••• loyalty research
Improved service won’t make ’em stay
Customers more satisfied but switching service providers more often
Two-thirds of consumers switched companies – including wireless phone, cable and utilities – as a result of poor customer service in 2011, despite reporting increased satisfaction with the services provided by those companies, according to a study from Chicago consulting firm Accenture. The Accenture Global Consumer Survey asked consumers in 27 countries to evaluate 10 industries on issues ranging from service expectations and purchasing intentions to loyalty, satisfaction and switching. 
Among the 10,000 respondents, the proportion of those who switched companies for any reason between 2010 and 2011 rose in eight of the 10 industries. Wireless phone, cable and gas/electric utilities providers each experienced the greatest increase in consumer switching, at five percentage points. This includes consumers who switched entirely to another provider as well as those who continued to do business with their current provider but added services from another provider – a new but growing trend.
Fewer than one-quarter of consumers surveyed feel very loyal to his or her providers, while 24 percent indicated that they had no loyalty at all. Only half indicated that they are strongly influenced by at least one loyalty program offered by their service providers.
At the same time, however, consumer satisfaction with their providers’ customer service actually increased in 2011 in 10 attributes measured by the survey. These attributes include the wait-time for service (33 percent satisfied compared to 27 percent in 2010), the ability to resolve issues without speaking with an agent (38 percent satisfied compared to 33 percent) and speaking with just one customer service agent to resolve an issue (39 percent satisfied compared to 32 percent).
www.accenture.com
••• retailing
In-store opportunity
Merchandising ramps up as recession lingers on
During a time of economic trouble and conservative purchase behaviors, the value proposition is playing a central role in the enhanced shopping experience. After several long years of decline, merchandising – defined as displays, feature ads, feature-and-display combined and price-reduction only – has been thrust back into the spotlight. In 2011, 47 percent of consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories enjoyed increased merchandising support, according to Chicago research company SymphonyIRI Group’s Merchandising Trends: Driving Consumption through Shopper Marketing report.
Across grocery, drug and mass channels, 53 percent of categories experienced increased lift from merchandising activities during 2011. This is an improvement from 2010, when 46 percent saw lift increase. Merchandising performance within the grocery channel is in line with average industry trends, while the share of categories seeing lift within the drug channel lags the average by 8 points.
Food and beverage categories are well-represented among the ranks of those categories seeing the biggest jump in merchandising support during the past year, reflective of retailer efforts to cater to home-based eating and drinking. Another powerful trend marking CPG-related behavior is the pre-planning of shopping excursions. Three-quarters of consumers are making CPG decisions before entering the retail environment and an equal number enter the store with a shopping list in hand. Despite the high numbers of consumers following these practices, feature and feature/display combined support – tactics which begin to impact the shopper before entering the retail environment – have each shown decelerating growth trends during the past year.
Sixty-three percent of consumers look at store circulars before heading to the grocery store and 49 percent of categories achieved lift of 100 percent or more from feature-only merchandising efforts during 2011. When backed by display activity, 84 percent of categories achieved lift of 100 percent or greater during the same time period. Despite these results, feature-only and feature-and-display combined support is much less prevalent versus other tactics. For example, 87 percent of categories achieved greater than 10 percent of volume sales with price reduction-only tactics, despite the fact that lift of more than 100 percent occurred in only a handful of instances.
www.symphonyiri.com
••• health/beauty
Blame the Kardashians
Makeup and beauty products find an audience with tweens and teens
If you think young girls are making an effort to look more mature at a younger age, you’re not mistaken – and beauty manufacturers are happy to help them along. Sixty-one percent of girls ages nine-to-11 would like to wear more makeup than their parents allow, according to data from Chicago research company Mintel.
When it comes to regular usage, 37 percent of girls ages nine-to-17 say they use lip gloss/lipstick every day, while 33 percent report applying mascara on a daily basis. Twenty-seven percent stencil on eyeliner seven days a week and 16 percent use foundation every day. “It appears that the use of foundation, eye liner and eye shadow increases sharply from age 12 to 13,” says Kat Fay, senior beauty analyst at Mintel. “This suggests that the first of the actual ‘teen’ years and the beginning of junior high school marks the expansion into more adult cosmetic products.”
More than half of all teens indicate that their moms help them make cosmetic choices but this varies greatly by age. As expected, tweens are most likely to rely on their mothers to help with purchasing decisions (73 percent) while only 39 percent of girls ages 15-to-17 say they need (or want) mom’s help.
“Between reality stars like the Kardashians and bestselling books like Twilight and The Hunger Games, character merchandising plays a large role in how manufacturers are marketing makeup and accessories to the tween and teen crowd and parents might struggle to keep their children from wanting a part of it,” says Fay. “In order to attract this group and get support from parents, products must be subtle in appearance and emphasize that ingredients are safe for young skin, while still playing on the books and TV shows that tweens and teens find appealing.”
Over three-fourths of girls ages 15-to-17 say they buy whatever looks good on them, while only 36 percent of tween girls agree with that statement. More than a quarter of tweens and teens say they buy whatever is on sale or cheapest at the time of purchase.
www.mintel.com
••• consumer research
Depends on what I’m waiting for
What would you do with 15 extra minutes?
Time is one of Americans’ most precious resources and a mere five minutes separates a reasonable wait time from an unreasonable one. According to a survey conducted by Minneapolis salon chain Great Clips, when a retail business makes customers wait more than 15 minutes, 63 percent of respondents said it shows bad customer service and a lack of respect for their time; 52 percent said they don’t go back and instead take their business elsewhere; and 48 percent said they assume the business is poorly managed. Ninety-three percent said a reasonable amount of time to wait at a retail business is five-to-10 minutes or less. Additionally, almost 90 percent of respondents say they would use a technology that kept them from waiting in lines at retail stores if it saved them 15 minutes.
Taking the research a step further, respondents were asked how they would spend an extra 15 minutes a day. The bedroom is the first place both men and women would go if they had more free time. The catch? Men go there for sex, women for sleep. Respondents were given a list of options and asked to choose what they would do with an extra 15 minutes and the top choice for women was sleep (24 percent) and for men was sex (28 percent).
Among women’s top-ranked choices were sleep, clean (i.e., organizing closets, dust baseboards, mop floors), read, watch TV and exercise. “Have sex” was lower on the ladies’ list, after “sit there and do nothing with no disturbances” and “cook.” For men, sleep, listen to music, exercise, and sit there and do nothing with no disturbances were ranked along with have sex as the options most often ranked in the top five.
When both men and women were asked to rank the most annoying time-waster in their own lives, the top three choices were being placed on hold, waiting in line and traffic. When both men and women were asked what they want more of and asked to choose from time, money, sleep, exercise and sex, 70 percent chose money; 13 percent time; 9 percent sleep; 8 percent exercise; and none chose sex.
www.greatclips.com
••• auto research
Driving satisfaction
Dealerships deliver on customer service
Contrary to the negative perceptions often associated with automotive dealerships, the auto industry outperforms several other industries, including retail and wireless services, when it comes to providing a quality customer service experience. In fact, three-fourths of customers rated their experience among the three highest ratings on a 10-point scale when purchasing or leasing a vehicle or having a vehicle serviced, according to a study from Maritz Research, St. Louis.
The CEBenchmarks study compared customer service experiences across 11 industries and 34 types of transactions. Customers were asked about experiences purchasing or leasing a vehicle from a new car dealership in the past six months and having vehicles serviced at a new car dealership within the past three months.
When asked more detailed questions about their automotive sales experience, 74.5 percent of customers were satisfied. The study also identified key factors in driving this customer satisfaction. Customers rated their experience with the sales process as the most important aspect, followed by dealership honesty, dealership keeping promises, vehicle delivery process and the financing/paperwork process as additional indicators of satisfaction.
When it came to automotive service, 74.9 percent of customers were satisfied, citing dealership honesty as the most important factor driving their satisfaction. Additional key factors included quality of repair, timeliness of service, drop-off and the service write-up process, the vehicle pick-up process and if the vehicle was fixed right the first time.
www.maritz.com
••• millennials
AR, QR – who cares?
Augmented reality apps don’t impress in the real world
Augmented reality (AR) has become the futuristic media of the moment but many consumers, including young, tech-savvy Millennials, are having a hard time figuring it out. In fact, only 11 percent of high school and college students have ever used an AR app, according to Ypulse, a New York research company.
AR apps have to be interesting enough to get users to download them and they also need to be engaging enough to get users to come back to the apps again and again. But mostly, they have to work right the first time.
Among students who have used AR apps, 34 percent think they’re easy and useful; 26 percent think they’re easy but not useful; 18 percent think they’re useful but not easy; and 9 percent think AR apps are neither useful nor easy to use. More students think AR apps are easier to use than think QR codes (60 percent vs. 51 percent, respectively).
www.ypulse.com