Eighty percent of companies think their brands have superior experiences. Unfortunately, only eight percent of their customers agree.
It’s time for brands to tackle the experience gap – the gap between how consumers want to experience brands, and what brands are actually doing.
It’s not just a marketing imperative; it’s a business imperative. That’s why we’re proud to share our latest research looking at brand experience examples and ideas that you can apply to your brand.
2. /2Best Experience Brands 2013
30-Second Summary
Experience has become a familiar business
buzzword, widely used if casually understood.
High-level executives and marketers alike
agree that experience is an important area for
investment—yet often lack the data and insight
needed to make informed decisions.
To help fill that void, Jack Morton Worldwide
has for the second time sponsored Best
Experience Brands, a study that addresses the
impact of experience on consumers in the US,
UK, Australia and China. (For the earlier study,
see Best Experience Brands 2011).
The research strongly endorses the view that the
brands that will lead in the 21st century will be
experience brands, because people are
• More likely to consider brands that promise
better experiences
• More likely to recommend brands based on
good experiences
• Willing to pay more for brands they associate
with superior experiences
As in the earlier Best Experience Brands study,
consumers were asked about the drivers of
brand experience—good and bad—and about
how these vary by industry. Through their
opinions and stories, we get a clear picture of
the most impactful ways brands can improve
their experience. (Spoiler alert: they should start
with their own people.)
Additional insights from the Best Experience
Brands study may be requested by contacting
Jack Morton.
3. The experience gap / 4
About the study / 5
Key insights from the research / 6
5 best experience principles / 9
Stories of experience brands / 10
Experience drivers and opportunities / 14
3 steps to better brand experience / 20
Learn more / 21
/3Best Experience Brands 2013
What’s inside
4. /4Best Experience Brands 2013
The experience gap
Josh McCall
I’m not here to declare, sky-is-falling style, that
experience is a lost cause—far from it. Yes,
the experience gap is a real and significant
challenge. But for those marketers brave enough
to take an honest look at how their experiences
are performing—and ambitious enough to do
something about it—there’s hope.
There’s also a return on investing in experience.
Studies suggest people will reward brands that
understand their experiences as differentiators
and that invest accordingly. Forrester research,
for example, reveals a correlation between
good customer experiences and likelihood to
recommend, repurchase and stay loyal to brands
across 14 industry sectors.
For all these reasons—the importance of
experience to customers, its connection to brand
success, the gaps between expectation and
delivery—we at Jack Morton continue to invest
in research that helps clients understand not only
why experience is valuable but how to make
it better. This year’s Best Experience Brands
study, like our earlier research, represents our
commitment to providing data and insights that
will help companies close that experience gap.
We believe in experience brands—and we aim
to make more of them. I hope you’ll find the
pages that follow not only interesting but useful
to your experience planning. Let me know what
you think, and look for more Best Experience
Brands findings and studies in the months and
years to come.
Josh McCall is Chairman & CEO of
Jack Morton Worldwide
There’s an experience gap today.
Experience is important to customers—and so
common sense suggests it must be to brands,
too. But study after study reveals that brands just
aren’t living up to customer expectations.
Some years ago, for example, Bain & Company
surveyed customers of 362 companies.
According to the Harvard Business Review,
“Only 8% of them described their experiences
as superior, yet 80% of the companies surveyed
believe that the experience they have been
providing is indeed superior.” From an 80%
assumed superiority to 8% actual delivery:
that’s some gap.
More recently, in 2012 Forrester asked customers
to rank 154 large North American brands
according to the strength of their experience.
Only 8% fell into the “excellent” experience
category. Almost two out of three (61%) offered
experiences that customers considered “okay”,
“poor” or “very poor”. Again, that reveals a big
experience gap, with the majority of brands
either failing to differentiate or disappointing
customer expectations.
Only 8% of
experiences
are rated
“excellent”.
5. About the study
Best Experience Brands is based on a survey
sponsored by Jack Morton Worldwide and
conducted by DB5 in late 2012 (November 16-
27). Respondents were aged 18 and older, and
were equally distributed by gender, age and
income. Findings are statistically significant at a
95% confidence level.
We spoke to 4,000 people in four markets:
• United States (1,000)
• United Kingdom (1,000)
• China (1,000)
• Australia (1,000)
Survey respondents were provided the
following definition:
Experience can include your interactions with the
products, employees or people who represent
the brand, anything you learn from that brand’s
marketing, word-of-mouth, recommendations
from your friends, colleagues or social media.
/5Best Experience Brands 2013
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x1000
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6. /6Best Experience Brands 2013
Key insights from the research
Liz Bigham
These findings are consistent with earlier
research—ours and others’—that correlates
better brand experiences to loyalty and
satisfaction. In 2011, people told us that overall
experience with a brand is the single biggest
factor driving purchase (60%). In 2012, Forrester
research correlated good customer experiences
and likelihood to repurchase and stay loyal to
brands across 14 industry sectors.
If eight out of ten people said they’d be
more likely to consider your brand based on
experience, wouldn’t you invest in making your
experience the best in your industry?
And if six out of ten people said they’d even be
willing to pay more for your product based on
offering a better experience, wouldn’t you make
that investment a top strategic priority for your
organization? Well, get ready: experience is a
determining factor for how people feel about
and behave toward brands.
According to the results of our latest Best
Experience Brands research, that’s exactly
what people all around the world think about
brands and the experiences they offer. Better
experiences correlate to higher consideration
and premium pricing:
• Over eight in ten people (80.4%) are more
likely to consider brands with differentiated
experiences (fig.1).
• Nearly six out of ten (58.1%) will go so far
as to pay more for brands with those
superior experiences (fig.2).
Fig.1
I’m more likely to consider a brand if I know I
will have a great experience (percent agreeing)
Fig.2
I’m willing to pay a premium price if I know that
I will have a great experience (percent agreeing)
US
78.7%
UK
74.9%
AUS
74.2%
China
93.8%
Overall
80.4%
US
60.6%
UK
58.4%
AUS
49.5%
China
63.7%
Overall
58.1%
Good customer
experiences correlate
to repurchase, loyalty
and recommendation
7. /7Best Experience Brands 2013
Some groups, however, are markedly more
influenced than others (fig. 3-4). These include
people aged 25-34, the age group that is
consistently most likely to consider, recommend
or pay a premium price based on a better
brand experience. The biggest generational
divide, in fact, occurs between these older
Millennials and their Baby Boom-era parents
(consumers 45+) over their willingness to pay a
premium for experience: older Millennials are 16
percentage points more likely than their parents’
generation to pay more for brands that offer
great experiences.
Better experiences also drive the most powerful
form of advertising: personal recommendation.
The research reinforces that great experiences
fuel the most highly trusted form of advertising
around: word of mouth. Almost nine out of
ten people (87%) say they are morely likely
to recommend a brand based on a superior
experience.
Again, the Best Experience Brands findings
parallel earlier findings connecting experience
and word of mouth. In 2012, for example, our
New Realities study found that 79% of people
will only advocate brands following great
personal experiences—meaning that for them,
experience isn’t just a spark to recommendation;
it’s a prerequisite.
Experience influences everyone—but especially
older Millennials and consumers in China.
On the face of it, the promise of a better
experience is influential across all demographic
groups. Regardless of age, gender or
geography, all groups are positively influenced
by superior brand experiences.
Experience isn’t
just a spark to
recommendation;
it’s a prerequisite.
Fig. 3
I’m more likely to recommend a brand if
I’ve had a great experience (% agreeing)
US
87.6%
UK
85.5%
AUS
84.1%
China
90.9%
Overall
87%
8. /8Best Experience Brands 2013
Men are slightly more likely than women
tohave higher consideration, and significantly
more likely to pay more based on experience.
Conversely, women—ever the social
consumers—are significantly more likely to
recommend brands based on experience.
Consumers in China are without fail more likely
than all others to be influenced by experience.
Over nine in ten Chinese consumers surveyed
(93.8%) are more likely to consider brands
based on experience (versus an overall average
of 80.4% worldwide); and over nine in ten
Chinese consumers (90.9%) are more likely to
recommend brands based on experience
(versus an overall average of 87% worldwide)
(figs.1-2).
Fig.4
Demographics of experience
I’m more likely to
recommend a brand
if I’ve had a great
experience
I’m more likely to
consider a brand if
I know I will have a
great experience
I’m willing to pay a
premium price if I
know that I will have
a great experience
18-24 25-34 35-44 45+Gender
Age
All
85.1% 89.8%
81.4% 86.5%
61.8% 66.7%
87.0% 87.4%
80.4% 82.8%
58.1% 61.5%
88.5% 88.6% 84.6%
79.6% 85.7% 73.7%
55.1% 62.0% 50.4%
9. /9Best Experience Brands 2013
5 best experience principles
4. Create community.
Beyond fueling recommendations and referrals,
experiences should be designed to connect
people around brands—to leverage the few to
inspire the many.
5. Make it useful.
It should go without saying: any experience
should add value to people’s lives.
Best Experience Brands definitively demonstrates
that experience matters to consumers—but what
constitutes a great experience?
Looking at qualitative inputs from this and
earlier studies, as well as years of best practices
by leading experience brands, we believe
that great brand experiences follow five core
principles—across all kinds of audiences,
touchpoints and media:
1. Invite participation.
Great brand experiences are design-driven:
simple, accessible, easy and inviting to
the participant.
2. Build around users.
Brand experience learned it from the web:
people want their experiences to be relevant
and feel customized to their needs. Even
delivered at scale, experiences should “fit”
the user.
3. Make it shareable.
Experience sparks recommendation; experiences
should be designed to tap into technology as
well as our primal human desire to share.
10. /10Best Experience Brands 2013
Stories of experience brands
Following are direct quotes
from some of the 4,000
participants in the Best
Experience Brands study
in answer to open-ended
questions about “great brand
experiences” as well as “truly
bad experiences”. We asked
people to tell both about their
shopping experiences (how
they were treated by brands
as they shopped) and their
customer experiences (how
they were treated after they
bought). Some trends emerge
from the thousands
of verbatim descriptions.
11. /11Best Experience Brands 2013
Honesty and
transparency
are valued
1
“[The] benefits of the product are exaggerated
during purchase, but claim settlement is complicated
and slow… We [had a] very bad experience and
will hardly choose this company again.”
(China – Insurance experience)
“The rep greeted [me] warmly from the door.
The rep was very attentive to my needs…
asked [me] a lot of questions and answered
all of mine…. The rep called me weeks after I
purchased my phone to see if my service and
phone [were] working correctly.”
(US – Retail experience)
“The sales staff were knowledgeable and
helpful [in] understanding my needs and
aspirations. They were also prepared to provide
better prices and throw in extras.
A great and pleasant experience.”
(Australia – Automotive experience)
12. /12Best Experience Brands 2013
“One dealer in particular inquired more about
my personal needs to help look for what I
really needed. He showed me the features and
benefits of each car. Asked if overall price or
monthly payment was more important. Took
me for a test drive and also told me I could
return it no questions asked in 30 days”
(US – Automotive experience)
“Treated me with respect and talked to me (not
my husband) when I was buying a car.”
(US – Automotive experience)
“As I was shopping online with them I messaged
customer service for some help and they were
able to advise me on everything I needed.”
(UK – Insurance experience)
“When they put your name and number into
a computer system and you have a different
person calling you back every day for weeks,
it’s rude and completely impersonal”
(US – Insurance experience)
Individual
treatment
and respect
are expected
2
13. /13Best Experience Brands 2013
“Above and
beyond”
experiences are
remembered
(so are their
opposites)
“I was kept fully informed throughout the
sales process and my wife even received
a large bunch of flowers
on delivery day.”
(UK – Automotive experience)
“I was in the show room looking at the
vehicles and no one would approach
me. So as I walked past a desk I took
down the phone number. Then I called
the number to get [the salesperson’s]
attention... You should have seen his face
when I waved to him.”
(US – Automotive experience)
“She sent me a thank you card
mentioning something I had said while I
was there. She actually listened.”
(US – Retail experience)
3
14. /14Best Experience Brands 2013
Experience drivers and opportunities
Focusing on the shopping experience and the
customer experience reflects another experience
gap: in this instance, between the extent to
which consumers highlight these as the brand
interactions that have the highest value for
them, and the frequency with which consumers
cite dissatisfaction with how brands actually
perform during shopping and after purchase.
For consumers, these are clear areas of priority
and need.
In the current report, we focused on the
shopping experience and the customer
experience and asked consumers to identify
the strongest drivers of success and satisfaction
(fig.5). Although these drivers varied across the
three industry sectors we studied (automotive,
retail, insurance), key trends emerge.
“Brand experience” isn’t a moment in time; it’s
a state of mind. Experience brands work to
build sales and loyalty at moments in time and
through relationships over time—inspiring people
both opportunistically and holistically.
Brands that have strong experiences strive
to understand experience as an ongoing
commitment, and to think holistically across the
varied journeys their people—customers, partners
and employees—have with their brands. Often,
they must assess hundreds of touchpoints within
a given area of experience; a study by FedEx
identified 200 individual customer touchpoints,
and John Deere Financial identified 529.
Building on earlier insights from the 2011 report,
in the current study we sought to add depth
to our understanding of experience within two
distinct phases of experience:
• The shopping experience—interactions with a
brand when a person is in market and assessing
different options.
• The customer experience—interactions with a
brand when a person has already purchased the
product or brand.
“Brand experience”
isn’t a moment in time;
it’s a state of mind.
15. /15Best Experience Brands 2013
Fig.5
Brand experience drivers by sector
Shopping Experience: Stated Drivers
Customer Experience: Stated Drivers
Automotive
Automotive
Retail
Retail
Insurance
Insurance
Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars
at the dealership
Offers discounted maintenance
Offers you free delivery or shipping
Customer service staff who treat you well
Sales staff who understand your needs
Customer service staff who treat you well
Sales staff who treat you well
Customer service and maintenance staff who
treat you well
Sales staff who treat you well
Offers customer loyalty rewards and incentives
Offers to match or beat competitors’ pricing
Customer service staff who understand your
needs
Sales staff who can tell you about products
and pricing
Customer service and maintenance staff that
understand your needs
Gives you opportunities to try out products
Customer service staff who understand
your needs
Sales staff who treat you well
Offers discounted pricing on additional
policies and coverage
Allows you to return a car if you’re not satisfied
Sends you information about caring for your car
Sales staff who understand your needs
Offers discounted maintenance for your purchases
Sales staff who educate you about the best
coverage for you
Sends you customer rewards and incentives
Sales staff who understand your needs
Sends you customer rewards
Sales staff who tell you about products
and pricing
Does something special to make you feel rewarded
Sales staff who tell you about products
and pricing
Sends you information about new offers
16. /16Best Experience Brands 2013
reveals that brands still have the opportunity to
do better—a lot better. Judging by one factor, the
degree to which people perceive their experiences
to be unique, brands are not breaking through.
Median uniqueness for the specific brands
surveyed by category (fig. 6) is as low
as 29% (in the insurance sector). Even in
the sector where brands score the highest
levels of uniqueness—retail—about half of
the time brands aren’t differentiated from
their competitors. In every instance, brands’
experiences are perceived to be slightly more
unique during shopping versus after purchase,
suggesting an opportunity for brands to stand
out with customers by truly focusing on how
they’re engaged even after they buy, whether
through special incentives, regular added-value
engagement or timely information.
Judging by how people rank brands’ performance
against key experience drivers (fig. 7), the gap
between expectations and actual performance
remains a significant challenge. In a limited
number of instances, people agree that brands
actually meet core requirements—for example,
consumers are relatively satisfied that most car
The most important driver of experience can be
summed up in a single word: people.
Across sectors, the experience drivers that
consumers say matter are most often connected to
staff and service—both as they are shopping and
after they become customers of a brand. People-
related drivers are the highest ranked category
of driver in every sector and at every stage
of shopping and customer experience, with a
single exception: during the automotive shopping
experience, people place a huge value on factors
connected to trying out the product.
The clear emphasis on people as experience
drivers also comes through in participant verbatims.
When we asked for open-ended stories of great
experiences, people and service were cited 37%
of the time, unprompted, more than any other
factor. People are also behind bad experiences:
42% of all industries and over half (51%) of the
unprompted stories consumers told us about bad
retail experiences stemmed from poor service.
The biggest opportunity for brands is still
differentiating based on experience.
As in earlier studies, Best Experience Brands
brands do a good job of providing opportunities
to test drive and informative staff interactions in
dealerships. Yet in most other instances, across
all geographies, sectors and demographics,
more often than not consumers still rate brands’
performance as falling short of expectations.
Fig.6
How differentiated are brand experiences?
Cars
Cars
Retail
Retail
Insurance
Insurance
Unique Shopping Experience
Average
Average
Median
Median
Unique Customer Experience
29%
29%
33%
34%
40%
46%
43%
51%
39%
39%
46%
48%
17. /17Best Experience Brands 2013
Fig.7
Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance
Automotive
Shopping Experience
Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance
Customer Experience
4 Allows you to return a car if you’re not satisfied 21.0% 5 Sends you customer rewards 18.0%
11 Does something special to get your attention 23.0%
9 Allows you do comparison test drives of their cars and
their competitors’ cars 25.0%
7 Offers you incentives to recommend your car to friends
and family 21.0%
8 People you know recommend the brand to you 28.0%
10 Invites you to special events 24.0%
5 Sales staff who understand your needs 36.0%
8 Offers incentives to test drive newer models 25.0%
2 Sales staff who treat you well 45.0%
6 Educates you about fuel efficiency and environmental impact 30.0%
13 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 21.0% 13 Gives you mobile tools/apps to recommend your car
to your friends and family 19.0%
12 Invites you to special events 24.0%
12 Offers new mobile tools/apps that enhance your driving
experience 20.0%
7 Sends you discount offers 25.0%
11 Does something special to get your attention 21.0%
10 Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars at
locations other than the dealership 29.0%
1 Offers discounted maintenance 25.0%
6 Speaks to you about fuel efficiency and environmental impact 37.0%
9 Invites you to special events where you can test drive
newer models 26.0%
3 Sales staff who can tell you about products and pricing 53.0%
4 Sends you information about caring for your car 31.0%
1 Gives you opportunities to test drive their cars at the dealership 57.0%
3 Customer service and maintenance staff that understand
your needs 37.0%
2 Customer service and maintenance staff who treat you well 41.0%
18. /18Best Experience Brands 2013
Fig.7
Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance
Retail
Shopping Experience
Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance
Customer Experience
11 Invites you to special events 21.0% 8 Rewards you for telling friends and family about your
shopping experience 17.0%
9 Offers unexpected in-store experiences 23.0%
13 Provides mobile/digital tools to enhance your shopping
experience 26.0%
6 Sends you information about caring for your purchases 21.0%
10 Does something special to get your attention 27.0%
5 Does something special to make you feel rewarded 22.0%
6 Offers you incentives to buy in a particular place,
for example in-store or online 32.0%
12 Offers new mobile tools/apps that enhance your
product experience 23.0%
5 Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing 35.0%
2 Offers customer loyalty rewards and incentives 25.0%
3 Gives you opportunities to try out products 23.0% 7 Offers incentives to try out newer items 19.0%
12 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 24.0%
4 Offers discounted maintenance for your purchases 20.0%
1 Offers you free delivery or shipping 27.0%
10 Invites you to special events 21.0%
4 Sales staff who understand your needs 31.0%
13 Gives you mobile tools/apps to share your experience
with your friends and family 22.0%
8 People you know recommend the retail company to you 33.0%
11 Does something special to get your attention 24.0%
7 Sends you information about upcoming sales 36.0%
9 Creates a customer profile to make shopping with them
easier and faster 29.0%
2 Sales staff who treat you well 38.0%
3 Customer service staff who understand your needs 31.0%
1 Customer service staff who treat you well 37.0%
19. /19Best Experience Brands 2013
Fig.7
Experience drivers: expectations vs. performance
Insurance
Shopping Experience
Rank RankDriver DriverPerformance Performance
Customer Experience
10 Invites you to special events 16.0%
13 Invites you to special events where you can learn
and be educated 16.0%
6 Does something special to make you feel rewarded 19.0%
7 Rewards you for telling friends and family about
the company 19.0%
12 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about
financial planning 19.0%
4 Sends you customer rewards and incentives 20.0%
9 Does something special to get your attention 20.0%
11 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about
being a smarter owner/renter 20.0%
8 Offers new mobile/digital tools/apps that help you
access your policy information 22.0%
5 Sends you information about new offers 32.0%
3 Offers discounted pricing on additional policies
and coverage 33.0%
2 Customer service staff who understand your needs 34.0%
1 Customer service staff who treat you well 36.0%
14 Invites you to events where you can learn and be educated 17.0%
13 Provides mobile/digital tools to educate you about being
a smarter owner/renter 21.0%
11 Does something special to get your attention 22.0%
12 Provides mobile/digital tools to help you compare offers 22.0%
8 People you know recommend the brand to you 23.0%
10 Gives you information about competing brands 23.0%
2 Offers to match or beat competitors’ pricing 25.0%
6 Sends you discount offers 25.0%
7 Gives you side-by-side comparison of their policies
with their competitors’ 25.0%
9 Gives you a strong understanding of what it would be
like to be there customer 27.0%
1 Sales staff who understand your needs 33.0%
4 Sales staff who educate you about the best coverage for you 33.0%
3 Sales staff who treat you well 37.0%
5 Sales staff who tell you about products and pricing 42.0%
42.0%
20. 3 steps to better brand experience
It’s clear: brands need to raise their game when it
comes to brand experience. Across geographies,
categories, categories and customer groups,
brands can and must do better.
Regardless of a brand’s stage of experience
development, a simple three-step approach applies:
1. Map the overall brand experience.
Assess all the touchpoints that add up to brand
experience to understand gaps, white spaces and
areas for improvement. From a customer journey
perspective, this is an invaluable step toward
“plugging the holes” at which people defect
or get distracted.
2. Improve existing experiences.
Do the work of elevating existing experiences,
with particular attention on drivers with the highest
levels of impact, like customer-facing staff, partners
and other people that represent the brand.
3. Invent and innovate.
With so few truly differentiated experiences,
brands have a huge opportunity to stand out and
be special. Look at the tremendously low current
performance scores for the extra, discretionary
experiences brands create—and take advantage
of that white space.
/20Best Experience Brands 2013