The impact of COVID-19 on customer behaviour was immediate and widespread across all industries. Consumer behaviours have fundamentally changed over the last few months across all countries and demographics, with priorities shifting to health and safety, and core values and beliefs realigned. As a result, what was previously considered to be a great customer experience has no longer been good enough and almost all businesses have been thrust into reorganising their approach to customers.
The KPMG Global Customer Advisory team has looked at this change of approach in detail, and is now presenting the findings of its global customer experience excellence research. The key themes of the report are as follows:
- A new reality customer: consumer have become more thoughtful and selective in their decision making. Factors such as brand, purpose and reputation are coming into the decision-making process in equal measure to safety, security, convenience and certainty.
- A new reality experience: the report highlights The Six Pillars of experience excellence and shares the 'Golden Rules' that organisations need to apply to engaging with their customers and employees.
- CX Leader board: this year, the research comprised the views of more than 100,000 consumers across over 800,000 brands in 27 different markets. The leaders in this year's research are well adapted to respond to new and emerging customer requirements; many have customer problem solving cultures, flexible HR policies and digitalisation agenda.
- A connected enterprise for the new reality: companies that were agile, responsive and digitally enabled were able to better navigate the effects of COVID-19 and lockdown. The report highlights the eight core capabilities of such companies and the questions organisations need to be asking across these capabilities to help them navigate and succeed.
The leading customer experience excellence brand in Russia this year is Nike, surpassing last year's winner which was Samsung; the report highlights the brand's recruitment policy, eagerness to invest into health & safety innovations during the pandemic, and relevant CSR agenda.
The KPMG Customer Advisory team in Russia and the CIS is currently preparing a more comprehensive and in-depth country report on customer experience due to be issued in the coming month.
