Epsilon Study Unveils Consumer Point-of-View

Agency Advises That Marketers Evolve to Meet Customer Expectations

DALLAS, TX - How consumers perceive and interact with marketing communications is driving specific behaviors and attitudes. A recent study from marketing services leader Epsilon revealed that a large majority of recent purchasers reported that they would not purchase the same brand again. Marketers must improve the customer experience by better engaging with consumers throughout the purchase process and thereafter.

The survey of nearly 1500 consumers in the US explored the concept of Customer Experience Marketing. Customer Experience Marketing is an approach to deliver relevant interactions that anticipate and respond to the many ways consumers want to engage, shop and buy today. When marketers create these types of customer experiences, fueled by relevance drawn from customer intelligence, it can yield dramatic results. The study gathered data across seven product categories including televisions, computers, hotels, auto insurance, mobile devices, communication services and credit cards.

In the key findings from Epsilon’s survey:

* Less than 60% of consumers indicated a strong likelihood of repurchase. Auto insurance purchasers reported the highest likelihood of repurchase of the brand; Credit cards had the lowest reported likelihood of re-selection;
* Net promoter scores were also low, reflecting that consumers are not likely to recommend brands or products; Communication services and credit cards had the lowest net promoter scores;
* In addition to what is pushed to them directly by marketers, consumers rely on specific sources of information to make or validate their purchase decisions:

+ Friends and families were the number one source of information to support decisions;
+ Many consumers relied on product review websites to aid in their purchase decisions;
+ Somewhat surprisingly, relatively few cited unstructured user generated content as a valuable source for marketing information (i.e. blogs, social media networks);

* While many channels are being used for marketing communications, there are some clear preferences:
* Where permission exists, consumers state the preferred channel to receive information was email;
* For acquisition marketing, postal mail was the channel preferred by the highest percentage of consumers for communications services and mobile phones, and the second most in many categories (e.g., computers, credit cards, insurance, consumer packaged goods);


“In order to deliver on today’s customer expectations and be relevant, marketers need to create a multichannel approach designed with the customer experience in mind. This requires listening to customers and adapting as behaviors and preferences continue to evolve,” said Michael Penney, executive vice president, Epsilon Strategic & Analytic Consulting Group.

Epsilon provides comprehensive data-driven, multichannel marketing services that leverage deep consumer insight. Epsilon works with many of the most-recognized brands in the world. Epsilon’s Customer Experience Marketing study was comprised of a March 2010 online survey (conducted in conjunction with eRewards) of nearly 1500 consumers in addition to face-to-face interviews.

Additional in-depth information and analysis from this study are available in a special report from Epsilon – Marketing to Evolving Customer Expectations. The report can be found at www.epsilon.com/pr/cem. Category-specific reports will be released in the near future.