CX study 2021 – Part 3: omnichannel commerce and marketing results

As part of our blog series, we examined the study findings surrounding the customer experience and took a closer look at personalised marketing (LINK to blog post 2). We are now focusing on marketing activities and their evaluation in regard to omnichannel commerce and marketing.

We wanted to more closely analyse in this part of our study how the combination of online and brick-and-mortar retailing affects consumers. It should be said that sales channels networking in retail ceased to be a trend long ago; instead, it’s a decisive success factor in the effort to win customers’ favour.

You know this all too well yourself: when it comes to a brand or a brand store, there is no distinction between the online and offline presence of a brand. It’s more about a seamless, convenient shopping experience. Ultimately, the company that we end up liking the best is the one that can offer us this seamless customer experience.

Click and collect – highly valued by consumers

Click and collect comes into play in a special way in this context and considering the past year. Therefore, we asked: “Have you used click and collect offers in the last three months?” Forty-one per cent of 1,000 consumers surveyed answered ‘yes’ to this question – an impressive number. It was also impressive that 96 per cent were satisfied with click and collect, and 79 per cent were even very to completely satisfied.

That means that the companies here obviously have a good grip on the processes behind click and collect. Looking at the goods that people choose to buy using click and collect, household goods/garden and hardware products clearly score the highest with a share of 51 per cent, followed by electronics/computers/mobile phones (16 per cent) and clothing/shoes (10 per cent).

Combination: offline and online

The offers that combined offline and online approaches with products and goods also delivered exciting results. ‘Informing and buying online’ works best for respondents when it comes to music/games (79 per cent), followed by books/audiobooks (64 per cent) and electronics/computers/games (58 per cent). Bringing up the rear in this combination: food, with 5 per cent.

When it comes to ‘getting information online and then buying in the shop’, 52 per cent of respondents in the car/motorbike category do this. Electronics/computers/games and drugstores/cosmetics/hygiene share a distant second place, with 27 per cent.

However, 72 per cent of all consumers stated that they ‘inform themselves in the shop and also buy in the shop’ when it comes to food. 52 per cent do this for drugstore products/cosmetics/hygiene, as well, followed by 36 per cent who also do this for cars and motorbikes.

So you can see quite clearly that in the eyes of shoppers each product segment has its own specific, common combination – sometimes obviously working best ONLY ONLINE, as with music, or ONLY OFFLINE, as with food. It’s certainly conducive to sales if companies take the current trend into account.

Advertising on smartphones – an attack on privacy

One thing the study also clearly shows in the area of ‘offline meets online’: Be careful using advertising on mobile phones! Discount codes sent by e-mail, which can then be redeemed on-site in the shop, are very popular with respondents (76 per cent). In contrast, push messages with discount codes directly on the smartphone are not so popular (33 per cent), with 45 per cent of respondents even finding this to be rather negative or very negative! And the online customer account, which can be created at checkout, only received 32 per cent enthusiasm.

Conclusion

Customers are on the move and adapt to challenges flexibly – even, and especially, in times of a pandemic. This is very clearly demonstrated by the great popularity of click and collect – an almost picture-perfect way of shrewdly linking online trading with the advantages of face-to-face trading. Over 40 per cent of consumers have used this in the last three months and 96 per cent were satisfied to completely satisfied. Our recommendation here: Click and collect is not a tried and tested means of trading in just times of a pandemic. Those who have not yet implemented this type of marketing should at least think about it.

On the other hand, if you own a shop and fear that consumers will gather information face-to-face and then simply buy online, this study should put you at ease: Hardly anyone still goes to a brick-and-mortar store to then buy online. The opposite is more likely, as seen in the example of cars/motorcycles.

And one thing the study also shows very well regarding ‘offline meets online’: Sometimes you still need the traditional advertising and information measures – good old e-mail, for example – because the mobile phone number is still sacred. What’s more, the mobile phone itself is not yet a widely accepted channel for push notification marketing.

Would you like to read the full CX study?

Download the study (available in German)

All parts of this blog series

Would you like to learn more about exciting topics from the adesso world? Then take a look at our previously published blog posts.