Recently we wrote about how Big Tech is influencing customer experiences on a global scale.
At the same time, we're also seeing a trend with many customers getting angry in retail stores. I’ve been to hardware stores and supermarkets and post offices and the likes where there are signs up asking customers to please don’t be abusive.
Do you find yourself frustrated in the real world, while shopping in supermarkets trying to find a car park, then when you enter the store you're paralysed, unable to quickly find something in the aisles, and overwhelmed by choice, as well as navigating a shopping complex, surrounded by hundreds of other people?
We've been going to shopping centres for decades, but it seems that something has changed.
These types of real-world frustrating experiences might be fuelled by changing expectations, fuelled by the immediacy and seamless experiences that Big Technology brands have conditioned us towards.
Evolving technology means customers expectations changed:
we can research any product we want, whenever we want, 24 hours a day..
we can filter through millions of indexed catalogue items, within seconds..
we can conduct research and read online reviews before purchasing..
and more!
As newer digital products and online services emerge, they set new benchmarks on a global scale, something which local brands struggle to compete with, and it's all to do with scale and capability.
Customers become conditioned to these newer, simpler, faster, more integrated digital experiences, which results in fewer defects and less friction. And with massive global brands like Amazon Prime offering next day delivery, it's even harder to keep up the pace.
It's the new standard, and local brands need to evolve, quickly.
I’ve often wondered if there’s a correlation between a changing customer expectation because of the immediacy of online services, vs when a customer enters a retail setting and is forced to wait in queue, that they tend to become agitated.
It’s not always the case, but it’s something to consider how digital experiences are shifting real-world expectations.
What’s really interesting though is this notion of fairness. When customers are on a telephone queue, they can’t observe just how busy it really is. They get frustrated quickly.
But when someone is in a line in a retail store, they can see that there’s lots of other people in the same queue. There's a weird disconnect between digital and real-life experience.
Why don't businesses publish a real time tracker on their 'Contact Us' page online, showing how busy a telephone queue is before you call it? That would be innovative!
From a customer service perspective, brands started implementing telephony queue management techniques such as callback functions or even simple announcements ‘You are fifth in the queue’ etc.
Technology is expanding so much more quickly than real-life experiences can deliver.
Big tech is changing expectations.
If we can get access to information online quickly, do queues in real life frustrate us more?
Yes. For a long time, I have been asking Siri to do standard things for me like “Siri turn on the Air Con” or “Siri remind me to get the washing in 1 hour” etc. These are good, structured, predictable prompts that work.
Then ChatGPT came along. And its voice recognition is so good that I have started to mumble and be lazy, in fact, I don’t even try to correct my spelling. ChatGPT gets me and I no longer need to conform to a standard, it’s now understanding my context.
So, I’ve become lazy, and ChatGPT has helped shape the new standard in expectations.
What’s happening is this shift in loyalty. As newer products and service emerge, they set new benchmarks. And customers become conditioned to faster, easier experiences.
I’m now starting to resent Siri, because it seems more and more often that Siri is nonresponsive or can’t understand me. When in fact, nothing has changed in the product.
My expectations have changed.
I’m now so used to getting instant responses from ChatGPT and providing vague, unstructured requests with completely zero context, and I get the right information I need.
No joke, I have used ChatGPT to find out which aisle something is in Bunnings, and it worked. By using a newer, faster, easier tool, it set the new benchmark around what good looks like in terms of experience, and we can't back-track.
As a consumer, my expectations changed because big tech are setting the new standard.
How does your business monitor and measure changing customer expectations, and how are you adapting to this rapid pace of chance?
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