India's brands still providing good experiences during pandemic
But there's still a lack of CX differentiation nationwide
According to Forrester's 'Customer Experience Index 2020', some 69% of customers had good experiences with Indian brands - with 10% even reporting having excellent experiences despite COVID-19.
Even though the pandemic has led to a dip in consumer spending and overall sentiment, three brands - Toyota Kirloskar, Mahindra & Mahindra, and American Express - provided consistently excellent experiences to their customers.
Based on a survey of more than 7,000 customers, Forrester's CX Index benchmarked the CX quality of 28 brands across four industries, including automakers, banks, credit card issuers, and digital retailers. In all four industries, Forrester's CX Index revealed that the ranked brands are unable to differentiate from the competition. As a result, the brands are unable to realize the full benefits of CX, which include growing revenue faster, charging more for products, and forgiveness for any missteps.
Forrester's CX Index data consistently shows that ensuring emotionally positive experiences boosts customer loyalty. Across all industries, how an experience makes customers feel has greater influence on their loyalty to a brand than the effectiveness or ease of their experiences.
In the digital retail industry, for example, among customers who felt disappointed, just 32% plan to remain with the brand, 30% plan to spend more with the brand, and 30% will recommend the brand to friends and family.
Similarly, in the auto industry, 83% of customers who felt confident during their service experience plan to return to the same brand dealership for their next service, 81% plan to spend more on the brand's services, and 84% will advocate for that dealership.
"Lack of differentiated experiences is a problem that Indian brands must solve," said Amit Bhatia, senior analyst at Forrester. "The first step to creating differentiated CX is understanding the customers' goals and what they need to achieve them. CX Index data shows that even a minor improvement to a brand's customer experience quality can increase revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet."
Sources: Forrester / The Marketing Factbook.
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