'Net Features : empathica

Valuing Consumer Input Makes All the Difference

Allison Howen — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:00:00 GMT

A new study from Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions provider Empathica Inc. reveals that despite a strong desire to provide feedback, consumers are disappointed by brands’ lack of responsiveness.

The Consumer Insight Panel study shows that although 85 percent of consumers have provided some form of feedback to big box retailers, only 46 percent of respondents believe that brands actually use their feedback to make changes to the customer experience. Additionally, only 52 percent believe that their feedback is shared with individual locations – despite 81 percent of consumers claiming that feedback should not only be shared with local managers, but also with all of the brand’s employees.

This lack of consumer confidence should be a serious concern for retailers, especially because 83 percent of consumers agree or strongly agree that they would be more loyal to a brand if they knew the brand would act on their feedback.

“Our research proves that consumers really do want to provide feedback and engage in conversations with brands,” says Dr. Gary Edwards, chief customer officer, Empathica. “But at the same time, they are clearly disappointed by not having any visibility into what happens afterwards. Feedback remains a one-way street and what consumers are yearning for is two-way dialogue. They want to know that their feedback is being acted upon in ways that will drive meaningful changes to the customer experience at the locations they frequent.”

The study also reveals insights into the delivery methods that drive customer feedback – with two-thirds of consumers preferring to share feedback online, and only 13 percent of consumers preferring to deliver feedback in person.

And when it comes to the motivations that consumers have for engaging with brands, approximately half of respondents have provided feedback in exchange for an incentive or coupon – which is actually not necessary. In fact, a larger amount of respondents offered feedback to simple provide either a positive (31%) or negative (25%) experience.

Another motivating factor of customer engagement is distance, with 82 percent of local customers indicating that they are more willing to offer feedback to locations that they visit frequently. Furthermore, three out of four survey respondents are interested in seeing other customer feedback in regards to brand experiences.

“Unfortunately, a lot of retailers fail at creating the transparency that customers desire. Admitting some areas of the business require more attention builds credibility and helps retailers realize the huge potential for brand advocacy,” added Edwards. “There are large numbers of customers out there who are motivated to provide feedback for the brand. The challenge is identifying them and making it easy to share their experiences not only with the brand, but also with other local consumers.”

Are You (Really) Listening to Customer Feedback?

Linc Wonham — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 16:00:00 GMT

A survey of more than 6,500 U.S. consumers found that despite a high desire to provide feedback, most are disenchanted by brands’ lack of responsiveness.

The results of the study from customer experience management firm Empathica showed that 85 percent of consumers have provided some form of feedback to retailers, yet only 46 percent of respondents believe that brands actually use this feedback to make constructive changes to the customer experience. An overwhelming two-thirds of consumers prefer to share their feedback online, while the next most popular feedback delivery method was in person with only 13 percent.

Incentives not necessary
When it comes to consumers’ motivations for engaging with brands, approximately half of respondents provided feedback in exchange for an incentive or coupon. Surprisingly, though, consumers don’t necessarily need an incentive to provide feedback – a larger share of respondents offered feedback simply to provide either a positive (31 percent) or negative (25 percent) experience with the brand.

Loyalty at stake
The shortfall of confidence in brands’ willingness to implement changes rooted in customer feedback is a serious concern for retailers. In fact, 83 percent of consumers agree or strongly agree that they would be more loyal to a brand if they knew the brand would act on their feedback.

“Our research proves that consumers really do want to provide feedback and engage in conversations with brands,” says Gary Edwards, Empathica’s chief customer officer. “But at the same time, they are clearly disappointed by not having any visibility into what happens afterwards. Feedback remains a one-way street and what consumers are yearning for is two-way dialogue. They want to know that their feedback is being acted upon in ways that will drive meaningful changes to the customer experience.”

Share with others
Also, three out of four survey respondents were interested in seeing the feedback that others have provided about their brand experiences.

“Unfortunately, a lot of retailers fail at creating the transparency that customers desire,” says Edwards. “Admitting that some areas of the business require more attention builds credibility and helps retailers realize the huge potential for brand advocacy. There are large numbers of customers out there who are motivated to provide feedback for the brand. The challenge is identifying them and making it easy to share their experiences not only with the brand, but also with other consumers.”

Social Media Advocacy and Recommendations

Administrator — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:30:00 GMT

Customer experience management (CEM) is one of the Web's trends du jour. Online professionals are eating it up, and software developers are all too ready to serve it on a silver platter.

To develop a fully realized experience, however, consumers need access to as much real-time information as possible. And today, CEM solutions provider Empathica offers up a recommendation.

Empathica’s GoRecommend social media advocacy solution now features a real-time feed of recommendations that can be embedded on a website, Facebook page or any other digital asset to leverage advocates’ social recommendations (see the image below). The benefit of integrating the feed is that other users see real-time, filtered recommendations from advocates (note that only positive experiences are amplified).

By re-using the voice of their own customers, brands can increase their ability to convert more browsers into buyers. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

“The GoRecommend social media advocacy solution has helped leading brands identify advocates and mobilize them to share positive brand experiences across social networks,” says Dr. Gary Edwards, chief customer officer of Empathica. “Using the GoRecommend solution, our clients have generated more than 1 million positive recommendations resulting in over 110 million total impressions on sites like Facebook and Twitter. The addition of the real-time advocate feed is a significant enhancement, giving GoRecommend the ability to deliver even greater advocacy benefits for our clients.”

What the solution is missing in my opinion – as you'll see in the GoRecommend Summary Report image posted below – is that while it is certainly useful to know how often product recommendations were made by advocates and how many clicks resulted, it would be more useful to have a way to associate those recommendations to some measureable business objective, e.g. product conversion or registration.

While the embedding feature is really where the value resides here for Internet retailers, hopefully Empathica will connect the dots for their merchants by bundling deeper analytics with the platform.

How the Empathica GoRecommend Feed is implemented:

How the GoRecommend Report appears for Empathica clients:

How to Compete with Big Box Retailers

Allison Howen — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:00:00 GMT

While most consumers won’t stop visiting big box retailers any time soon, a new study offers e-commerce merchants insights into why these shopping destinations are so popular, as well as what turns customers off.

The Consumer Insights Panel study from customer experience management solutions provider Empathica Inc. reveals that 93 percent of U.S. consumers visit a big box retailer every month. The findings show that 61 percent of consumers claim that the most important factor in choosing a big box retailer is price, followed by location convenience (12%) and a wide selection of products (10%).

The survey also shows that 71 percent of customers claim to prefer big box retailers that offer a “one-stop” shopping experience, so that all essential products are at one store.

And although these one-stop shopping destinations are the lucky recipients of a steady stream of consumers, two in five customers report that their shopping experience does not feel personalized. Consumers also claim to be disappointed with the customer service they receive at big box retailers. According to the study, one in five respondents report that employees do not provide accurate answers to questions in their areas of expertise, and only 39 percent of customers believe employees listen when a customer approaches them with a question.

So aside from maintaining competitive prices and a vast product selection, online retailers should consider focusing on these two areas – personalization and customer service – in order to attract more consumers to their websites. By offering features like recommended products and loyalty programs, online merchants can grow their loyal customer base while increasing the probability of converting customers into a brand advocates.

Additionally, Web retailers can attract and satisfy site visitors by offering excellent customer service options such as live chat, a thorough FAQ page and quick responses to inquiries via email and social media.

Improve Customer Experience One Location at a Time

Michael Garrity — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Working with customers can be difficult, and no one knows this more than location managers who often have to act as mediators between a company and its patrons.

That's why it is always nice to have a little help, which is what makes customer experience management (CEM) solutions so useful.

Empathica delivers solutions to over 200 major brands. The company is looking to go a step further now with the launch of Empathica Local, a new CEM product designed to help location managers provide positive and consistent customer experiences at their brick-and-mortar locations.

Empathica Local is built for brands that run multiple locations, such as restaurants, grocery stores, banks and retail locations, to help them find insights on what aspects of their operations can be changed to improve customer experiences and provide actionable plans and best practices to achieve that goal for each specific location.

Moreover, the product is intentionally designed to provide a simple interface that eliminates the need to drudge through multi-layered, complex reports, allowing location managers to focus on the most important local issues by defining what needs to be fixed and how that can be accomplished. It achieves this end by leveraging patent-pending prescriptive reporting technologies to set focus areas.

Empathica Local was built to meet the day-to-day needs of location managers and helps them by providing not only a user-friendly interface, but also location-specific focus, editable action plans, social sharing of best practices, status monitoring and performance insights. In the end, the tool will not only provide insights and information but also strategies crafted around a particular location’s unique needs to help managers improve their customers’ experiences and maintain that level of quality.