KPMG: The perception of brands may suffer due to falling living standards

By: Trademagazin Date: 2024. 03. 26. 12:38

According to the global research of KPMG Customer Experience Excellence, consumer satisfaction has worsened in the past year according to all aspects examined. The global livelihood crisis is primarily behind this phenomenon. At the same time, compared to the devoted attitude experienced by the brands during the pandemic, consumers do not feel the partnership attitude of the companies in the management of the current crisis phenomena. While, for example, consumer difficulties caused by covid could be adequately handled by joint efforts, service providers and consumers may even be on opposite sides of the front when it comes to artificial intelligence, KPMG points out in its report.

KPMG Global Customer Experience Excellence Research 2023-24 summarized the experiences of more than 81,000 customers from 21 countries in order to assess the development of customer satisfaction and possible ways to increase it. The survey covers around 3,000 brands and, among other things, analyzes the practices of the best performing companies in terms of customer experience.

The results of this year’s survey are lower than last year’s in almost every country examined. Overall, all of the indicators used to measure consumer satisfaction have fallen over the past year. According to customers, the brands do not fully meet their expectations, but behind this symptom lies a combination of complex effects. Although we did not experience this in many areas, we can perhaps say that the pandemic had a positive effect on the customer experience: during the virus situation, customers enjoyed the extra care provided by the companies, because in order to survive, the companies did their best to serve the needs and support their customers in the in an unexpected life situation, finding the key to their own survival. However, now the service providers have returned to the normal course of business before the epidemic, and this may disappoint many customers, while realistically examining the issue, by definition, the commercial approaches during the pandemic would no longer fit with today’s way of life.