Feelings are Number One Driver of Consumer Loyalty, Qualtrics Research Finds
June 13 2022 - 7:30AM
Business Wire
Customers who were delighted were 10 times more
likely to recommend a brand than those who felt upset
When it comes to loyalty, the way a person feels after
interacting with a company is more important even than whether they
were able to successfully do what they wanted to do, according to
new research from the XM Institute at Qualtrics (Nasdaq: XM).
Feelings trump other drivers of brand loyalty, including effort
and success, according to results from the annual US Consumer
Benchmark study of more than 9,000 consumers. Successfully
accomplishing their goal impacted brand loyalty least. Despite the
importance of feelings, brands aren’t performing as well in that
crucial metric - consumers said they were more likely to succeed
and have an easy time accomplishing their goal with a company than
they were to feel good about it.
The financial impact of losing customer loyalty is significant.
In the US, $1.9 trillion of sales are at risk after consumers have
a bad experience1. In times of economic uncertainty, companies that
understand what their customers want and are able to deliver that
experience stand to strengthen their market share by retaining or
even growing their customer base.
“As the US confronts the possibility of a new economic reality
after years of sustained growth, higher prices and fears of a
recession will push customers to take stock of where and how they
are spending their money, making it critical for brands to deeply
understand their customers to keep their business,” said Bruce
Temkin, head of Qualtrics XM Institute. “Now is the time to
intensify your focus on understanding and responding to your
customers’ feelings, and to identify any of their shifting needs
that may be going unmet. Brand loyalty is a multifaceted effort,
and companies that don’t address all angles risk losing
customers.”
After years studying the impact of the customer experience,
Temkin recommends the following:
- Be authentic and act with empathy instead of relying too
heavily on scripts and templates.
- Empower frontline workers to directly resolve a
customer’s problem.
- Focus on the entire customer journey to provide
essential context for issues with individual interactions.
- Learn from customer feedback and adapt to their unmet
needs.
Key findings from the study:
- Consumers who felt “delighted” by their experience with a brand
are 10.3 times more likely to recommend it than those who felt
“upset.”
- Other factors still impact consumer loyalty. Consumers who say
it is “very easy” to interact with a brand are 8.1 times more
likely to recommend it, and consumers who “completely succeeded”
are 6.3 times more likely to recommend a brand.
- Consumers are nearly five times more likely to both trust and
buy more from a company if they had a positive experience compared
with a negative one.
- The impact of feelings varied by industry. In the health
insurance industry, feeling good made consumers 15.6 times more
likely to recommend a brand. In streaming media brands, feeling
good increased the chances of a recommendation by 6.6 times.
Methodology
As part of the annual US Consumer Benchmark study, the XM
Institute at Qualtrics asked a demographically representative
online panel of US consumers that recently interacted with
companies across 22 industries about the level of success, effort,
and emotion they felt from that interaction and how likely they are
to recommend, forgive, trust, and buy more from that company. The
study was conducted in the third quarter of 2021. The total number
of respondents was 9,055. Data was only calculated for companies
that had 100+ respondents who had an interaction with that company
in the last 90 days.
About Qualtrics
Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management
(XM) category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve
the four core experiences of business—customer, employee, product
and brand. Over 16,750 organizations around the world use Qualtrics
to listen, understand and take action on experience data
(X-data™)—the beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why
things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM
Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses attract
customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build
a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and
build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please
visit qualtrics.com.
About XM Institute
Qualtrics XM Institute is the world’s premier resource for
experience management (XM) professionals. Led by industry visionary
Bruce Temkin, XM Institute’s faculty researches trends and emerging
practices in how organizations interact with their key
stakeholders, including suppliers, employees, customers and
partners. XM Institute also leads XM Pros, a thriving global
community of more than 6,000 XM leaders who participate in an
ongoing calendar of monthly events. The Institute maintains the XM
Professionals Certification, the gold standard credential in the
field. To access the latest XM content or for more information
about XM Institute, please visit xminstitute.com.
1https://www.xminstitute.com/blog/bad-experiences-risk-sales/
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Lauren Braun press@qualtrics.com
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