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2021 Global Consumer Trends: Part 2

Release Date: June 1, 2021 • Episode #168

The Qualtrics XM Institute recently released 2021 Global Consumer Trends, a report focusing on how consumer behavior will continue to change in a post-pandemic world. The report takes a look at consumer behavior and attitudes across 18 countries and covers many topics including loyalty, NPS, and post-COVID online behaviors. Host Steve Walker and Moira Dorsey of the Qualtrics XM Institute continue their discussion on the report’s findings and the valuable insights it provides for CX professionals.

Download the report Listen to Part 1

Moira Dorsey

Moira Dorsey
Qualtrics XM Institute
Connect with Moira

Highlights

Don’t let off the gas!

“Well, anybody who’s leading a CX program, I would just strongly encourage them not to take their foot off the gas pedal, because I think this is a moment when they have an opportunity; they have people’s attention. They’ve ideally had a chance to demonstrate how experience management programs can really contribute to organizations adapting successfully and driving better business outcomes. There’s been both necessity and willingness to adapt. Organizations have seen just how much they are capable of adapting.”

It’s not just about a great product

“So 42% of people across the eighteen thousand said they would choose a company based on the quality of the product. So to me, that means it’s just table stakes, right? You just have to any organization has to offer great products or they risk losing business. But where it starts to get even more interesting is the second choice. So almost a quarter of respondents said that they would… choose to do business with a company that would prioritize how it treats them, so they would choose a company based on how well it treats them. And so to me, that’s an opportunity for differentiation, provided you’re offering great products. If you can also then deliver a great experience and treat people well, that would be a place to focus.”

Transcript

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Steve:
In our last episode, we began exploring some of the findings from the Qualtrics XM Institute's newest report, and there's more fascinating insights to cover

Moira:
So many ways to slice and dice. But it's interesting to have this data as a level set and then as a way to, if you're a global company, to think about. OK, now what?

Steve:
Continuing our look into the 2021 Global Consumer Trends on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at Walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. On The CX Leader Podcast we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you leverage all the benefits of your customer experience and help your customers and prospects want to do more business with you. In our last episode, we started to dove into the Qualtrics XM Institute's newest report, 2021 Global Consumer Trends, which focuses on how consumer behavior will continue to change in a post pandemic world. It contains a tremendous amount of fascinating information that customer experience and experience management professionals should know. So we've decided to make this a two-part podcast, giving us plenty of time to cover the important highlights. Returning once again to help guide us on our exploration of this fascinating report is Moira Dorsey, a principal XM catalyst at the Qualtrics XM Institute. Moira, welcome back to The CX Leader Podcast.

Moira:
Thank you so much.

Steve:
MoiraI want to go back to this concept of trust – obviously lends itself to satisfaction, but we take it higher. You know, it's it's advocacy, I think is the word that you guys use, but that that relates directly right to an NPS score that I think most of our listeners are very familiar with. What did you find out about sort of this now, extending this into sort of the next level of of CX metrics? What are some of the interesting findings you found in the study?

Moira:
Yeah, so just purely looking at the scores and as I mentioned, we asked that we asked the question in a way that we could get just for the purpose of doing some calibration. And so we asked how they would what what NPS score they give, they would give to companies that they like and what they would give to companies that they dislike. And here are some here a handful of key takeaways. When Japanese consumers like a company, their answers results in an NPS of minus forty seven. And when they dislike a company, it ends up at minus eighty eight. On the other end of the spectrum, there's India where NPS ranges from plus sixty four to minus seven. And then if we look at the gap in NPS scores between how consumers rate companies that they like and those that they dislike, the largest gap is in… saps are in Brazil at one hundred and thirty seven point gap and Mexico at one hundred thirty one. So many ways to slice and dice. But as you said, you keep bringing out the big the you know, such the important points, which is it's interesting to have this data as a level set and then as a way to if you're a global company, to think about. OK, now what?

Steve:
Yeah, you know, I guess in some of these markets, you know, some of it would be cultural and traditions and norms and things like that. I suppose, particularly in the developed markets, there's probably a broad range of kind of the maturity of the processes and infrastructure to deliver. Like, you know, in Brazil, there's probably, you know, big disparities in terms of, you know, what you're able to access based on your income and and where you're located, be it a big city or rural and so forth. So did you get any of that out of that data?

Moira:
Well, I think just being a little cautious about inferences. Right. But I would say there were some interesting findings in a couple of areas that get at what you're talking about. And so that would be things like when we drill down on satisfaction, but with different industries by country, I think there are some some findings that get at what you're pointing to. When you look at how people responded to the our questions about what kinds of which which specific online activities they expect to continue after the pandemic, I think there's there's some interesting things there related to your question as well in terms of adoption, you know, adoption, the the amount of adoption that was, you know, where the pandemic itself was, the impetus and then the continued adoption, I think that gets to the starting point for different where different countries were in terms of their starting point pre pandemic for some of these kinds of activities.

Steve:
Yeah, again, it just it's another example of the you know, the the analytical opportunities that this piece of research is going to provide. If I'm a CX pro and we really haven't done much work on trust in our organization yet, what advice would you give them to as to where to start or maybe what are some general things that companies can do to enhance their their trust factor,

Moira:
That's a great question. And I think that I would I would start with within their organization and with their consumers, their customers specifically, how important, how important is trust to their consumers and in turn to their business, right, because as we both know, that's going to that's going to vary by my company and by industry. In other words, you know, sometimes trust is trust is low, but maybe there's only so far you're going to be able to move the needle on trust. So that's the first thing I would do, is do some investigation there,

Steve:
Get a benchmark,

Moira:
Yeah, get a benchmark. How important is it? And then from there, you know, really doing all the things that that we talked about in the last last podcast and that we've we've been talking about for the last year, which is making an effort and effort in your customer experience program to really make sure that you're driving towards a more modern program that's focused on gathering and acting on insights versus the more traditional programs of yesteryear that we're focused on measuring and then leaning in on what you learn and designing experiences that meet people's needs.

Steve:
Yeah, I mean, I think that the stakes just keep going higher all the time. And, you know, it's you know, it's a great time to be a CX pro. And, you know, those of us that are in the business, you know, every time you have sort of a bad experience, you're like, man, somebody is going to figure out how to do this a lot better pretty quickly. So let's go back to the people that have responsibility for running the CX programs in their organization and what this research could mean for them or or what kind of the implications are. So, yeah, just give us actually, you just said, you know, where to lean in and kind of guide their own activity, you know, can you give us a couple of examples or a couple of things that you found interesting that might apply to either an industry or a region or a global level?

Moira:
That's a great question. You know, the pivot point is that, you know, everything you were doing in in the pandemic, if you really took advantage of the fact that CX and XM could drive better results in that urgent moment, just keep going.

Steve:
No, this is a theme that we've had for the last year and a half. You know, I mean, one of the things that's good for the CX pros is, you know, rapid change in the way customers interact with the brands and the, you know, the the products and services that they they desire. So this rapid change is excellent. It's it's a target rich environment for the CX prose. And I just think your research is such a great tool for our prose to use. What about the sort of the sense of urgency that it's been all brought up? But, you know, obviously when when we first got into COVID, there was a tremendous sense of urgency. Is that waning or is it is that something that's going to carry on this rapid change?

Moira:
Well, anybody who's leading a CX program, I would just strongly encourage them not to take their foot off the gas pedal, because I think this is a moment when they they have an opportunity, they have people's attention. They've ideally they've had a chance to demonstrate how experience management programs can really contribute to organizations adapting successfully and driving better business outcomes. There's been both necessity and willingness to adapt. Organizations have seen just how much they are capable of adapting. And so when we when I couple that with the kinds of obstacles that get in experienced management leaders way under quote unquote normal circumstances, it just seems to me like, you know, this is a this is a moment of opportunity. And so I would just strongly recommend continuing to do things like if you stopped putting as much emphasis on tracking metrics and in order to start putting more emphasis on pulsing and responding to changing customers needs, I would keep doing that. If you took emphasis off of reporting those tracking metrics to executives and instead put that those meetings with executives to use to highlight changing customer needs and get them on board to adapt, I keep doing these things. Just there's a there's a list of five or six things that I would continue to do and that includes things like keeping employees engaged and on board and really developing good and strong sense and respond capabilities and experience design capabilities,

Steve:
So I guess your take is we're not going to go back to the old way. It will be a new normal. And as CX pros, change is our friend and we need to be we need to be agents of good, positive change for our organizations and not let them become complacent or think that we're going to go back to a time where markets weren't as dynamic.

Moira:
Well said.

Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is Moira Dorsey and Moira's talking about the 2021 Global Consumer Trends report from Qualtrics. Moira, you asked a really interesting question with a scale about why customers buy and got it this huge sample size globally across industries and across geographies. But just we're talking off air about this. And I just think it's, again, such a fascinating topic. So just tee that up for our listeners and let's talk a little bit about some of the differences than you saw.

Moira:
Sure. So top level takeaways. We we asked people to tell us why they would choose to do business with a company, and we gave them four options and we asked them to choose one. And the four options were that they choose to do business with a company because it offers very good products, because it the second was because it treats them very well. The third was because it offers very low prices and the fourth was because it does very good things for society. And what we found at the global level was that people chose offers very good products. So forty two percent of people across the eighteen thousand said they would choose a company based on the quality of the product. So to me, that means it's just table stakes, right? You just have to any organization has to offer great products or they risk losing business. But where it starts to get even more interesting is the second choice. So almost a quarter of respondents said that they would choose a company, choose to do business with a company they would prioritize how it treats them so they would choose a company based on how well it treats them. And so to me, that's an opportunity for differentiation, provided you're offering great products. If you can also then deliver a great experience and treat people well, that would be a place to focus. The other two dimensions offering very low prices that came in at 18 percent and doing very good things for society came in at 16 percent. In terms of some of the differences by country or region, just the country that came out on top in terms of choosing very good products was Japan. Fifty two percent of consumers in Japan said they would prioritize offering very good products followed by for that dimension the Philippines and Germany. Going down to or going over to the other dimension of treating me very well, one country came up as with that being the top, top option, the top priority for consumers, and that was Thailand. In Thailand thirty six percent of consumers said that they were prioritized doing business with a company that treats them well. And then thirty one percent there said they would prioritize a company that offers very good products.

Steve:
You know, we talked a lot about the changes going on in channel preference. And again, I know it's this is another reason why people need to go get the report. But could you just kind of describe just overall and then what the report contains?

Moira:
Yes. So what they will find if they want to go and take a look is because this one requires really need the visual. And so I'd encourage them to go and take a look because we looked at channel preferences by offering people a set of sort of standard types of interactions, like booking an airline ticket or getting status on an order, for example. And then we asked them about their preference for doing those that set of activities in different channels. So we asked about two self-service channels and three human supported channels. And there are just some interesting findings about things like what people would choose to do, like booking an airline ticket came out on top in terms of people's preference to use self-service and buy a new television. And applying for a bank account came out on top when it came to a preference for doing that in person with a person. So so there's some interesting findings there. And then we also have some some data cuts looking through the lens of averaging the preferences for different types of interactions overall, but then looking at the data by country and preferences for the different channels. So so lots, lots more, even more to look at there.

Steve:
How are you guys rolling this out? What's kind of the plan for Qualtrics XM Institute to put this in the hands? And and what what are. Some of the opportunities that our listeners might be able to take advantage of going forward.

Moira:
So they can right now they can download, there's a global report that's available via Qualtrics. There are also some regional reports. So by country and also by region, they can also get those through Qualtrics and then through… We're also doing a series of webinars. And in addition to that, we are publishing a series of reports on xminstitute.com and the lens for those the primary lenses, the topics that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. And then within each of those topics, focus reports on things like COVID behavior's, NPS calibration, overall trends for satisfaction and trust, et cetera. We're publishing those by topic and then within those, there's there's all of this country and industry specific data that we've been talking about. So and those will be we will be publishing over the next two to three weeks, about eight different reports.

Steve:
And I should know this, but just to make sure because people can go to the xminstitute.com website and again, I suggest if you're a CX pro, you ought to have that bookmarked and make that a regular. But is there a newsletter or email update that people can subscribe to there?

Moira:
Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, indeed. There is the XM Journal, which you can sign up for on xminstitute.com. It comes out on a monthly basis and it's a great way to stay up to date on everything that we're publishing.

Steve:
Moira, we have reached that stage of every podcast where I ask every guest to give us their best tip for the day and take home value. And, you know, this is a tough one because you've got a lot of stuff here, Moira. So Moira Dorsey, what is your take home value for this podcast today?

Moira:
So it is a tough one for sure. But I think, as you said, we've talked about all the ways that consumer needs are are shifting. And I and I think intuitively we all knew that. But it's just really interesting to have this data to validate it. So if I had to pick one thing, it would be to make sure that when you think about your customer experience management program, we've talked about this before. I just think it it even there's an even greater emphasis on the need to focus resources and capabilities in place to listen for the most important insights and act so that you're designing the right experiences and improving the ones that you already have in the right ways. I really I just keep coming back to that as an essential place to focus.

Steve:
Well, thank you for that. That was well put and always enjoy having you on the podcast. You're such a great, great guest and so good at articulating what it is that we're fortunate enough to do here in this profession. So Moira Dorsey is a principal XM Catalyst at Qualtrics XM Institute. And I thank you again for being my guest this week.

Moira:
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Steve:
And anybody wants to continue the dialog or reach out to you. They can find you on LinkedIn, right?

Moira:
They can.

Steve:
And I actually just now see from our producer, Chris Higgins, that we will have this link to the report on our The CX Leader Podcast. But one more time, if you want to just promote the XM Institute, make sure people get that in their repertoire.

Moira:
Absolutely. They can go to xminstitute.com and find the resources and the research based on this. And they can also sign up for the XM Journal and stay in touch with us on an ongoing basis.

Steve:
Excellent. Well, thanks again. Appreciate it Moira.

Moira:
Thank you so much.

Steve:
And if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business's customer experience, feel free to email me at a podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our web site, cxleaderpodcast.com, to subscribe to the show and find all of our previous episodes. Also, you can if you enjoyed this program, you can go back and find the other episode that we did with Moira earlier. You can also get a link to the report and there's contact information. Drop us a note. Tell us how we're doing. Give us an idea for a future podcast. Again, The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at Walkerinfo.com. Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next time.

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