September 26, 2011

Consumers are Ready To Shop By Mobile Phone — But Businesses are Not Ready to Meet the Demand, New Survey Reveals: Research Find Large Gap Between Customer Expectations and Businesses’ Ability to Deliver

Empirix, a quality assurance solutions firm, recently announced results of a new large-scale survey, commissioned from the Customer Experience Foundation and designed to examine the state of shopping via mobile devices in the U.S., UK, France and Germany. The survey found that, even as consumers expect to be purchasing goods and services regularly via their mobile devices within the next 36 months, retail businesses themselves appear far from ready to provide these services. The proliferation of mobile devices is driving consumers’ desire to shop via this new channel. Experts predict this will result in a dramatic increase in demand for m-commerce services and applications over the next few months, opening the door for companies in the B2B and B2C markets to capitalize on the opportunity. “The mobile shopping revolution has arrived, but the gap that exists between consumer expectations and business plans will significantly impact customer satisfaction,” said Professor Morris Pentel, chairman of the Customer Experience Foundation, in a news release. “This new channel offers a tremendous opportunity to generate significant revenue while improving customer experience. To be successful, companies need to be aware of the potential risks. Organizations must assure a great customer experience, as well as high-quality network and application performance. Additionally, companies must be ready to respond appropriately to consumer’s concerns regarding data usage, privacy and security.”

Highlights from the survey include:

• Ninety one percent of respondents believe that m-commerce services will make their shopping experience more convenient;
• Ninety percent of respondents believe the services will save them time in their shopping processes;
• Sixty eight percent of respondents thought new mobile services will have a positive impact on their service quality.

Despite strong consumer beliefs surrounding the potential of m-commerce, the survey also illustrates that organizations around the world are not yet ready to meet these increasing expectations. The UK in particular has been slower to react to the changing market conditions with lower investment in the building blocks required to deliver mobile shopping services when compared to companies in the U.S., France and Germany. In fact, only 14 percent of organizations in the UK are investing in QR Codes compared to 41 percent in the U.S. and 45 percent in Germany. Additionally, only 42 percent of organizations in the UK indicated that they have an overall mobile strategy in place compared with 54 percent of U.S. companies.

“As we see consumer demand and expectations increase for mobile capabilities, the pressure is really on businesses to start providing mobile shopping services sooner rather than later,” said Tim Moynihan, vice president of marketing at Empirix, in the release. “However, there are a number of potential issues organizations will need to overcome if they are to be successful, the primary challenge being network performance and quality assurance. As more businesses deliver m-commerce applications to an increasing number of consumers, the risk of poor service increases dramatically. Investing in an end-to-end service assurance program at the start of this journey will separate the winners from the losers.”

Though companies are admittedly lagging when it comes to providing a mobile strategy for consumers, these businesses are equally as far behind in implementing an end-to-end service assurance strategy. In fact, 92 percent of UK companies admitted having no plans to implement an end-to-end service assurance strategy in the next 12 months. There were similar figures in the U.S. and France (85 percent and 81 percent, respectively), and although German companies recognize service assurance as a crucial element, more than half (66 percent) have no plans to implement such a strategy in the next year.

See full survey results here.