Average Age

• The average age of a marketing manager in the US is 42.2 years.

• The average age of male marketing and sales managers in the US workforce is 44.1 years and female marketing and sales managers is 40.1 years.

Gender Composition

•  53.6% of marketing and sales managers in the US are male, indicating that the occupation is more popular among men.

Salary/Household Income

• In 2017, "marketing managers in the US earned an average of $102,064, $49,999 more than the average national salary of $52,065."
• The median annual salary of marketing managers in 2018 was $134,290.
• The best-paid 25% marketing managers earned $180,070 in 2017 while the lowest-paid 25% made $94,110.

Education

• The most common major for marketing and sales managers is Business Management (40.7%) but a relatively high number of marketing and sales managers hold a major in Communications (14.3%).
• The typical entry-level qualification in the industry is a Bachelor's degree.

Race/Ethnicity

• The most common race/ethnicity for marketing managers in the US is white. As much as 84.3% of marketing and sales managers are white.
• 'Asian' is the second-most common race or ethnicity in this occupation, accounting for 6.08% of the total managers.

Location/Spatial Concentration

• Marketing managers are mostly concentrated in the states of Illinois and California.

Other Helpful Findings

• An analysis of the website of the American Marketing Association indicates that marketing leaders most likely have a Facebook account (39.14%) and a LinkedIn account (34.56%).

Research Strategy

Average Age

• The typical age of a Customer Service Management (CSM) workforce in the US is 43.7 years.

• The most common ages in the workforce are between 35 and 47 years old, which represent 2.72% and 2.69% of the population, respectively.

Gender Composition

•  59.2% of the people in the CSM workforce who have Business majors are female.

• The statistics make females the common gender in the occupation.

Salary/ Household Income

• As of 2017, the average annual wage in the workforce was $88,037, including the salaries of their support teams.

• The average salary for managers was $116,803 and could go up to $198,573 for the chief executives' positions.

Education

• The most common major in the workforce is Business Management, with the most prevalent degree among these workers being a Bachelors's Degree.

Race/Ethnicity

• The most prevalent race of CSM graduates and workforce is White, which represents 51.9% of the workers.

• Hispanics represent 12.1% of the workforce, while Blacks and African-Americans represent 11.8%.

Location / Spatial Concentration

• Reports indicate that the highest concentration of individuals who received a degree in this field based in Wisconsin, California, and Oregon.

•  New York state has the highest salary offered for CSM workers.

Research Strategy

Age

• There is limited information on the surveyed age of typical senior-level persons working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry.
• About 36% of developers that started coding apps after age 26 become managers at the age of 31.

Sex

• Information regarding the gender of a senior-level person working with the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry is limited.
• There are more male than female software developers in the United States. About 80.7% of applications and systems software developers in the United States are men, 29,3% of developers are female.

Income level

• According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a senior mobile app developer in the United States is US$120,761 per year.
• The additional cash compensation of a senior app developer is about $6,893 yearly.
• In 2016, the average salary for a United States senior application developer was $91,753 per year.

Race

• Information regarding the race of a senior-level person working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry is limited.
• Some Polish programmers are opting to relocate to San Francisco. San Francisco is referred to as the town "that apps built."

Employment

• The top 25% of app developers have an unemployment rate of 1.9%. The study assumes that senior managers working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry fall within this top percentage. Software developers have the best (minimum) unemployment rates in America.

Location

• There is no information available on the regional distribution of senior-level managers working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry in the United States.
• The San Francisco Bay area (Silicon Bay) has the highest average income for app developers at $110,554 per year. It also represents one of the highest concentrations of app developer jobs in the United States. All other things being equal, the Silicon Valley area is the most likely place to have the highest count of senior-level persons in the United States, including those working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry in the United States.
• San Francisco is referred to as the town "that apps built." Many companies that have the most popular apps (Facebook, Google, Dropbox, Salesforce, Square, Twitter, and Yelp, Google, and Apple) are present in San Francisco.
• With 628,414 software engineers, California has the highest number of software developers among all cities in America.

Home-ownership

• Information regarding the home-ownership of a senior-level person working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry is limited.
• More houses were purchased in 2018 in the San Francisco area by the staff of Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and SalesForce, than the workers of all other companies in the region. With over 1 billion downloads, Facebook is one of the most downloaded mobile apps in the world.

Children

• Information regarding the children of a senior-level person working in the mobile-apps or mobile products' industry is limited.
• Many top software developers are older than 30 years and live "without kids," some of them have no children.

Level of Education

• The average degree level of senior app developers in America (those involved in management) is a master's degree level.
• A master's degree is the typical requirement for "this upper-level position." At least five years of experience is also required.

Research Strategy

Personality

• The typical marketing executives tend to fall into the ENTJ personality type of the Myers-Briggs scale, described as "frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well-informed, well-read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas."

• They are more likely to follow their gut feeling than other c-level executives, have empathy for the consumer, and a strong social media presence. These tech-savvy professionals are customarily driven by curiosity and a business-oriented mindset.

• Russell Reynolds examined CMOs on 60 psychometric scales to understand what is unique about this group and discovered that CMOs differ from other c-level executives across a large number of attributes and to a significant degree.

•  CMOs have a pioneering spirit, act unconventionally, test limits and are not beholden to structures; they are more imaginative, active, outgoing, and bold than the rest. Adaptable, innovative and decisive professionals, they lead from the front, with an abstract way of thinking.

Values

•  Great people skills are a must-have to be successful in this position, as well as strong leadership, a visionary mindset, and the ability to translate data and marketing inputs into a coherent strategy.

• These are not "green professionals," they bring the weight of years of experience through the ranks of the marketing chain, many times with financial and technological backgrounds. They value their time and expect others to value it as well.

• The new generation of marketing executives use words like "soul," "purpose," "community," and "art and science" when describing their aspirations and strategies. They believe in collaboration, both inside and outside of companies, and are aware of consumers’ interests in their social and cultural positions. The new professionals are more well-rounded individuals, ready to exercise different roles.

• CMOs are engaged with cultural and social causes. Prominent executives are now focused on conscious marketing, and how to turn good intentions into marketing. As one executive noted, being a CMO today is "to be a voice of the user or customer and to tell the truth." They emphasize an understanding of how the world operates and see their roles as both artists and scientists.

Habits and Interests

• As previously mentioned, senior-level marketing executives, especially CMOs, have a strong social media presence; in fact, they are 5.6x times more prone to update their LinkedIn profile and have 3.9x as many connections as the average user.

• Regarding technology, AI was the topic of most interest in 2018, followed by digital transformation, blockchain, 5G, marketing stack, and the internet of things.

• As for the topics they engage in the most on LinkedIn, demand generation took the first spot, followed by B2B marketing, content strategy, positioning, marketing, advertisement agency, personalization, SEO, and brand loyalty.

• Outside of the professional sphere, leisure, media, and entertainment was the most discussed topic, accompanied by food, technology, automotive, financial services, and telecom.

• The most commonly used hashtags were #marketing, #cx, #braveleaders, #seeher, #cmos, #AI, #5g, #womenintech, #tech, #innovation, #healthcare, #diversity, #tbt, #leadership, #health, #wednesdaywisdom, #autism, #purpose, #data, #brand, #timesup.

• The most influential people with this cohort were, as of 2017, Vala Afshar, Tamara McCleary, Scott Brinker, Gary Vaynerchuk, Kim Whitler, Brian Solis, Jay Baer, Evan Kirstel, R. Ray Wang, and Brenner Mitchel.

• Forbes is the number one publication, followed by Inc., Medium, The New York Times, Business Insider, TechCrunch, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Bloomberg.

• When it comes to information about their trade, Adweek takes the number one spot, succeeded by Advertising Age, Mediapost, CMO, The Drum, Marketing Land, Digiday, Marketingprofs, HubSpot Blog, and Business2Community.

•  Events they followed in 2018 include the Cannes Festival, SAP consumer experience LIVE, Web Summit, Consumer Electronic Shows, South by Southwest, SAP Sapphire Now, Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, Advertising Week New York, Fast Company Festival, PR Week Awards, and CMO Academy.

Research Strategy:

Interests

• Customer experience decision makers who visit Mycustomer.com are interested in computers electronics and technology, news and media, and business and consumer services.

• Customer experience decision makers who visit Customerexperienceinsight.com are interested in computers electronics and technology, related to social networks, online communities, and search engines.

• Those that visit Peoplemetrics.com are interested in travel and tourism, social networks, online communities, and news and media.

Reading Habits:

• Mycustomer.com' customer experience decision makers like to read articles on Creativebloq, which a website that provides daily inspiration for creative people.

• Those that visit Customerexperienceinsight.com like to read articles on Sessioncam, which is an intelligent website optimization tool.

• The cx-journey.com website customer experience decision makers like to read articles on customerexperienceupdate.com, which provides the best industry content from the Customer Experience Update community.

• Customer Experience decision makers who visit peoplemetrics.com like to read articles on Sessioncam.

• Those that visit mattsenkumar.com like to read articles on Blakemichellemorgan, a keynote speaker in the customer experience industry.

Additional Insights:

• Customer experience professionals are detail-oriented, creative, have great negotiating skills, are fast learners, are great storytellers, have the ability to break down complex tasks.

•  CX Journey, Mycustomer.com, Customer Bliss, and Customer Experience Insight are some of the top customer experience blog websites.

Research Strategy:

• We began by looking for information on customer experience industry websites such as CMSWire, CCXP, and Customer Experience Magazine. The idea here was to find publications about the customer experience industry that would include commentaries by industry experts and company spokespeople that could be used to devise such information. With this strategy, we were able to find information on the skills and traits of customer experience professionals, however, there was no information on their interests, values, and habits.

• We then looked through scholarly research articles such as Academia and Research Gate. We wanted to see if any of these sites have published information related to the interests, values, and habits of customer experience professionals working at senior level positions, as sites like these conduct various research studies that also include surveys with specific sample populations. However, there were no relevant research papers or articles that had information on the psychographics of those professionals, as we found information on ways to acquire and retain valuable customers.

• At last resort, we decided to triangulate the information by looking for statistics about the websites that customer experience professionals visit, which we were able to find on Mattsenkumar. We assumed that these are some of the sites used by customer experience decision makers as knowledge sources. We then, checked some of the demographic and psychographic analysis for those websites by using databases such as Similarweb. With this strategy, we were able to build information on the interests and reading habits of customer experience decision makers.

Director of Mobile App Products

Behavior

• An employee in this position will be leading technology development across all digital media products and platforms.
• A director needs the insight to balance between the appropriate technology strategy, architecture and tactical project delivery.
• They evaluate new and emerging technologies and have the imagination and the foresight to assess the future and select a direction.
• Working at this level requires the ability to facilitate cross-functional collaboration across the organization.
• Successful directors in mobile products will instill a culture of empowerment, innovation, transparency, and teamwork.
• Executives need to be humble, have courage under pressure and quickly adapt to change.
• A person who has risen to this level often has the work skills to be successful in this job, including excellent communication skills, have exceptional organizational skills, and the self-confidence to step forward when necessary.

Psychology

• A Senior Manager in this field needs to be able to create both a vision and a strategy to lead to that vision. They need to inspire and motivate the people they lead.
• Employees who rise to this level have confidence in who they are. They have a handle on their strengths and weaknesses and use them to their advantage. A good leader knows enough to surround themselves with people who have the skills they do not.
• Directors are expected to have a comprehensive organizational perspective and yet be able to identify and analyze the essential information of subjects in order to also provide departmental perspective.
• A recent research study found that "extroverts enjoy a distinct advantage in emotional; interpersonal; motivational and performance-related skills. "
• People with excellent face to face communication skills often knowingly or unknowingly imitate the body language of the person with whom they are speaking.

Psychographic Profile

• The psychographic profile of a Director scores high in the OCEAN model on Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extroversion.
• They tend to score lower on Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
• This results in a psychographic profile that demonstrates values of ambition, foresight, and responsibility.
• Conscientious, hard-working and comfortable in their decision-making abilities, they are organized and punctual.
• Imaginative and curious, they are also joiners and talkers.
• They are generally active and affectionate people.
• Directors are also suspicious and can be ruthless if required. However, they are normally calm and usually even-tempered.
• They are interested in original thoughts.  
• Examples of hobbies found among current Mobile Product Directors include automotive restoration, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) , futurists groups and fashion.

Research Methodology

Breaking through the noise

• Marketers are confounded not only by multiple marketing channels and knowledge of strategies to exploit in different market channels but also with the expectation that it is industry practice to excel across all these channels. Such aggressive marketing strategies are commonplace creating customer information overload.
• Reaching out to customers within this environment is difficult. Manifest's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Liz Koman, notes that it is quite a challenge in getting the message through to customers within the aggressive marketing industry.
• Magnolia's CMO, Rasmus Skjodan shares “The winner-takes-all approach scares me.”

Financial expectations

• Over the years, marketing has transformed from a non-core organizational activity and has become a key growth engine. With the increasing prominence of marketing, the organizational budget allocated to marketing has increased.
• Today, marketers face increasing challenges to not only allocate their budget such as to meet research and development as well as talent and advertising demands but also to achieve organizational growth.
• Qubit CMO, Lean Anathan, identifies that she is driven by investor expectation to achieve the maximum return for each dollar allocated to marketing.

Personalization

• Given the competitive marketplace and marketing information overload facing consumers, senior marketing executives have to a market-savvy ream that can be able to reach out to customers.
• Importantly, 79% of internet users note that their purchase intent increases with personalized marketing.
• The CMO of BloomReach, David Hurtwiz, identifies that developing a personalized marketing outreach is a challenge. Particularly, senior marking executives are concerned with having a team that best understands distribution channels, marketing technologies, company products, brand positioning, market landscape, and reporting.

Technology investment and employee attrition

• Senior marketing executives are increasingly investing in collecting customer data and research to gain awareness of the changing landscape. Additionally, personalization of marketing is essential for competitive advantage. Technology is a powerful tool in not only collecting customer data and personalization but also in the management of marketing efforts. In a
• In a CMO survey, 55% of senior marketers identified that artificial Intelligence will have a powerful impact on marketing.
• Increasing allocation of the marketing budget towards technology for customer data and personalization adds to the challenge senior executive marketers face in balancing priorities in their marketing budget. When senior marketers executives seek to optimize returns from this investment in technology by training employees, employees negate their efforts by exiting soon after gaining experience.
• Acquia's CMO, Lynne Capozzi, states "The young people that are fresh out of school, or maybe they've got two years of experience, you train them on these new tools, and then they're going to follow the next shiny object, some other, smaller organization or a startup. It's definitely a challenge."

RESEARCH STRATEGY

Top Pain Points for Senior-Level Executives

• A report published in 2019 by Controversial provides information on different pain points or challenges faced by the senior-level customer experience executives in the US.
• According to the report, lack of cross-departmental collaboration is one of the most discussed issues in 2019. About 48% of the respondents (senior-level customer experience executives) from the US reported that the lack of cross-departmental collaboration is one of the major pain points in the customer experience area.
• Similarly, many experts in the customer experience field believe that the difficulty in providing a consistent and omnichannel experience to customers is a major pain point. According to the aforementioned report, 40% of the respondents from the US reported that achieving a consistent experience across all channels is a major challenge to improving customer experience.
• According to the report, 38% of the respondents from the US feel that the difficulty in achieving a single view of the customers is a pain point in the customer experience area. The experts believe that "using the right communication channels, while having the view of the customer through integration, can be a key differentiator between success and failure."
• The difficulty in presenting case studies on isolated incidents is also considered to be a major pain point by 32% of the senior-level customer experience executives from the US who took part in the survey.
• Similarly, 16% of the respondents from the US believed that the lack of employee engagement is a major pain point in the customer experience area.

Research Strategy

Skills Shortage

• Research suggests that skills shortages are at an all-time high, especially in the technological areas. According to the KPMG CIO survey, the top five most scarce skills are big data/analytics, followed by cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, enterprise architecture, and business analysis. The unavailability of qualified personnel is even more evident in large organizations, which tend to have more difficulty retaining employees.
• The scarcity of access to skilled professionals is making technological leaders resort to the gig economy, as well as outsourcing to have access to skills not available in-house.
• High-level tech executives surveyed by Deloitte also point out that they need professionals with communication and interpersonal skills, which can be challenging to find in STEM-trained talent.

Data and Cybersecurity

• Data privacy is the number one data priority for IT executives, followed by cybersecurity and data ethics, which is not surprising, considering the new legislation and well-publicized data breaches.
• Cybersecurity continues to rise in importance, with 56% of CIOs surveyed by KPMG listing it as a board priority in 2018.
• Currently, 70% of businesses are struggling to comply with the GDPR requirements, and companies are anticipating the CCPA coming into effect in 2020. Data portability implementation and the development of proper data breach response plans should become the norm soon.
• Furthermore, as cloud initiatives gain force, extended data governance is a necessity, and the monitoring of data throughout its lifecycle will be a critical component of data security strategy.

Complexity

• A single web or mobile application transaction now crosses an average of 37 different technology systems or components. Seventy-four percent of CIOs surveyed said that increased complexity could soon make it extremely difficult to manage performance efficiently.
• Inability to provide excellent customer experience, impact on company reputation, lost revenue, and impact on customers' livelihood are the most common concerns IT executives have when it comes to the potential consequences of this complexity.
• Cloud-first strategies add to the complexity since "the enterprise cloud is dynamic, hybrid, multi-cloud, and web-scale, containing hundreds of technologies, millions of lines of code and billions of dependencies."
• The customer-centric culture presents extra challenges, and on average, organizations have suffered "six IT outages where user experiences, business revenues, or operations were impacted in the last 12 months."
•  Seventy-six percent of CIOs say they don't have complete visibility into application performance in cloud-native architectures; 72% say monitoring the performance of microservices in real-time is almost impossible, while 78% are frustrated that so much time is spent setting up monitoring for different cloud environments when deploying new services.

Shadow IT and Enterprise Mobility

• As reported by a recent survey, 76% of people have accessed things on their work devices without IT's permission, even though 67% cited security as the primary concern stemming from unmanaged technology, followed by privacy (50%).
•  Seventy-two percent of enterprises either permit or plan to allow the BYOD model, which puts extra pressure onto the IT team. 59% of professionals surveyed consider mobility security a high priority.
•  Forty-three percent of companies do not involve IT in business-managed IT decisions, which makes them twice as likely to have multiple security areas imperiled than those who consult IT. These companies are also 23% less likely to be 'very or extremely effective' at establishing "customer trust with technology and 9% more likely to have been targeted by a major cyberattack in the last two years."

Research Strategy

Next Generation Search Optimization

• It's now no longer good enough to be in the first search engine result spot. Businesses are striving for the "zero position" SERP (search engine result page) spot.
• Google, as well as other search engines, has given increased focus to providing an answer to a user's search query above all search results, including organic advertisements. These are often called "zero-click" results.
• Currently, 61.8% of all search results are zero-click results. This is leading to less profitable keyword advertising.
• An improvement in the quality of search results is expected due to the latest algorithmic changes placing zero-click results at the forefront of user's screens.
• Companies are still unsure of how to fully utilize these new algorithms. Entrepreneur.com states that this is a huge opportunity for marketers and that "the brand that figures out on-SERP SEO first will have a huge competitive edge."

Chatbots

• The increase of artificial intelligence has allowed for more sophisticated and complex chatbots. Thee Digital says the following concerning chatbots: "In 2020, this technology will continue to be perfected and incorporated into company websites. Customer service via the web is becoming faster and more efficient every day thanks to these new technologies — so don’t overlook them in your web presence."
• Organizations are continuing to invest in chatbot technologies. A study by Juniper Networks reveals that "retailers can expect to cut costs by $439 billion annually and increase sales by $112 billion, by 2023."
• Entrepreneur.com emphatically states that chatbots will help any-sized business reduce their costs.
• Cardinal Digital Marketing places chat bots as their top marketing trend going into 2020. Not only do chatbots save time and increase customer satisfaction, but they also are "never moody" and put customers at ease by being unbiased, clear, and informative.
•  69% of customers state that they prefer to interact with chatbots because they offer speedy answers and solutions. Customers also prefer that chatbots are immediately present so that they can quickly interact with them when needed. Companies such as Domino's Pizza, Universal Studios, and Hello Fresh have already utilized this strategy with great success.

Voice Search

• With the continued adoption of technology, more and more people are utilizing smart assistants such as the Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. These assistants perform a number of functions, including reading text loudly, allowing for the dictation of messages, and hands-free searching.
• Voice search is described by Cardinal Digital Marketing as being essential for a business. They state that this method of search is often utilized for and adds value to local-SEO searches.
• The available market size is staggering. 25% of US adults (66.4 million) have a smart speaker. 31% of smartphone users worldwide use voice-activated search features.
•  20% of all Google search queries are done by means of voice search. "71 percent of all mobile users between the ages of 18 and 29 use voice assistants on their smartphones."
• Thee Digital cites an estimate that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. They continue by saying this makes "voice search one of the biggest online marketing trends of 2020."

Research Strategy

Personalization

• Popular ways to personalize marketing efforts include segmented email lists. Personalized email blasts have more positive results than generic ones.
• According to Forbes, 90% of 1, 000 people in a survey indicated that they find personalization appealing.
• Amazon is at the forefront of companies "using some form of personalization". Amazon has built its huge internet business by promoting products based on user's purchase history and analyzing users' behavior.
• Marketing personalization will be used by at least 90% of online advertisers by 2020 and there will be a significant increase in personalized websites in 2021 according to Gartner.
• According to Sleeknote, 83% of customers are will voluntarily share their data to get personalized content. This is because personalization makes customers feel special and improves the shopping experience.
• According to TheeDigital, 80% of 1,000 people surveyed indicated that they will more likely do "business with companies offering personalized experiences".
• According to Forbes, 2020 will be the "year of personalized marketing". This is because consumers tired of generic ads. The traditional means of advertising are becoming ineffective.
• Cardinal Digital Marketing reports that 79% of consumers are frustrated by content that has nothing to do with them.

Interactive Content

• According to Forbes, buyers want more interactive content and are looking for new experiences online.
• According to TheeDigital, content marketing in 2020 will shift focus to give the buyers interactive content because it is what they want.
• Research done by Content Marketing Institute indicates that 81% of marketers find interactive content effective in grabbing attention of consumers.
• According to Forbes, 91% of buyers are "looking for visual and interactive content" because users enjoy it.
• Reasons for interactive content being one of the top trends include:
• Interactive content stands out because it is new and different.
• Interactive content keeps visitors on pages longer.
• Interactive content is shareable and helps a brand to grow when users share its content.

Research Strategy

Prioritize the Customer Experience Over Everything Else

Overview

• The days of thinking that responsibility for the customer experience is the domain of the customer service team are quickly fading.
• There is a trend among leading companies to prioritize the customer experience across all aspects of their business.
• The customer is now driving the model of business adopted by many businesses, rather than sales, revenue, or profit, which historically have been the driving forces.

What is driving trend

• The Global Head of Customer Operations at Pininterest, Dutta Satadip, has said: "Customer expectations are being redefined every day, and the ability to meet basic expectations is table stakes. We are increasingly being offered experiences that are highly customized, whether it is companies like Amazon who provide a variety of goods at lightning speeds, or services like Spotify that are able to understand musical preferences and tailor playlists. Personalization at scale will continue to grow as a trend that will enable distinctive and memorable experiences".
• The success experienced by companies that have adopted this approach, including increased brand loyalty and revenue, is driving this trend.
• A 2018 survey of senior executives in the US and Europe found that prioritizing the customer experience is on every companies' radar, and "if it's not, it should be."
• The Production and Content Director of Corinium Global Intelligence, the company that completed the survey, Samuel Marklew, said: "The most successful companies are those that put the customer at the heart of everything they do".

Impact on industry

• Increasingly companies are prioritizing the customer experience in all aspects of their business. This includes hiring and leadership development to marketing, supply chain, logistics, IT infrastructure, product design, and continuous improvement.
• The customer experience is increasingly gaining in importance over departments outside of customer service. It is growing to encompass all aspects of the business.
• As a result, all employees need to be trained and equipped to respond to customer demands.

Metrics

•  37% of the companies leading this field, in the US, prioritized the customer experience over everything else. Customer satisfaction was second at 18% and increasing revenue third at 12%.

•  41% of the leading companies viewed themselves as customer-centric, putting the customer at the heart of everything they do.
•  84% of the companies that have prioritized the customer experience have experienced increased sales and revenues. This is due to increased customer loyalty and repeat customers.

Examples

• Ritz Carlton, Trader Joe’s, and Virgin America are examples of companies that have embraced this trend. They have gained a reputation for the customer experience they provide as a result.
• For those companies, customer service is the responsibility of every employee within the organization. They empower every employee to solve any problem and understand the impact of their role on the customer experience.

Conversational AI

Overview

• There is a trend towards improving the customer experience through the adoption of AI technology.
• Conversational AI allows companies to respond instantly and efficiently to consumer demands. It also enables them to obtain and analyze key customer data to further improve the customer experience.
• The use of conversational AI has been described by Forbes as among the most "momentous" trends currently shaping the customer experience.

What is driving trend

• Over recent years AI technology has become increasingly popular in the consumer sphere, with products like Amazon's Alexia and Google Home. This market is now impacting on corporate interactions with the customer.
• The instant messaging market is massive. WhatsApp and WeChat have grown exponentially. Apple is soon to enter this market.
• Customers are increasingly looking to interact with corporations in the same way they interact socially.
• Companies are facing increased service costs to maximize the customer experience. Response and resolution times remain longer when this technology is not adopted, leading to decreased customer satisfaction.
• The use of conversational AI helps overcome these issues.
• AI technology has become fundamental to customer satisfaction. The use of AI technology allows companies to better understand their customers and ultimately improve the customer experience.

Impact on industry

• The development of products like Google Duplex and Alexia-driven bots for corporations are illustrations of the impact this trend is having. Companies are increasingly adopting this technology to improve the customer experience.
• The trend toward the use of conversational AI to maximize the customer experience has seen a corresponding increase in knowledge management with companies. Companies are increasingly using the data these interactions generate to maximize the customer experience by understanding the context and content of customer interactions.
• One of the impacts of adopting conversational AI is a reduction in the service costs incurred by a company.

Metrics

• A recent Gartner report predicts by 2020, 40% of consumers will primarily interact with applications that support conversational AI.
• By 2022, 20% of all customer service will be handled through the use of conversational AI.
• Global spending on AI technology to maximize the customer experience is expected to reach $57.6 billion in 2021.

Examples

•  Future Group has employed conversational AI in its Future Pay wallet, with a Quiz bot and a Shopping list bot.
• The quiz bot employees daily general knowledge quizzes offering prizes, if the consumer tops the leader board.
• The chat-based format engages the consumer and encourages them to return. In doing so develops brand loyalty.
• The shopping list bot is orientated around the ultimate customer experience.
• By collecting and analyzing data over time, it helps consumers maintain shopping lists and reminders. In doing so, it is effectively guiding offline purchases.
•  Whole Foods recently developed a chat bot that operates on the Facebook platform. They use unique emojis to engage the user.
• The user receives recommendations that guide them to the online store. As a result, the traffic experienced by its website has increased significantly, compared to when direct visits were the primary method of interaction.

Research Strategy

Increased Emphasis on Employee Experience

Overview

• There is a tendency to believe that technology holds the key to improving the customer experience. While technology has a role to play, there is an increasing trend to recognize the role that employees play in positive customer experiences.
• With significant volumes of research to support the trend, companies are placing an increasing emphasis on the employee experience, and at the same time, improving the overall customer experience.

What is Driving Trend

• Several studies have shown a correlation between employee experience and customer experience.
• The 2019 PWC Consumer Insights Survey found that a better employee experience is key to a better customer experience.
• Companies are increasingly starting to take note of the body of research available supporting this premise.
• By offering employees something tangible and taking account of their views and satisfaction levels, companies are experiencing a significant boost in customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Impact on Industry

• More companies are using both the intranet and extranet to engage employees.
• Companies are placing an increasing emphasis on surveying employee satisfaction and introducing incentive-based packages. This is especially prevalent in the customer service environment.
• By changing the employee experience companies are changing the culture within the organization. The positive benefit is an improved customer experience.

Metrics

• When companies adopt practices that maximize the employee experience, they have been shown to outperform their competitors by 147%. The positive customer experience and its associated benefits is a significant reason for this.
• Those companies that excel at providing a positive customer experience have employees that are 1.5 times more engaged than those companies that offer a poor customer experience.
• Companies that have adopted practices to increase employee participation have experienced an average growth of 19.2% over the last 12 months.
• Currently, 89% of companies expect to compete based solely on customer experience, illustrating the importance of adopting practices that maximize the customer experience.
• The companies that invest in improving the employee experience are 4 times as profitable as those that do not.

Examples

• General Mills has modernized their employee experience, and focused on creating consistency across 30 countries and 38,000 employees by introducing an online portal, "G&Me".
• This provides employees with easy access to human resources, payroll, and a wealth of other resources. Employee satisfaction levels have increased, and although quantitative data has not yet been analyzed, the perception is their customer experience has improved as a result.
• Trader Joe’s and Starbucks have been leaders in adopting this trend. They both offer above-market pay and health and retirement benefits for front line staff.
• The spin off has improved their customer's experience because the employees have become happier and more enthusiastic brand managers.
•  Google is another company experiencing positive gains in the experience offered to its customers by adopting this approach. The company gives employees 20% of their time to work on their own projects.
• They recognized the positive benefits of such an approach before it developed into a current trend
• Some projects developed by employees during their personal time include Gmail, Google Maps, and Google News. All of these products have helped enhance the Google customer experience.

Unified Commerce/Omnichannel Services

Overview

• Companies are increasingly looking for a seamless customer experience across all aspects of their business through the adoption of unified commerce and omnichannels.
• A unified commerce service is a single centralized real-time platform that operates across all customer engagement points. It standardizes and maximizes the customer experience.
• One example often cited to illustrate this trend is the banking customer. By adopting this approach, the customer could begin filling out an application online and complete it at a bank branch, over the phone, or another channel without starting from the beginning again.

What is Driving Trend

• The desire to provide a consistent, easy to navigate, and user-friendly approach, across all aspects of a company, is driving this developing trend. Increasingly companies are becoming aware of the benefits such an approach offers in terms of maximizing the customer experience.
• The use of unified commerce and omnichannel services allow customer demands to be met promptly with minimal effort.
• With significant differences between the Babyboomers and the Gen Z and Millennial generations, it is becoming increasingly important to offer a range of different channels to improve the customer experience of each group.
• For example, research has shown that Babyboomers prefer phone support, while Millennials and Gen Z prefer chat and self-service.
• The need to cater to all of these target markets and maximize the customer experience for everyone is driving the trend to adopt unified commerce and omnichannel services.
• This is especially important now with Millennials, and to a lesser degree Gen Z, are reaching a life stage where they have increased purchasing power. Companies are looking to maximize the customer experience and optimize revenue in respect of these groups while retaining the loyalty of older generations.

Impact on Industry

• There is an increasing expectation among customers that companies will offer omnichannel services. This has resulted in an increasing number of companies developing and implementing these services to improve customer experiences.
• Companies are developing omnichannel strategies that adopt a holistic approach to the customer experience to ensure that the demands of all customers are addressed and maximized.
• The use of omnichannel services is allowing companies to reach a wider range of customers and contributing to expanding client bases.

Metrics

• A Boston Retail Partners Report found that 73% of all US retailers will have or be developing a unified commerce platform by 2020.
•  40% of customers have indicated a preference for using help centers before they contact support. Only 20% of companies offer this self-service option at the current time.
•  91% of customers now expect that there will be continuity across all the services which a company offers.
• By offering a range of services that allow customers to reach a company at any time, the customer retention rate increases to 89% compared to 33% when these options are not available.

Examples

•  Disney is a company that is leading the way in the adoption of omnichannel services. Their services, encompassing their retail stores and theme parks, are mobile responsive and can be optimized to individual devices.
• They offer a range of different apps, including the My Disney Experience App, which allows customers to plan every element of their theme park experience.
• The Magic Band Program allows users to unlock their rooms, enter parks, obtain Fastpasses, and everything else in between. It contributes to ensuring that the customer experience is overwhelmingly positive.
• Another company maximizing the customer experience through the implementation of omnichannel services is Walgreens. The service offered by Walgreens was recently highlighted by Forbes as one of the most highly regarded in the US.
• Their services allow customers to fill prescriptions, make rapid requests, find product details, locate promotions, and place orders. They make for a seamless and positive customer experience.

Research Strategy

Augmented Reality(AR)

What's driving the trend

• The most significant development in AR is its newfound applications in diverse fields and industries, which then create a high demand for the development of mobile augmented reality apps.
• The increasing performance of smartphones has made it possible to create breathtaking mobile apps incorporated with AR.
•  Tech giants like Google and Apple are already integrating augmented reality in their devices. For instance, in June 2019, "Apple introduced its AR toolkit for developers such as Quytech to develop AR-equipped iOS mobile apps."
• Google also developed ARCore for "Android devices running on Nougat 7.0 or above." The technology has been tested with gadgets like Cardboard, Daydream, and Google lenses, which are already gaining prominence among users.
• ARCore and ARKit use hardware features that allow developers to develop a great experience for users.

How the trend is impacting the industry

• Apps like Ikea are already using AR to uplift the experience of users. IKEA has adopted ARCore and ARKit as the best tools in AR development.
• Augmented Reality has led to the development of obsessive gamming applications like Dino Trek, Incell, and Pokemon Go. For instance, since it's development, Pokeman Go has had more than 800 million downloads, over 5 million active users daily, and has generated revenue of about $1.2 billion
• AR has led to the rising demand for ethereum developers and hyperledger developers.
• According to Acodez, AR on mobile devices has the highest share in the Virtual Reality market.
• The success of AR in mobile apps has seen more businesses incorporate AR in their mobile technology. They are able to create awareness of their brands, increase revenue as well as engagement.

Mobile Payments and Wallets

What is driving the trend

•  Mobile apps with payment features have become the primary way for customers to shop and pay for goods and services in the United States.
• Change of lifestyle whereby consumers seek convenience when making purchases has created an ideal environment for the development of mobile payment apps.
• In the United States, e-commerce has become a "major sales channel across the vertical retail market," and many customers are increasingly using mobile payments in the online transaction.
•  Faster transactions and security are also motivators for Americans to adapt this form of payment. Mobile payments apps are Apple Pay, Google Pay, Chase Pay, and Samsung Pay have improved this industry by allowing its users to spend the money safely and transact quickly

How the trend is impacting the industry

• According to Statista, mobile payments apps are on the rise and are expected to generate about $190 billion in transaction value by 2021. The users are also projected to reach 60 million by the end of 2019.
• According to Statista, the rapid increase of mobile wallet apps has made more people and businesses to adapt to this process of payment.
• There is an increasing possibility of physical wallets being replaced by mobile wallets in the near future.

Research Strategy

Chatbots

What is driving the trend

• "Chatbots will highly take over various communication aspects in the mobile app world. Part of this is attributed to the need to have real-time interaction between the service providers and customers."
• About 75% of internet users are using chatbots and companies are rushing to benefit from their popularity, and also to stay relevant to their target customers.
•  Companies are also competing to outplay each other by having innovative chatbot applications.
• With the advancement of AI, chatbots can easily be integrated within apps without complex coding.

How the trend is impacting the industry

• Chatbots have enabled companies to benefit from customer interaction by providing improved user experience, better customer support, and improved productivity.

Internet of Things (IoT)

What is driving the trend

• "The Internet of Things for mobile app development has become a big industry that is evolving with time. Using this technology, mobile application developers can create intuitive platforms to control different non-IT equipment via apps."

• Nearly all the tech giants are developing IoT friendly apps.
• According to Peerbits, in the mobile app industry, IoT is considered to be a game-changing technology."
• The increase in IoT systems and gadgets has led to a rise in demand for mobile apps integrated with IoT.
• IoT is considered as the future of technology. Hence, many developers are spending time creating IoT apps that are easily adaptable.

How the trend is impacting the industry

• Mobile apps with integrated IoT have been designed to make work simpler through automation. As a result, businesses are experiencing increased productivity and efficiency.
• The success of IoT in mobile apps has seen businesses attract more customers, increase revenue, and remain competitive.
• The explosion of IoT could enable developers to share their programs, which could lead upcoming developers to develop their apps.
• With IoT, greater hybrid apps with improved UX are being developed. This will then enhance the user experience by having access to several services. Companies will also benefit from this trend as they will easily access customer information from other platforms.
• IoT in mobile apps has led to the emergence of innovative businesses that provide convenience and simple solutions to customers. A good example of an innovative company is Uber, whose services are easily accessible through smartphones.

Research Strategy