Retailers feel unable to keep up with demands of hyperadoptive consumers

By

Robin Driver

Published
Jan 22, 2020

According to a new study, although increasing numbers of retailers are prioritizing customer-centric initiatives, a vast majority still believe that they are not effectively adapting to the demands of modern hyperadoptive consumers.

 
The study, which was conducted by Forrester Consulting and released by retail technology company Bluecore, reveals that 39% of brands named customer experience as one of their three top priorities, almost as many as mentioned customer acquisition (45%).
 
However, only 21% of respondents think that they are effective at delivering a compelling customer experience, perhaps in part because 50% said that they spend 30% or less of their time on working towards their top objectives.

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On top of this, only 12% of survey respondents claimed to be effective at offering personalized customer experiences at scale, an increasingly important demand among consumers, while just 30% believed that they were able to provide a seamless and consistent omnichannel experience for their customers.
 
Among the reasons blamed for these shortcomings, insufficient data capabilities were top of the list, with over 40% of respondents claiming that their organizational structure harms their data management abilities.
 
Data technology was also highlighted as a problem, with 36% of surveyed retailers saying that they had to wait up to a week to receive campaign or audience data.
 
Indeed, in spite of the ongoing discussions around the importance of using real-time data in the retail and marketing sectors, a mere 10% of survey respondents said that they have access to real-time or near real-time data, with 12% claiming that they receive data within a day and 42% within a few days.
 
“We knew that even retailers who have access to mass amounts of customer, product and behavioral data, don’t always have the ability to derive insights from and action it,” commented Bluecore co-founder and CEO Fayez Mohamood in a release.
 
“We did not know, however, exactly how few are able to scale their personalization efforts,” he added. “This will change when retail brands recognize that it’s not only data and technology that need to work together, their marketing and IT infrastructures need to evolve to work together too.”
 
Bluecore’s research was carried out between July and November 2019 and surveyed 307 marketing and technology decision makers at retailers in the U.S. and Europe. 62% of respondents worked in the apparel and footwear categories, 50% in home goods, 43% in health and beauty, and 34% in luxury goods, with a number of them representing multiple categories.