Marketing in Testing Times: Deliver Simplicity, Reward with Meaning & Inspire Confidence

This is a round up of a recent Reuters Events webinar, featuring insights from Nationwide, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Lenovo and R/GA. You can access the recording here!

For years, marketers have directed spend towards driving growth through relationships with existing customers, a trend only accelerated by the pandemic. It might come as a surprise, then, that customer satisfaction in the U.S. is at a 17-year low. Further proof of this alarming finding comes from recent research by global digital agency and innovation consultancy R/GA, which found that only 35% of customers surveyed were ‘completely satisfied’ with their brand relationship. So, how can brands do better? And where can marketing investments make the biggest impact?

"We've put a ton of emphasis on customer journey over the past year"

“When we analyzed the attributes that were contributing to satisfaction in greater detail, we discovered that over 70% were linked to customer confidence,” said Paul Turzio, SVP, Global Head of Data & Marketing Sciences at R/GA, who co-led the study and introduced a recent Reuters Events webinar. The event, which stressed the importance of brand relationship design across the entire customer experience, brought together speakers from a cross section of industries. At Nationwide, for example, Tiffany Grinstead, Vice President of Personal Lines Marketing, explained that the U.S. insurance and financial services group is fully committed to viewing everything through a “customer journey lens”. From the hospitality industry, fellow panelist Jodie Fleming, SVP, Guest Products & Platforms at IHG Hotels & Resorts, agreed: “We’ve put a ton of emphasis on customer journey over the past year, and those moments that matter.”

"70% of satisfaction attributes are linked to customer confidence"

Looking to the future, as marketing leaders brace themselves for the potential economic downturn, and anxious consumers more carefully weigh purchase decisions, inspiring customer confidence through experiences with a brand has never seemed more important.

Three Steps to Winning Brand-Customer Relationships

1) Create an easy experience from the get-go

The brand attributes most responsible for driving customer satisfaction and retention are first impression and ease of use, according to R/GA’s Brand Relationship Design Report – two components which are interconnected. As Turzio explained: “Building customer satisfaction requires a heck of a lot more than just conventional user friendliness.”

"Data shows us that, if we're going to retain that person long term, it all comes down to the first 90 days"

Sharing some learnings from Nationwide’s experience, Grinstead was keen to highlight the importance of first impressions for building relationships with customers. “We have tons of data that shows us that if we’re going to retain that person long term, it all comes down to the first 90 days,” she said. After that, other key moments for connection are at the points of policy renewal, usually at six to 12 months, she added.

The benefits of self-service were also a point of discussion, which isn’t a hard sell for insurance companies, as “nobody really wants to sit on the phone with their insurer.” However, given the sensitive nature of the claims experience, brands must understand the right moments for marketers to connect with customers, and the right messaging is also vital, Grinstead said.

Booking travel may be more exciting than purchasing insurance, but faced with so many choices, the experience can feel overwhelming, said IHG’s Fleming. An added complexity for hospitality brands is the need to bridge the gap between physical and digital.

From remote check-in to jump queues at a time of staff shortages, to streamlining the rebooking process for a loyal guest, identifying and understanding the pain points is an important part of the process. According to Fleming, analytics plays a “super strong role”, as does listening to customers, and giving them a voice in developing and designing their experiences. Above all, she stressed: “We’re not selling technology for the sake of technology.”

2) Rewards should tap into the motivation behind customer's purchase

According to R/GA, two-thirds of customers feel the rewards that are being offered are failing to deliver. In many cases, said Turzio: “They are not rewarding, they are not useful, and oftentimes they are not redeemed.”

Rewards are at the heart of the hospitality business, and the lesson from IHG, which has recently relaunched its loyalty program, was that customers want to be in the driving seat. Crucially, they want a choice – a drink at the bar, a lounge pass, or loyalty points on a stay, for example – depending on their particular needs. Recognition of their loyalty, whether online or at the front desk, was also vital, said Fleming, who argued: “It’s not always the big moments but the small moments that matter.”

"Building customer loyalty begins with creating a true emotional connection"

Bringing his insights from 17 years at global technology giant Lenovo, Vice President Ajit Sidavasan said, at a fundamental level, building customer loyalty begins with creating a true emotional connection. He highlighted how this played out with gaming customers, a creative, passionate community, who want to share ideas and are often anti-brand and anti-corporate. In this case, he warned, any overt messaging about Lenovo would quickly lead to backlash. In short, monetization was only possible through deep, data-driven customer understanding, and anything less could jeopardize the relationship.

In the insurance business, rewards can save lives. Nationwide has seen a 10% decrease in distracted driving from using data insights from individual driver’s behavior to reward careful driving. However, Grinstead acknowledged that when there are moments of high emotion, wording matters.

3) Personalize with permission and inspire confidence

As countries begin to enforce new data, privacy and compliance regulations, marketers must rise to the challenge of a cookieless world and find new, permissible ways to gather first-party data. “It’s becoming complicated,” Fleming said – especially for a brand like IHG, which operates 6,000 international hotels under 17 brand umbrellas, and in 17 different languages. Data privacy regulations also vary widely from region to region A recent “game changer” in China, for example, are new rules that say you “actually have to let people toggle off any personalization tactic that you’re using,” she explained. And practices like this, which make permission for data usage clear and in the control of the customer, are also crucial due to recent data breaches that have reduced customer confidence in the privacy of their information.

In Summary

Global economic and political uncertainty, an alarming climate crisis, international conflict, and continued fallout from the ongoing pandemic demand a new approach to marketing and brand relationship design. As these external factors affect the emotions and expectations of the people brands aspire to grow with, never before has it been more important to focus on customer satisfaction and retention. “More than anything, consumers and customers are looking for validation that they’re making the right choice, that sense of belonging and recognition that this is a brand that understands, not people like me, but me,” Turzio said. The sooner brands begin creating those unique experiences, the more likely they’ll win over new customers – and keep them for life.

For more marketing insights, access R/GA's Brand Relationship Design playbook to uncover the strategies brands can leverage to future-proof customer experiences, including category insights, and actions brands can take to improve customer relationships without making a heavy investment.