Banks and Telcos in Australia overwhelming believe they are doing a good job getting to know their customers. However, new research says their customers disagree rather strongly.
That is on of our key take outs from a new study by Redshift Research and Pegasystems into how well equipped local banks and telcos are for dealing with consumers in an era of ever rising customer expectations.
The Australian survey of more than 1,000 participants and 100 business decision makers also sheds further light on the perception gap between how well businesses think they perform versus what their customers actually experience.
According to the report accompanying the study, “While 82 per cent of responding telco and banking companies claim they deeply know their customers, only 18 per cent of telco customers and less than a third (27 per cent ) of banking customers believe the same. Another 18 per cent and nearly 10 per cent of customers respectively, feel these businesses don’t know their preferences at all.
Fortunately for the banks, there is more inertia around their service offerings and less of their clients indicate a willing to swap service providers in the next 12 months. Telcos however could see one in five of their clients churn over the next year.
Mirroring findings of the recent CommBank study into retail, the redshift research suggests that the study also suggests that only 10 per cent of businesses are working on developing omni-channel integration capabilities. The study’s authors argue this indicates that most organisations are focused on mastering the basics at the expense of services that can help them better engage with customers.
Crisis. What Crisis?
Incumbents are still underestimating the threat of disruption from new market entrants, according to the study and the threat is worse in the telecommunications sector where a third of of telco customers said they would consider a new innovative service provider in the future. But even in banking, where the threshold for change is considered higher doe to the sensitiveity of the product – money – one in four said they would consider a new innovative provider in the future.
Across both banking and telecommunications the vast majority of respondents focused their concerns on traditional, incumbent competitors.
According to Scott Leader, managing director, Australia and New Zealand, Pegasystems which sponsored the research: “While service organisations in Australia have certainly come a long way to adapt to changing customer needs, this research indicates that more work still needs to be done to enhance the customer experience.”
He said technology has now progressed so far that the guesswork involved in creating the perfect customer experience has been removed. “CRM can now not just track customers’ movements but also anticipate their needs, adapt as those needs change, and provide an exceptional experience every time. This is where the future of service industries lie, and organisations in this space should take heed.”
This article originally appeared on B&T’s sister site www.which-50.com
