Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.
This week, we’re looking at the top 10 supermarkets in the UK and which ones are on top for their customer service efficiency. Also for supermarkets, they’re seeing punishment for the ongoing supply chain issues. McKinsey have released new research into which omnichannel strategies are leading to an increase in market share.
Key news
- Zendesk have announced partnership with the AI research and deployment company, OpenAI. This collaboration will help launch new capabilities that add to the power of Zendesk’s proprietary foundational models with OpenAl’s capabilities. Zendesk has also published a clear set of design principles for AI. This sets the guiding ethics for itself, customers and industry in relation to generative AI.
- Tesco has reported its profits have halved as it’s struggled with higher costs. Sales rose by 7% to £66bn, but pre-tax profits dropped 51% to £1bn.
- UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has announced it is partnering with ServiceNow, BT, and Thirdera. They will set up a regional contact centre (RCC) for refugees fleeing the ongoing war in Ukraine. The new UNHCR RCC solution offers refugees a cost-free, user friendly, multilingual platform to access vital information. This includes emergency services, assistance, and psychosocial counselling services, as well as identifying vulnerable refugees and referring them to specialists for follow up support.
- UK households cut back on spending on groceries and eating out in March but spent more on subscriptions to TV streaming services. More than six in 10 consumers continued to find ways to reduce the spend of their weekly shop over soaring costs. Around 62% cut back on eating out in restaurants, while spend in clothing stores fell 3.4% – the sharpest drop in six months.
- Google announced new global research with IDC that reveals that manufacturers who provide immersive and personalised CX are outperforming their peers in terms of revenue, profits, and ecommerce sales. Manufacturers with the most mature digital customer journeys saw a 13.5% increase in revenue and a 14% increase in profit in the past 12 months.
In the loyalty scheme debacle, which supermarkets teams are on top?
Sainsbury’s Nectar Card loyalty scheme is set to be switched up by offering cheaper deals for members. This is an effort to rival Tesco’s Clubcard format and satisfy customers struggling with the cost of living crisis. It’s thought that Sainsbury’s customers could be set to save an incredible 50% off certain items, including at least 300 household products.
However, research from SaaSGenius.com has revealed that while both Sainsbury’s and Tesco are putting the effort in to offering cheaper deals to members, each of these grocery suppliers is lagging behind its competitors when it comes to customer service.
SaaSGenius.com contacted 10 of the biggest grocery suppliers in the UK to discover which put in the most effort for efficient customer service. M&S checked out as the best supermarket for help desk for customers – scoring 68.4 out of 100.
As part of the Helpful Help Desks campaign, each grocery supplier was asked the question “I bought an item online, is there a store I can return it to?” across live chat, email and telephone calls.
M&S’s live chat experience was very quick – with customers’ issues being connected to a human after just 2 messages. Issues were being resolved in only 3 messages. The supermarket giant offers its customers 4 different ways to contact them. Either via phone, email, social media or its speedy on-site live chat.
Both Lidl and Aldi were found to truly value their customers. Each offered four different methods of efficient customer service, therefore ranking second and third respectively.
Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda are four of the most familiar names on UK high streets. But when it comes to efficient customer service, these ‘big 4’ supermarkets fall behind the competition.
Sainsbury’s sank to seventh place and Tesco trollied to eighth. These two popular supermarkets offered fewer methods of customer service than any of their competitors. Sainsbury’s offer just 2 ways to get in touch (phone and social media). Tesco had just 1 option – by phone. Overall, grocery suppliers proved to be one of the easiest industries for customers to get in contact with. 8 out of 10 grocery supplier companies offered 3 or more methods of customer service. The industry average score was a notable 42.73 out of 100.
Food shortages and supply chain issues are seeing supermarkets in the firing line
With the news that British supermarkets could face government intervention if they are judged to be undermining food security, new data reveals that almost half of consumers (47%) are unwilling to spend extra on groceries and would go elsewhere to do their shopping.
Shortages of fruit and vegetables push UK food inflation to a record 14.5%, suggesting little respite for households struggling with the cost of living crisis. New data reveals that 20% British shoppers have been forced to pay more for items. This is due to lack of availability in the past 12 months.
7bridges reveals just how much consumer purchasing has been impacted by product shortages. 22% of UK consumers said they have been unable to get hold of items in the past three months. A third of shoppers pointed to basic items as the most commonly unavailable in local supermarkets.
The lack of product availability from British supermarkets, retailers, restaurants and pharmacies is also starting to take its toll on consumer buying decisions and brand loyalty. Almost half of UK consumers (47%) believe that businesses can be doing more to prevent the level of disruption. Of those willing to spend more to get the products then and there, they are willing to pay an average of 11.51% extra.
With issues impacting stock persisting for many weeks, nearly one third (31%) of consumers said they felt “frustrated” when brands continued to blame supply chain disruptions as the reason for product unavailability.
Other key findings include:
- Over a third (39%) of UK consumers are now willing to boycott brands that are not doing enough to prevent disruption.
- Over half (53%) of consumers pointed to supermarkets as the sector most impacted by shortages and supply chain problems
- An estimated 21.4 million UK adults (43%) have experienced supply chain disruption when trying to purchase goods
New McKinsey research: which omnichannel strategies are boosting market share?
McKinsey’s latest Global B2B Pulse reveals that market share winners are currently going all in on omnichannel. In particular, companies that reported a 10+ % increase in market share last year deployed five specific omnichannel strategies:
- Hybrid sales teams and capabilities
- Highly personalised marketing
- Advanced sales technology usage
- Third-party marketplaces strategies
- Ecommerce excellence in owned platforms
77% of companies using direct 1:1 personalisation saw an increase in market share. But companies showing the strongest market share growth – more than 10% a year – were overwhelmingly investing in sophisticated tactics like hyper-personalisation.
The Pulse research also showed that, like last year, ~70% of decision makers are prepared to spend up to $500,000 in a single e-commerce transaction. Meanwhile, the number of buyers willing to spend up to $10 million in a single e-commerce transaction rose by 83%.
Hybrid sales models, which involve sales staff meeting with customers both in-person and remotely, were used by 57% of companies that are growing their market share. For companies losing market share, that figure is 40%. Today’s B2B customers need sales leaders to be available not just in-person. They need them also through remote sales meetings, virtual demonstrations, and digital relationship management.
The companies winning the most market share enable their customers to buy online through multiple channels. For instance, 48% of growing organisations sell via industry-specific marketplaces. Only 13% of organisations losing market share do. E-commerce comes ahead of:
- in-person sales (26%)
- videoconferencing (12%)
- email (10%)
- telephone (8%)
Thanks for tuning into CXM’s weekly roundup of industry news. Check back next Friday for the latest updates of the week!