#89: 49% of Brits consider brand interactions to be a tiresome chore

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This week, we’re looking at?consumer time spent on brand admin, and new insights on consumers’ perceptions of personalisation.

Consumers spend 1.5 days a year on brand admin, and lose almost ￡100 annually by?abandoning such tasks

Over half of consumers (54%) have lost their patience or become emotional (47%) with brands wasting their time, and 37% now expect companies to use AI to deliver more efficient services. That’s according to new research from?Twilio.

While mundane household tasks, like cleaning, food shopping, and meal prepping, regularly test our patience, almost half of Brits (49%) also consider brand admin (or ‘brandmin’) – i.e. tasks to manage their accounts or interactions with brands – to be a significant chore.?

With UK consumers spending a whopping 45 minutes a week on average on such tasks, amounting to over 1.5 days a year, it’s no surprise that 47% of consumers see brand admin as an unnecessary time drain. It’s even resulted in many giving up on ‘brandmin’ tasks entirely, with Brits having lost an average of ￡95 each in the last year at their expense. This amounts to a whopping ￡3 billion collectively lost by UK consumers.

However, the research also found that streamlined customer engagement could benefit businesses as much as consumers, with 22% of respondents saying they would likely use any time saved to browse more products and services.?It highlighted a significant opportunity for brands to create more positive interactions with their consumers during the touchpoints they have, instead of burdening them with unwanted tasks.

Better to be loved than needed when driving consumer engagement

Epsilon released the findings of its study on consumers’ perceptions of personalisation in marketing and advertising. The report,?The Push and Pull of Personalisation, reveals that consumers’ feelings about a brand, more than need, drive stronger engagement with marketing.

The study found that 60% of respondents engage with a marketing message because they are “familiar with and like the brand” while 56% interact because they want to know more about a new brand or product. By comparison, 37% of respondents indicated their engagement is driven by need.

The report, which includes responses from 600 consumers between 18 and 65 years of age, goes on to reveal several insights into how marketing can be helpful and additive for consumers, or when it may detract from the brand experience.

Commentary news

With the two May Bank Holidays quickly approaching, and a likelihood of increased sales activity during this time, retailers must ensure that their websites are optimised and resilient enough to provide a seamless customer journey, even when faced with a sudden influx of website traffic.

“If the Easter bank holiday?3.5%?boost in sales is anything to go by, retailers should expect an uptick in sales during the May bank holidays. To meet demand, it is imperative that retailers prioritise maintaining a seamless customer experience.??The purchasing experience no longer begins when a customer receives an item, it starts right from browsing. The moment a potential customer lands on the website, it needs to serve them immediately. When website traffic peaks, even the smallest delays, glitches, or complex processes can result in frustration and an abandoned cart. To ensure preparedness, retailers should adopt autonomous bandwidth scaling capabilities embedded into their website infrastructure.??

-Suhaib Zaheer, Senior Vice President & General Manager at?Cloudways

• Gartner, Inc. identified the top data and analytics (D&A) trends for 2024 that are driving the emergence of a wide range of challenges, including organisational and human issues. As AI continues to revolutionise industries on a strategic level, D&A leaders must demonstrate a bet-the-business skill set on AI and earn trust to lead the AI strategy within the enterprise. D&A leaders need to embrace complexity by using AI-enabled tools to automate and improve productivity. Lack of trust within organisations, concerns about the value and?quality of data, and regulations around AI are leading to a deluge of distrust.

• 61% of organisations are forced to evolve or rethink their data and analytics (D&A) operating model because of the impact of disruptive?artificial intelligence?(AI) technologies, according to a new Gartner, Inc. survey.

• Faced with rising prices and more subscriptions to choose from, two-thirds of music streamers (66%) say they can no longer afford all of their subscriptions. That’s according to newly?released research?from Bango, which surveyed over 2,000 music streaming service users in the USA.?The news comes following multiple price increases across music platforms last year, with major players announcing further price hikes in the coming months. As a result, many subscribers must pick and choose between streaming TV, music, gaming and other subscriptions, with 60% having canceled at least one subscription to afford the rising prices. More than a third (39%) have also downgraded at least one of their subscriptions to a cheaper, ad-funded tier to save on costs.

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