Digital Experience: Are Brands Meeting Consumer Expectations?

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Digital Experience: Are
Brands Meeting
Consumer Expectations?
In association with Sitecore

Digital Experience:
Are Brands
Meeting Consumer
Expectations?
In association with Sitecore
Econsultancy London
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Published February 2015

Digital Experience: Are Brands Meeting Consumer Expectations? In association with Sitecore Page 3
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2015
Contents
1. Executive Summary .........................................................4
2. Foreword by Sitecore.......................................................6
2.1. About Econsultancy .................................................................... 7
2.2. About Sitecore ............................................................................. 7
3. Methodology ....................................................................8
4. Most Important Elements of the Digital Experience......9
4.1. Consumers and marketers both value ease of usage................ 10
4.2. Consumers rate up-to-date information, right levels of
detail and useful account information....................................... 11
4.3. Marketers rate the importance of mobile optimisation more
highly than consumers............................................................... 11
5. ‘Must Haves’ and Going the Extra Mile......................... 12
6. How Consumer and Marketer Attitudes Vary by
Sector ............................................................................. 15
7. How Marketers Rate Performance: Sector
Comparison.................................................................... 18
8. Conclusion .....................................................................20
9. Appendix........................................................................ 21
9.1. What are ‘must haves’ and what constitutes an ‘extra mile’
experience?.................................................................................21
9.2. How consumer and marketer attitudes towards different
aspects vary by sector................................................................ 22
9.3. How marketers perform on important aspects: sector
comparison ................................................................................ 24
9.4. Industry respondent profiles ....................................................28

1. Executive Summary
How are marketers adapting to the shifting consumer landscape?
There has been much debate over the last few years about the skills gap in marketing, particularly
as the pace of technological change has continued to shift the way we interact with consumers. As
outlined in a study1 published by Econsultancy last year, marketers need to be more data-focused
and technically adept, in addition to having classic marketing knowledge. This report explores the
extent to which brands are delivering what consumers want in the context of the digital
experience, and whether marketers are prioritising the areas which matter.
Marketers are aligned on consumers’ top five attributes
We asked marketers to weigh the importance of 17 attributes describing different elements of
people’s digital experiences. We also asked the same of consumers, and compared the two groups
in order to see how aligned marketers were to their audience. In particular, how they are
performing on key hygiene factors.
The research shows that marketers are, on the whole, aligned with consumers in terms of what
they think are the most important aspects of a digital experience. These include ‘easy to find what
you’re looking for’, ‘easy to carry out basic tasks’, ‘you can achieve what you need to do in very few
clicks’, ‘up-to-date information’ and ‘website gives you the right level of detail’.
Making sense of which attributes to prioritise
By being more data-focused marketers have the potential to use the information they have on
their customers to create more engaging digital experiences. But even the most agile of marketers
can find it challenging to know which attribute to prioritise over another, and this is especially
important in the context of limited budgets.
We used a statistical technique called max diff, explained in the methodology section, enabling us
to understand which attributes are necessary for a ‘good’ site experience i.e. what marketers need
to prioritise to avoid delivering a ‘poor’ experience. We also evaluated factors that move the
needle, transforming a digital experience from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the top-ranked attributes identified earlier were categorised as
‘must have’ for creating a ‘good’ digital experience. However, consumers did not put tablet and
mobile optimisation in this category. Rather these were seen as ‘extra mile’ aspects enabling
marketers to lift experiences from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’.
Other extra mile attributes include:
 Brand predicts your needs, for example sends relevant offers that relate to your next potential
purchase.
 Website information can be tailored to your requirements.
 Website integrates well with other touchpoints, e.g. social media and payment.
 The digital and offline experiences contain moments of delight which make you want to tell
your friends about it.
1 https://econsultancy.com/reports/skills-of-the-modern-marketer

How well do marketers perform across different industry sectors?
In order to deepen our understanding of marketer and consumer perceptions, we also analysed
the weighting of attributes across different industries. In the automotive sector, for example, car
buyers use digital channels to ‘experience’ brands. This was underlined by the fact that both
marketers and consumers ranked mobile and tablet optimisation higher than average.
While there are some areas of divergence, notably around mobile optimisation, the report paints a
positive picture of marketers. It reflects the fact that digital teams are smarter and more agile. It
also links to other trends Econsultancy has observed; with the more progressive businesses using
the information they have on their customers to drive organisational change.

2. Foreword by Sitecore
As a fellow marketer, you’ll understand that fostering stronger customer relationships and
delivering superior customer experience isn’t just good for your brand’s reputation; it’s good for
your organisation’s bottom line.
Technology is driving massive change in consumer behaviour, prompting us to rethink the way we
reach, engage and retain customers. Customers expect more from the brands they choose to do
business with and, for marketers, the pressure is on to deliver.
Our research set out to explore what consumers believe are the elements of a good digital
experience so that marketers can gain a better understanding of what consumers expect, assess
how they are aligned with those expectations and identify areas for improvement.
What is clear from the findings is that marketers are aligned with consumers on what constitutes
a good digital experience. The report reveals that consumers value the ability to easily find what
they’re looking for and in the fewest clicks possible. They want information and pricing to be up-
to-date and for sites to provide the right level of detail to suit their needs.
Marketers who can optimise these aspects of the digital experience will deliver a good digital
experience. To deliver excellent digital experiences, mobile optimisation and personalisation
emerged as two ways that marketers can go the extra mile and truly delight their customers.
Monarch Airlines is an example of a brand that has successfully optimised the above aspects of its
digital experience and is reaping the rewards as a result, both in terms of financial performance
and customer satisfaction.
Monarch’s website now delivers relevant, personalised content so customers can now find the
flights they want quickly and easily, with information and offers now being tailored specifically to
each individual. The airline has seen an uplift of 5% in booking funnel conversion and a 10%
reduction in web pages visited per booking. Average passenger spend increased by 19% and
according to the Feefo independent review service, the airline achieved a 92% customer
satisfaction rating, based on more than 100,000 reviews.
What is clear from this report is that marketers understand what is required to attract and retain
customers for life, but in reality, many of us are constrained by a multiplicity of systems,
fragmented data and a lack of integration, resulting in organisational silos. Key to Monarch’s
success is the fact that customer experience remains at the heart of the brand’s focus and the
effective deployment of a single experience platform has helped it to continually optimise the
experience it offers its customers.
With a greater understanding of each customer, marketers can engage audiences on an individual
level with highly contextual and personalised experiences based on true insights derived from
each customer’s unique behaviour. And when customers have a good experience each time they
connect with your brand they will tell their peers, seek you out, spread the word and become
customers for life.
Laurence Debruyne
Marketing Director
Sitecore

2.1. About Econsultancy
Econsultancy’s mission is to help its customers achieve excellence in digital business, marketing
and ecommerce through research, training and events.
Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has offices in New York, London and Singapore.
Econsultancy is used by over 600,000 professionals every month. Subscribers get access to
research, market data, best practice guides, case studies and elearning – all focused on helping
individuals and enterprises get better at digital.
The subscription is supported by digital transformation services including digital capability
programmes, training courses, skills assessments and audits. We train and develop thousands of
professionals each year as well as running events and networking that bring the Econsultancy
community together around the world.
Subscribe to Econsultancy today to accelerate your journey to digital excellence.
Call us to find out more:
 New York: +1 212 971 0630
 London: +44 207 269 1450
 Singapore: +65 6809 2088
Other related Econsultancy content
Customer Lifetime Value: Building Loyalty and Driving Revenue in the Digital Age
https://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-lifetime-value/
Customer Experience Statistics
https://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-experience-statistics/
2.2. About Sitecore
Sitecore is the global leader in customer experience management, delivering highly relevant
content and personalised digital experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty and drive
revenue.
The Sitecore® Experience Platform™ delivers one connected experience across both online and
offline channels, enabling marketers to own the experience of everyone who engages with their
brand and easily engage in seamless conversations with their audiences when and where they
want.
More than 4,000 of the world’s leading brands – including American Express, Carnival Cruise
Lines, easyJet and Heineken – trust Sitecore to help them deliver the meaningful interactions
that win customers for life.

3. Methodology
There were almost 1,500 respondents (353 marketers and 1,122 consumers across nine verticals)
to our Digital Experience research request, which took the form of an online survey in 2014.
We used a statistical technique called maximum difference scaling (max diff) to understand the
level of priority respondents place on each of the attributes tested in the survey. This technique
for determining ‘importance’ yields much better results than conventional market research
approaches based on simply asking respondents to rate importance on a scale.
With conventional importance scale questions, respondents tend to say that all attributes are
important or very important, regardless of how important each one actually is to them. The max
diff approach forces respondents to trade off which attribute is most and least important to them,
a process respondents find very easy.
So how does it work?
We chose 17 attributes describing different elements of people’s digital experiences. We selected a
batch of seven attributes and asked respondents to pick the one that was most important to them,
and the one that was least important to them.
Each respondent was then shown another scenario containing a different set of seven attributes
from the previous question, and again, asked for most and least important. This process was
repeated for eight scenarios with different combinations of attributes each time.
Example trade-off scenario
By looking at the patterns of which attributes were most selected as important, and which ones
least important, we can build up a picture of each attribute’s relative importance in the
respondent’s mind. We analyse the results of respondents’ trade-offs using a statistical technique
called Hierarchical Bayes estimation. This allows us to scale a respondent’s preference for each
attribute and give them each a score so that they sum up to 100.
The results from the analysis can be interpreted as how a respondent would have allocated 100
points across the attributes in proportion to the relative importance attached to them.

4. Most Important Elements of the Digital
Experience
Introduction
We chose 17 attributes describing different elements of people’s digital experiences and asked
marketers and consumers to weigh which attributes they thought were more important.
Statistically, using a max diff technique (described in more detail in the methodology) consumers
allocated the equivalent of 100 points.
This means that the higher number of points a given attribute receives, the more important it is
relative to the other 17 aspects.
Table 1: Relative importance of various aspects of the digital experience –
industry vs consumers
Industry Consumers Difference
Easy to find what you’re looking for 14.4 14.3 1%
Easy to carry out basic tasks online, e.g. book, order,
download, pay 14.0 12.1 16%
You can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks 11.4 12.0 -4%
Up-to-date information, for example availability and pricing 10.5 13.1 -20%
Website gives you the right level of detail for what you need 8.1 10.3 -21%
The digital and offline experiences contain moments of delight
which make you want to tell your friends about it 6.9 1.8 287%
Website works well on a smartphone 6.8 3.0 128%
Brand sends digital communications relevant to your current
situation – such as emails that reflect website interaction 4.1 2.2 82%
Website integrates well with other touchpoints, e.g. social
media and payment 4.0 1.9 106%
Website works well on a tablet 3.9 2.3 72%
Brand predicts your needs, for example sends relevant offers
that relate to your next potential purchase 3.2 2.6 23%
Website information can be tailored to your requirements 2.5 4.4 -42%
Useful recommendations and suggestions based on previous
interactions 2.3 2.5 -5%
Online activities are taken into account in face-to-face and
offline communications, e.g. text reminders and direct mail 2.3 2.5 -7%
Website provides useful information about your account 2.1 6.8 -70%
Information presented is relevant to your location 1.7 3.5 -52%
Account details automatically recognised 1.7 4.7 -65%
The numbers show how, on average, respondents would have allocated 100 points across all
attributes.

Similar weighting of points between marketers and consumers
Consumers and practitioners are broadly aligned around the relative importance of different
aspects of the digital experience. This is, in many ways, a reflection of the fact that ecommerce has
matured significantly. Digital teams are smarter and more agile. They also have vast amounts of
data to help them understand and build compelling site experiences.
According to a recent report2 published by Econsultancy in association with TrustPilot, the most
progressive businesses have taken these insights and used them to drive change, resulting in the
rise of Voice of Customer programmes. As a result, for marketers, the consumer voice has never
been stronger.
Voice of the Customer
“We are obsessive about collecting customer feedback. We have lots of entry points for feedback, from surveys, to
product reviews. We display all feedback throughout our site and internally. Most of our feedback is positive and
non-actionable. If we do get negative feedback that’s an opportunity for us, and we jump all over it.”
Ian MacDonald, Ecommerce Manager at Silver Star Brands
4.1. Consumers and marketers both value ease of usage
In the past it was assumed by marketers that consumers were technologically sophisticated,
mobile-enabled data sifters who are able to think rationally about whichever brand or stores offer
the best deal. But far from empowering consumers, the rising volume of marketing messages has
been overwhelming.
Today, brands are increasingly sophisticated when it comes to pulling consumers into the fold.
Businesses now compete on customer experience, placing data at the centre of their operational
structures. For many marketers, testing and optimisation platforms are now the gateways to
understanding consumers.
In order to grapple with increased amounts of clutter online, consumers rate site experiences that
make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for, first and foremost. In addition they want to
achieve this in very few clicks. In both cases, marketers are very much on a par in terms of
weighting of importance.
Table 2: Relative importance of select aspects of the digital experience – industry
vs consumers
Easy to find what you’re looking for 14.4 14.3 1%
You can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks 11.4 12.0 -4%
2 https://econsultancy.com/reports/voice-of-the-customer-listen-measure-act/

4.2. Consumers rate up-to-date information, right levels of
detail and useful account information
There is some divergence between the two groups. Consumers are more likely to rate the
importance of ‘up-to-date information, for example availability and pricing’, ‘website provides the
right level of detail for what you need’ and ‘website providers useful information about your
account’.
These attributes are the online equivalent of customer service – if you make it challenging for
visitors to find pay points and prices, they won’t buy and you’re in danger of them going
elsewhere. The results also reflect the importance of avoiding information overload; if there’s too
much to process it can obscure core messages and calls to action.
Table 3: Relative importance of selected aspects of the digital experience –
Up-to-date information, for example availability and pricing 10.5 13.1 -20%
Website gives you the right level of detail for what you need 8.1 10.3 -21%
4.3. Marketers rate the importance of mobile optimisation
more highly than consumers
Mobile continues to grow in importance as an ecommerce channel. Affiliate Window, which
publishes reports based on sales and traffic from over 2.5m network transactions across 1,600
advertisers, found that 37.3% of sales originated from a mobile device in the run up to Christmas,
generating a total of 47,100 sales a day. While it feels as though we’ve reached a tipping point in
terms of mobile, the site aspect ‘website works well on a smartphone’ was far from being the most
important aspect of the digital experience to consumers. By way of comparison, consumers were
four times as likely to rate the importance of ‘easy to find what you’re looking for’.
Marketers were more than twice as likely as consumers to regard smartphone optimisation as
important. This importance of mobile to brands was reflected in the Econsultancy/Adobe Finding
the Path to Mobile Maturity report3, with nearly half of organisations surveyed (47%) saying that
‘the quality of the mobile experience is more important than that on the desktop because there is
no room for error or waste’.
On the flipside, consumers were twice as likely as marketers to rate the importance of
‘information presented is relevant to your location’. This is likely to relate to consumers’ desire for
more streamlined internet experiences, discussed earlier, which can be facilitated by location-
based web searches, for example.
Table 4: Relative importance of selected aspects of the digital experience –
3 https://econsultancy.com/reports/quarterly-digital-intelligence-briefing-finding-the-path-to-mobile-
maturity/

5. ‘Must Haves’ and Going the Extra Mile
Introduction
Our original hypothesis was that in order to provide a ‘good’ digital experience, brands had to
perform well on attributes that were considered important to consumers. Based on that premise,
brands wanting to engineer an ‘excellent’ experience would have to incorporate those attributes as
well as perform well on ‘something extra’.
Using that same logic, a brand could be providing a ‘poor to average’ experience by
underperforming on those hygiene factors, regardless of whether they were incorporating
‘something extra’.
By analysing patterns in the data we categorised which aspects were ‘unimportant’, ‘must have’
and ‘extra mile’. We created two consumer groups; one which recorded low satisfaction across all
industry sites (dissatisfied) and another which recorded high satisfaction (very satisfied). We then
compared how both sets of consumers ranked different digital experience attributes.
This enabled us to identify attributes which are of low importance, for example, because they were
attributed fewer points by both the dissatisfied and satisfied consumer groups.
Attributes scoring highly with marginal differences between the two groups were ‘must have’,
while those which scored a significant positive change between the dissatisfied and very satisfied
groups were categorised as ‘extra mile’.
Figure 1: Overview of how companies can perform poorly when it comes to
providing a digital experience
MUST HAVE EXTRA MILE
Excellent experience =
Performing well on
attributes that are
important
+
Performing well on
‘something extra’
Good experience =
Performing well on
attributes that are
important
+
……………………….
.
Poor / average experience =
Performing poorly
on attributes that are
important
+
……………………….
.
OR
Performing poorly
on attributes that are
important
+
Performing well on
‘something extra’

‘Must have’ attributes
Many of the aspects identified by consumers as important earlier in the report can also be classed
as ‘must have’. These include ‘website gives you the right level of detail for what you need’ and
‘easy to carry out basic tasks online’ – things that marketers must get right if they are to provide a
‘good experience’.
Table 5: Ranking of ‘must have’ attributes based on consumer satisfaction
Dissatisfied
(1 to 4)
Very
satisfied
(10)
Difference
Website provides useful information about your
account
6.9 6.9 1%
Website gives you the right level of detail for what
you need
10.4 10.1 -3%
You can achieve what you need to do in very few
clicks
11.8 11.8 0%
Easy to carry out basic tasks online, e.g. book,
order, download, pay
12.2 11.8 -4%
Up-to-date information, for example availability
and pricing
14.0 12.6 -10%
Easy to find what you’re looking for 14.7 14.2 -4%
‘Extra mile’ attributes
For many companies mobile apps or mobile-optimised websites are a necessary component of a
media or ecommerce strategy, given the shift to mobile has been rapid and universal across
audiences and customers. However, looking across the results for all industries, ‘website works
well on smartphone’ and ‘website works well on a tablet’ are both ‘extra mile’ attributes.
This tells us that mobile is still very important – because it’s a crucial factor in enabling brands to
provide an ‘excellent experience’. But it is also instructive; for marketers faced with limited
budgets, mobile should not be pursued as a strategy if it compromises investment in some of the
‘must have’ aspects discussed in the previous section.
Table 6: Ranking of ‘extra mile’ attributes based on consumer satisfaction
Dissatisfied
(1 to 4)
Very
satisfied
(10)
Difference
Brand predicts your needs, for example sends relevant
offers that relate to your next potential purchase
2.6 3.2 23%
Website information can be tailored to your requirements 3.6 4.6 29%
Website integrates well with other touchpoints, e.g.
social media and payment
1.7 2.2 30%
The digital and offline experiences contain moments of
delight which make you want to tell your friends about it
1.5 1.9 33%

A number of these ‘extra mile’ aspects are also geared towards personalisation, such as ‘brand
predicts your needs’ and ‘website integrates well with other touchpoints’.
The age of big data has enabled personalisation in a way that wasn’t possible a few years ago and
this is an area where marketers can make distinct gains. This is underlined by a recent survey of
marketers for Econsultancy’s Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: Why Marketing Should Be
Personal4. According to the results, 59% agreed that the ability to personalise content was
fundamental to online strategy. At the same time, marketers implementing personalisation
strategies were reporting, on average, a 14% increase in sales.
4 https://econsultancy.com/reports/quarterly-digital-intelligence-briefing-why-marketing-should-be-
personal/

6. How Consumer and Marketer Attitudes
Vary by Sector
Looking at the table below, the negatives in red highlight what consumers are looking for, and
which are not being prioritised by marketers (i.e. marketers do not rank them as highly as
consumers). The positives highlighted in green show what consumers value highly and which are
rated highly in importance by marketers.
Table 7: Max diff results across selected attributes and sectors
Automotive Banking Mobile Utilities
Smartphone optimised 108% 134% 124% 83%
Location specific info 141% 65% 84% 93%
Easy to do basic tasks 77% 108% 92% 103%
Details auto recognised 88% 97% 123% 99%
Useful recommendations and suggestions based on
past 129% 84% 103% 88%
Integration with other touchpoints 113% 78% 114% 90%
Situation relevant comms 121% 87% 103% 91%
Info about your account 80% 127% 113% 121%
Brand predicts your needs 149% 79% 102% 84%
Online and F2F activities converged 133% 99% 104% 74%
Automotive
Automotive produced the most distinct set of results, with both industry and consumer groups
valuing surprise and delight factors such as ‘brands predicts your needs’ and ‘the digital and
offline experiences contain moments of delight which makes you want to tell your friends about
it’.
This is a reflection of how car research has moved from offline to online. According to Google
research published in November 20135, new car buyers spend 10 out of 13 ¾ hours (73%)
shopping online, and this rate is marginally higher for used car buyers. For consumers it’s much
more about getting a brand experience over actually buying a car online.
Banking
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the trend towards mobile banking, both consumers and marketers
in the banking sector are aligned around ‘website works well on a smartphone’.
The transactional nature of consumers’ relationship with their banks is also underlined by the fact
that both consumers and marketers regard ‘website provides useful information about your
account’ as equally as important.
5 http://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/digital-drives-auto-shopping_research-studies.pdf

Utilities
Consumers and marketers in the utilities sector are also aligned around this (‘useful information’)
attribute, and this can be observed in the facilities that many providers make available to
consumers to submit their own gas and electricity meter readings, rather than rely on estimates.
However, it’s evident from the results that consumers are looking for ‘moments of delight’ which
is not rated as highly by marketers.
It’s clear that moments of delight can reap dividends for utilities providers. In 2013, Thames
Water incorporated a brand refresh into a responsive website, designed to encourage visitors to
browse content through calls to action and an interactive carousel. Since the website launch it has
commanded a 54% increase in online payments, with a 24% increase in page views.
Case study: Thames Water simplifies UX to enhance customer satisfaction
Thames Water launched a rebranded, responsive website which increased engagement levels
and grew online payments by 54%.
Summary
Thames Water wanted to increase engagement levels with its website and grow the number of visitors paying
their bills online. Working with New Brand Vision, the utility provider looked at how this could be achieved by
assessing levels of usability, typical customer journeys, and the design and functionality of the existing website. A
brand refresh was incorporated into a responsive website, designed to encourage visitors to browse content
through calls to action and an interactive homepage carousel. The new site has seen a 54% increase in online
payments.
Objectives and aims
Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and sewerage company, serving 14m customers across London and the
Thames Valley. In response to issues customers were experiencing with its website, Thames Water wanted a new
website with usability and simplicity at its heart. Specifically, it looked to achieve the following:
 Improved levels of engagement
 Enhanced design and functionality
 Clear customer pathways and calls to action
 Increased self-service online (the overall goal)
Implementation, execution and tactics
Following a strategic review of Thames Water’s existing website, New Brand Vision presented a case for a
responsive web design to enable the website to respond to tablets and mobile devices.
After an analysis of user experience (UX) and information architecture (IA) reviews, a brand refresh was
incorporated into the new website for Thames Water, unifying the organisation’s brand both on and offline, as
well as delivering a user-centric design.
A grid structure also means that snippets of information can be released to encourage users to visit deeper level
pages. This is interspersed with key stats and interesting call-outs to increase accessibility. Horizontal scrolling
was also implemented. The finished site encourages visitors to quickly browse content with the use of large
typography, chunky calls to action and an interactive homepage carousel which adapts to Thames Water’s
growing tablet user base.
With a focus in online conversion, a new help centre was also created to address typical customer FAQs.

Case study: Thames Water simplifies UX to enhance customer satisfaction
(cont.)
Results
The Thames Water site now responds to tablets, making it
even more accessible to its users, and since the website
launch, the website has commanded:
 54% increase in online payments
 39% of Thames Water customers now prefer paying
their bill online
 24% increase in page views
The design and build of the new site was completed within
three months.
Source: Econsultancy Case Study Database6
6 https://econsultancy.com/case-studies/

7. How Marketers Rate Performance:
Sector Comparison
In this section we looked at what was important to consumers in terms of site functionality, and
how marketers were performing, by industry.
Automotive
Again, this sector provided some of the most distinct set of results. Consumers value the
importance of tablet optimisation, nearly three times as much as smartphone optimisation.
Perhaps in this case, the larger screen provides users with a better window into the overall brand
experience, and it’s an area that marketers perform well on.
Table 8: How marketers rate company performance against attributes that
consumers value in the automotive sector
Performance Importance
Website works well on a smartphone 7.2 3.2
You can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks 7.2 12.8
Brand sends digital communications relevant to your current situation
– such as emails that reflect website interaction
7.3 5.0
Account details and loyalty programmes are automatically recognised 7.0 13.9
Online activities are taken into account in face-to-face and offline
communications, e.g. text reminders and direct mail
7.0 9.3
Information presented is relevant to your location 7.3 10.4
Up-to-date information, for example availability and pricing 8.0 2.7
Website works well on a tablet 8.1 10.9
The digital and offline experiences contain moments of delight which
make you want to tell your friends about it
6.2 4.2
Easy to carry out basic tasks online, e.g. book, order, download, pay 6.9 3.2
interactions
7.0 2.2
Website provides useful information about your account 7.4 5.1
Easy to find what you're looking for 7.9 2.7
Website integrates well with other touchpoints, e.g. social media and
payment
7.2 5.5
Brand predicts your needs, for example sends relevant offers that
relate to your next potential purchase
6.8 3.9
Website gives you the right level of detail for what you need 7.6 2.8
Website information can be tailored to your requirements 7.1 2.4

Banking and insurance
In terms of the banking and insurance sectors, there are clear patterns. Marketers are performing
well on important consumer areas such as ‘tablet optimisation’ and ‘you can achieve what you
need to do in very few clicks’. However, marketers underperform for ‘online activities are taken
into account in face-to-face offline communications’.
Building a bridge between retail and digital worlds is proving a significant challenge for many
brands and businesses, with customers increasingly expecting businesses to be structured around
them. Some retail banks are already moving in this direction, with a new style of ‘lite’ brand,
where customers are also encouraged to self-serve via computer terminals.
consumers value in the banking sector
7.6 2.3
7.3 13.0
5.5 4.6
interactions
6.7 1.5
payment
7.7 8.7
6.2 2.1

8. Conclusion
The research has shown that marketers are, on the whole, aligned with consumers in terms of
what they think are the most important aspects of a digital experience – attributes that enable
consumers to quickly find what they’re looking for, provide up-to-date information on pricing and
afford completion of basic tasks in as few clicks as possible.
There are variables, of course, between industries. In the automotive sector it’s more about form
than function as consumers use digital channels to ‘experience’ brands. While on the other hand,
banking consumers are less likely to look for moments of wonder, and more likely to value the
ability to check their account details quickly, ideally over a mobile device on-the-go.
But even if brands tick all the boxes, it’s important for marketers to understand the role of
consumer expectations. Consumers are avid users of devices, which are in themselves designed to
bring instant gratification to tasks from shopping to researching and music listening. All of which
can be achieved from any location, at any time.
The rapid pace of technological development in consumers’ lives means that consumers are
bringing these heightened expectations to their relationships with the brands they use. This can
certainly be a challenge in more traditional markets, like banking and utilities, where legacy
systems can often act as a barrier to more agile thinking.
As we saw earlier in the report, banks underperform against the attribute ‘online activities are
taken into account in face-to-face offline communications’. This will certainly be an ongoing
challenge, particularly as the Gen Z ‘digitally native’ group of consumers born in the mid to late
90s come on stream, shifting the bar of expectation even higher.

9. Appendix
9.1. What are ‘must haves’ and what constitutes an ‘extra
mile’ experience?
Table 10: Ranking of ‘extra mile’ attributes based on consumer satisfaction
Dissatisfied
(1 to 4)
Very
satisfied
(10)
Difference
Unimportant
Brand sends digital communications relevant to your
current situation – such as emails that reflect website
interaction
2.4 2.5 8%
Online activities are taken into account in face-to-face
and offline communications, e.g. text reminders and
direct mail
2.8 2.6 -9%
Useful recommendations and suggestions based on
previous interactions
2.6 2.8 7%
Information presented is relevant to your location 3.6 3.1 -15%
Account details and loyalty programmes are
automatically recognised
5.2 4.8 -7
Must have
Website provides useful information about your account 6.9 6.9 1%
Website gives you the right level of detail for what you
need
10.4 10.1 -3%
You can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks 11.8 11.8 0%
Easy to carry out basic tasks online, e.g. book, order,
download, pay
12.2 11.8 -4%
Up-to-date information, for example availability and
pricing
14.0 12.6 -10%
Easy to find what you’re looking for 14.7 14.2 -4%
Extra mile
Brand predicts your needs, for example sends relevant
offers that relate to your next potential purchase
2.6 3.2 23%
Website information can be tailored to your requirements 3.6 4.6 29%
Website integrates well with other touchpoints, e.g.
social media and payment
1.7 2.2 30%
The digital and offline experiences contain moments of
delight which make you want to tell your friends about it
1.5 1.9 33%

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright ©
Econsultancy.com Ltd 2015
9.2. How consumer and marketer attitudes towards different aspects vary by sector
Automotive Banking Insurance
Mobile phone
operator
Retail
(multichannel)
Retail
(pureplay)
Travel (plane/
train ticket)
Travel
(holidays)
Utilities
Website works well on a
smartphone
108% 134% 91% 124% 98% 90% 82% 89% 83%
Up-to-date information,
for example availability
and pricing
98% 87% 94% 89% 111% 101% 114% 107% 99%
Information presented is
relevant to your location
141% 65% 110% 84% 98% 78% 119% 115% 93%
Easy to find what you’re
looking for
97% 101% 98% 100% 105% 101% 101% 96% 101%
Easy to carry out basic
tasks online, e.g. book,
order, download, pay
77% 108% 93% 92% 103% 111% 106% 108% 103%
Website gives you the
right level of detail for
what you need
101% 101% 100% 96% 103% 91% 105% 98% 105%
Website works well on a
tablet
118% 103% 104% 110% 82% 117% 66% 118% 83%
You can achieve what
you need to do in very
few clicks
91% 108% 98% 102% 105% 104% 99% 90% 104%
Account details and
loyalty programmes are
automatically
recognised
88% 97% 98% 123% 105% 111% 87% 90% 99%
Useful
recommendations and
suggestions based on
previous interactions
129% 84% 108% 103% 90% 103% 97% 98% 88%

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright ©
Econsultancy.com Ltd 2015
Automotive Banking Insurance
Mobile phone
operator
Retail
(multichannel)
Retail
(pureplay)
Travel (plane/
train ticket)
Travel
(holidays)
Utilities
Website integrates well
with other touchpoints,
e.g. social media and
payment
113% 78% 109% 114% 90% 104% 90% 111% 90%
Website information can
be tailored to your
requirements
116% 100% 104% 92% 92% 88% 102% 108% 98%
Brand sends digital
communications
relevant to your current
situation – such as
emails that reflect
website interaction
121% 87% 113% 103% 83% 97% 97% 108% 91%
Website provides useful
information about your
account
80% 127% 108% 113% 90% 93% 82% 84% 121%
Brand predicts your
needs, for example
sends relevant offers
that relate to your next
potential purchase
149% 79% 104% 102% 86% 103% 95% 99% 84%
Online activities are
taken into account in
face-to-face and offline
communications, e.g.
text reminders and
direct mail
112% 87% 117% 104% 84% 93% 94% 107% 102%
The digital and offline
experiences contain
moments of delight
which make you want to
tell your friends about it
133% 99% 112% 104% 78% 97% 90% 114% 74%

9.3. How marketers perform on important aspects: sector
comparison
Automotive (see Table 8 in Section 7)
 Marketers demonstrate the strongest performance for ‘website works well on a tablet’, which
is also the third most important attribute for consumers.
 Consumers rate ‘account details and loyalty programmes are automatically recognised’, ‘you
can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks’ and ‘information presented is relevant to
your location’ as very important, although marketer performance is average.
 Marketers perform strongly on aspects such as ‘up-to-date information, for example
availability and pricing’ and ‘easy to find what you’re looking for’, although this was rated as
below average in terms of importance by consumers.
Banking (see Table 9 in Section 7)
 The two most important consumer aspects are ‘account details and loyalty programmes are
automatically recognised’ and ‘online activities are taken into account in face-to-face and
offline communications’, both of which record average marketer performance.
 Marketers demonstrate above average performance on ‘easy to carry out basic tasks online’
and ‘easy to find what you’re looking for’, although these were the least important aspects to
consumers.
 Marketers have strong performance on ‘website works well on a tablet’ and ‘you can achieve
was you need to do in very few clicks’. Both of which are of above average importance to
consumers.

Insurance
 Marketers have the highest performance for ‘easy to find what you’re looking for’ and ‘up-to-
date information, for example, availability and pricing’, although they were some of the least
important aspects for consumers.
 Consumers in this sector rate ‘account details and loyalty programmes are automatically
recognised’ and ‘you can achieve what you need to do in very few clicks’ as important, on both
counts marketers perform just above the average.
 As with banking, ‘website works well on a tablet’ is important to consumers and it’s an aspect
on which marketers demonstrate above average performance.
consumers value in the insurance sector
7.8 3.9
7.6 11.2
6.0 4.7
interactions
7.4 2.1
payment
7.7 7.4
6.9 2.7

Mobile phone operators
 Consumers in this industry rate ‘account details and loyalty programmes are automatically
recognised’ as the most important factor, although marketer performance is close to the
average.
 As with the previous sectors, ‘website works well on a tablet’ is considered above average in
terms of importance, with above average marketer performance.
 Marketers have strong performance on ‘website provides useful information about your
account’ and ‘website works well on a smartphone’, although these are of a relatively low
importance to consumers.
consumers value in the mobile phone operators sector
7.1 3.0
7.1 11.1
5.6 5.8
interactions
6.8 2.2
payment
7.4 7.8
6.4 2.7

Utilities
 Marketers perform above average on the three most important site aspects to consumers,
including ‘account details and loyalty programmes are automatically recognised’, ‘you can
achieve what you need to do in very few clicks’ and ‘website works well on a tablet’.
consumers value in the utilities sector
7.0 3.3
6.8 12.4
4.6 4.7
interactions
6.6 1.8
payment
7.1 8.3
5.8 2.2

9.4. Industry respondent profiles
Figure 2: In which business sector is your organisation?
Respondents: 353
Figure 3: Are you more focused on B2B or B2C marketing?
Respondents: 325

Figure 4: What is your annual company turnover?
Respondents: 329

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