#49: Threads is taking over and getting everyone in a tangle??

Happy?Friday?and welcome! We're bringing you our roundup of industry news summarised in an exclusive LinkedIn newsletter. For more detail on any news featured here, check out 'This week in CX' on the?Customer Experience Magazine (CXM)?website.

This week, we’re looking at new research from Gartner on customer service transition sentiments, how female employees feel about their financial situation, and what’s been happening with Amazon in the lead up to their biggest deal sharing event – Prime Day.

Customer service channel transitions are “high-effort”??

62% of customer service channel transitions are “high-effort” for customers, according to a new Gartner survey.?Less than half of customers who experience a high-effort transition will use self-service again for their next interaction.

The survey highlights the benefits of promoting?seamless transitions?between self-service and assisted channels. Seamless transitions improve CX across a range of metrics and boost loyalty, but they also save time and resources. In fact, 93% of respondents reported high customer satisfaction (CSAT) when there was a seamless channel transition. The survey found customers?who experience seamless transitions from?self-service?to a rep spend 27% less time on assisted channels.?

In addition, customers who go on multichannel journeys with seamless transitions report less customer effort than the average customer who uses just one channel.

88% of?customer journeys start in self-service?touching multiple channels. Customer service and support leaders must recognise that creating seamless transitions between those service channels is the key to their digital-first service ambitions.

Female employees most likely to be suffering from financial stress

The rising cost of living is creating far more financial stress for female employees than their male counterparts, new research from Mintago has found.?

The financial wellbeing platform surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,333 UK adults in full- or part-time work.?It found that 48% of female employees are either ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ stressed. Less than a third (31%) of male employees said the same.

When asked about the factors that were contributing to their stress levels, 69% of female employees cited the rising cost of living is their top concern. Only 52% of male employees selected this. General money or financial worries were the second most common source of stress for both men (48%) and women (65%). Again, female employees were far more likely to have this playing on their minds.?

Further down the list of stress factors, however, the survey found that men (24%) were more stressed about their job security than women (19%).?In Mintago’s research, UK?employees?were asked to select the factors that were potentially contributing to their stress in the current climate.?

UK lost one million daily users ahead of Prime Day

亚马逊 Prime Day may be one of the most anticipated retail events of the year. But the rapid emergence of international ecommerce rivals has led to a significant drop in users on its mobile app over the past seven months.

Consumer usage data?from mobile analytics and business intelligence firm GWS?reveals that Amazon’s dominance is under threat. User numbers have fallen sharply in 2023 as new rivals continue their near-meteoric rise:

• Since the start of the year?Amazon?has lost over 1 million daily mobile app users in the UK. In January 2023 around 9.3 million daily shoppers used its app, a figure that his since declined to 8.3 million.
• SHEIN ?has also seen impressive growth in 2023, doubling its daily users from 1 to 2 million over the past six months.
• E-commerce powerhouse? eBay ?has also seen its fortunes turn, with daily mobile app users declining by nearly 2 million since January 2023 (from nearly 6 million at the turn of of this year to its current rate of 4.2 million).
• Vinted ?continues to hold steady in terms of user numbers. The company currently boasts around 2 million daily users.

Commentary share:?What Twitter vs Threads means for social commerce

Chloe Cox, Head of Social, at VML Enterprise Solutions :

“As Meta rolls out TonePe Products , it’s pulling no punches in its daring attempt to reel in users from Twitter . Despite its not yet fully realised functionality, Threads already boasts a staggering 100 million sign-ups in its debut week.

“And with an ultra-smooth user experience, facilitated by a swift transfer from Instagram , it’s particularly enticing to the influencer community who can transfer their audience over seamlessly. The chore of cultivating a new devoted fanbase is no longer an issue for brands, influencers and retailers alike.?

“With 67% of global shoppers?saying they are already shopping via social media, the potential for Threads is immense. Most intriguing is the likelihood of these figures swelling, as over half (53%) of consumers intend to hike their spending through social media. Threads, with its user-centric ethos and incredibly easy usability, is positioned to disrupt the social media space that Twitter has occupied for so long.”

• The UK Customer Satisfaction Index was cited that Britain’s customer satisfaction has fallen at its fastest rate on record this month. It has slumped year-on-year from 78.4 to 79.9 in July (its lowest level since January 2015), costing the economy an estimated ￡9.8bn a year in lost time and productivity.?
• Meta’s new Threads app has broken download records over the last week, gaining more than?100m users in just 5 days.?This is the fastest that a social media platform has reached this milestone?– taking this crown from ChatGPT who achieved it in 2 months.
• According to Ensono ,?56% of UK consumers prefer to speak to someone over the phone about their insurance.?there are signs across the different age groups of a longer-term shift to digital.?Amongst insurance customers aged 25-34, 38% view a mobile app as their current preferred means of communicating.?Looking to the future, 45% of 45–54-year-olds think a mobile app will be their favoured way of interacting with their insurer.

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