Singapore Brands Lag in Winning Hearts of Consumers as Customer Experiences Fall Short of Expectations

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach -
12 May 2021 – Instead of bringing
businesses closer to their customers, Singapore’s digital pivot last year has
in fact widened the gap between what consumers expect of brands, and what
businesses actually deliver. According to the new ‘Heart Matters’ study announced by SAP SE (NYSE: SAP), Singapore’s consumers find that businesses
fall short of expectations by as much as 28% when it comes to being
customer-centric, behind the Asia Pacific (APAC) average of 21%. Furthermore, only
half (55%) of consumers in Singapore stated that brands here are able to
resolve their issues after three interactions.

Heart Matters’ study, which was conducted by Qualtrics for SAP
Customer Experience, surveyed 5,900 consumers across APAC countries including
Australia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, and Thailand to
understand their expectations and encounters with brands when it comes to
customer experience, spending, and matters they truly care about. Key gaps
identified from the study centred on the areas of customer centricity,
personalised experiences, openness in privacy and data control, as well as
sustainability and ethical behaviour.

The study also revealed that three in five consumers
in Singapore are now expecting brands to be purpose-driven, going beyond
profits and transactional relationships, to demonstrate trustworthiness,
empathy, shared values, and care for society.

Singapore consumers surveyed indicated a gap between
their expectations and actual experiences on this front, in areas such as
brands respecting the rights and welfare of their workers (80% vs 67%), treating
suppliers ethically (76% vs 56%), actively work to reduce gender and racial
inequality (73% vs 55%), and not engage in anti-competitive behaviour (70% vs 54%).

Basics matter in winning customer confidence

Fundamental to any business, customer centricity is
vital to creating positive brand experiences, loyalty, and a key differentiator
in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

Comparing Singapore customers’ expectations to what
they experienced in reality, areas that local businesses were found to be
lacking include responsiveness within 24 hours to customer queries (78% vs 51%),
acting on customers’ feedback to improve products and services (84% vs 58%),
resolving issues in less than three interactions (83% vs 55%), having a reward
programme customised to their interests (81% vs 54%), and offering innovative
or better ways to serve customers during COVID-19 (86% vs 65%).

Across
the countries surveyed, Australian consumers were the most likely to cite a gap
between their expectations and actual experiences of customer centricity
overall (31% shortfall), followed by Malaysia (26%), Singapore (22%), Japan
(22%), and South Korea (14%). Consumers in India and Thailand had the best
customer experiences with expectation gaps at only 4% and 8% respectively.

“While it’s positive that brands in Singapore have
adapted quickly to the pandemic by tapping on digital tools and turning to
e-commerce, customers still expect brands to deliver on the basics – this means
providing them with positive experiences and swift resolution of issues. It is
sobering to know that despite all the efforts businesses have put into digitalisation
over the past year, fundamentals around customer centricity are still not being
met in Singapore. There is clearly an urgent need for brands to humanise the
gap between digital actions and the heartstrings of consumers,” said Peggy
Renders, General Manager & Senior Vice President, SAP Customer Experience,
Asia Pacific & Japan, who was recently appointed to her current role in
January 2021.

“The pandemic has laid bare the criticality of the
customer experience in our hyperconnected world today. The key to sustainable
growth in a post-COVID world lies in the right solutions and leadership that
transform the customer experience. As a future-forward nation that is home to the
region’s leading businesses, brands in Singapore have a golden opportunity to
transform to give customers exactly what they want, and when they want it, in a
future that is entirely digital.”  

Diverse options, personalised touch

With digital-savvy consumers turning to e-commerce to
fulfilling their shopping needs, they are also expecting brands to offer a
diversified range of shopping experiences, with personalised options that cater
to the unique needs of each customer.

Delivery, the last-mile of the shopping experience,
was among the most dissatisfied areas for those surveyed, with 82% of Singapore
consumers expecting brands to provide timely and accurate delivery options they
could trust, but with just over half (59%) saying this was met in reality. The
dissatisfaction over quality and reliability of delivery services especially
significant for local supermarkets, where just 55% of Singaporeans mentioned
they received trustworthy delivery services (vs 80% expectation).

Proactiveness in engaging customers was another area
cited as an area of improvement, with just around half of Singapore customers shared
that brands are actively updating them on relevant specials and new products (56%),
is proactive in anticipating their needs and wants (55%), and provides tailored
suggestions based on their purchase history and preferences (50%).

Being intuitive mobile natives, Singapore customers
also want brands to provide omnichannel experiences that enable their
lifestyles, expecting brands to provide them with a network of physical and
online stores (76%), have easy to transact options across multiple channels
such as online to in-store (81%), yet still provide a consistent experience
irrespective of channel (82%).

Not taking trust for granted

Having transparency and control over their data and
orders is also a key area brands are falling short on, with Singapore consumers
highlighting shortfalls in having full transparency over how their personal
data is being used (35% gap), security of their private data and not sharing it
with third parties (33% gap), only obtaining private data from customers to
serve them better (25% gap), and making it easy to track their orders and
queries (23% gap).

People, planet and prosperity above profits

With global warming and climate change are rising to
the forefront of agendas, Singapore consumers are increasingly placing greater
expectations on brands to go beyond transactional customer interactions, expecting
businesses to actively demonstrate their care and concern for the environment,
their workers, and broader community and society.

Singapore brands fair slightly better than the APAC
average on the expectation-experience gap, in the areas of whether brands look
for new ways to recycle and reuse products, packaging materials and materials (12%
vs 18% APAC gap), having specific policies to reduce and report carbon
emissions (10% vs 14% APAC gap), and having a strong focus on sustainability
and ethics in sourcing and selling their products (4% vs 10% APAC gap).

The full report of
Heart Matters study is available for download here: www.sap.com/asia/heartmatters.

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