughing billions of pounds into improving their relationship with consumers, they are failing to keep up with increasingly high expectations.

Indeed, KPMG Nunwood’s annual Customer Experience Excellence study shows that rather than improving, the overall performance score for British brands has hit the lowest level in the eight-year history of the report, dropping from 7.33 in 2016 to 7.08 this year. By comparison, the score for US brands rose from 7.42 last year to 7.75 in 2017.

“Customer expectations are rapidly rising but brands are failing to keep up, with many not making the necessary internal connections to ensure a consistent experience across all touchpoints,” says David Conway, director at KPMG Nunwood.

The research reveals that brands that might have been famed for their customer experience a decade ago are failing to keep pace with consumers’ ever evolving requirements and aspirations when it comes to the service they receive. And part of the issue is that organisations are not structured to think effectively about the customer, says Conway.

“Businesses are still organised in the same way they were in Victorian times when we were building factories that churned out consistent objects. We’re now in a world where we sell concepts, content, ideas and thoughts and the traditional organisational structure really isn’t effective in being able to do that.”

QVC tops the ranking

However, there are brands that buck the trend. Shopping channel QVC has climbed 18 places to claim the top spot for the first time, knocking last year’s winner First Direct into third place. Lush, which topped the charts two years ago, came in fifth. John Lewis Finance, a new entry for 2017, jumped into second place, while John Lewis comes in fourth.

Brand Score (out of 10) Position 2017 Position 2016
QVC                              8.22  1  19
John Lewis Finance  8.19  2  n/a
First Direct                  8.06  3  1
John Lewis                 8.04  4  2
Lush                             8.00   5  3
Emirates                      7.91  6  4
Skipton Building Society  7.90  7  33
Ocado                          7.90  8  13
Marks & Spencer       7.83  9  16
Amazon                       7.79  10  5
The findings are based on a survey of 10,000 consumers who are asked to rate brands on the six metrics that KMPG Nunwood believe drive brand advocacy and loyalty: personalisation, time and effort, resolution, integrity, expectations and empathy. Full top 100 below

While QVC may seem like an unusual winner, Conway says the shopping channel has been on a “significant journey of improvement” since 2011.

“QVC is a great example of a business that understands its customer, understands the psychology of its customer and has organised itself in a way that delivers exactly what that customer needs in a way the customer wants it,” he says.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.marketingweek.com