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Epsilon and Winterberry Group Study Reveals the Current State of Customer Experience Marketing


WEBWIRE

Consumer Expectations, Data and Customer Feedback among the Trends Driving the Future of Customer Experience Marketing

DALLAS, TEXAS - A study from Epsilon and Winterberry Group provides a deep assessment of the current state of customer experience marketing (CEM) and identifies the five key trends shaping the future of CEM.

Findings from the research, entitled Customer Experience Marketing: Realizing the Promise of Dynamic Interactions, highlight opportunities for marketers to strategize and implement, as well as significantly strengthen their existing customer experience marketing programs. Moreover, the study emphasizes the need to manage integrated, multichannel customer interactions with the same level of targeted precision that companies have been applying to their acquisition, retention and loyalty marketing efforts for many years.

In this survey of over 100 leading marketers, service providers and other knowledgeable sources, Winterberry Group explored the factors impacting CEM applications. Sponsored by Epsilon, the study was conducted in person, over the phone and via electronic surveys to participants.

In the key findings:

* Marketers agree that improving the quality of their multichannel customer experience is increasingly a business priority, with 68 percent of respondents saying it is important or critical. But relatively few have devised strategies specifically for the purpose of enriching customer experience;

* Changing consumer expectations—nurtured over nearly two decades of “digital accessibility”—are setting the standard for what constitutes success in experience- driven marketing. Consumer expectations are also influencing the channels marketers plan to leverage as components of their CEM efforts, with social media and mobile expected to see the most growth;

* The proliferation of data has become the “single constant” in the perpetually changing marketing landscape. Collecting, analyzing and making use of this information (in near-real time, and with a level of insight superior to the market at large) is the most significant source of competitive advantage;

* Capturing candid customer feedback (and using it as the foundation of a robust ongoing dialogue) is the tactical centerpiece of the CEM approach.


“Simply identifying CEM as a business priority is not enough,” said Michael Penney, Executive Vice President of Epsilon’s Strategic & Analytic Consulting Group. “What’s required, and what is often the most challenging part to master, is a sound strategy and detailed tactics that will enable marketers to leverage each individual customer experience as a critical marketing opportunity to deepen one-to-one engagement across all relevant channels. This requires a variety of resources and capabilities including technology, data, creative messaging, analytics and much more.”

“In an environment that increasingly demands rapid, relevant and preference-driven interactions between a brand and customers, marketers are still in the early stages of transforming their CEM strategies,” said Bruce Biegel, Managing Director of Winterberry Group. “Recognition of the opportunity is the first step and it is happening now, with phased implementation occurring over the next few years.”

Michael Penney of Epsilon and Bruce Biegel and Jonathan Margulies of Winterberry Group will present the exclusive full report—Customer Experience Marketing: Realizing the Promise of Dynamic Interactions—during a webcast on May 5, 2011 at 1:00PM EST. The in-depth webcast will provide a thorough explanation of the research methodology and findings as well as a discussion on how to apply these leanings to marketing programs. To register for the event, visit www.epsilon.com/cemreport2011.

An executive summary of Customer Experience Marketing: Realizing the Promise of Dynamic Interactions is available at www.epsilon.com/CEM2011.



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