The Challenge

To develop a landmark piece of research, and supporting content, to position Zone and Cognizant as experts in the customer experience space and provide a “CMO pivot” to Cognizant’s traditional CIO/CTO audiences.

The Method

In summer 2018, an Xeim brand, Econsultancy, worked with Zone and Cognizant on a one-of-a-kind research project to highlight an important reality – the gap in thinking between what brands believe they are delivering when it comes to customer experience and what customers themselves believe they are actually experiencing; this was known as the CX Gap.

Our research consisted of a quantitative survey of 1000 marketers and a quantitative survey of 1000 customers. It was backed up by qualitative interviews with 10 senior marketers/CX leaders. All participants were asked to weigh the importance of 15 key attributes describing customer experience and the results were compared between both groups.

Examples of questions we asked included how easy it was to undertake simple online ordering and payment tasks, how a website integrates with other touch-points such as social media and how well brands predict customer need through sending out relevant offers to drive purchases.

The findings were partnered with practical solutions and advice for marketers to close this CX Gap, to help them understand the technology they needed to drive a solution forward.

This positioned Zone and Cognizant as thought-leaders in the CX space and the results of this research were supported by a report, content and live events aimed at these distinct audiences.

Credibility was also added by associating both brands with a range of thought leaders dominating the UK customer experience economy through a series of interviews where they discussed ideas such as who owns CX within a business, the importance of honest and transparent messaging to a great customer experience and the best ways to identify and understand consumers’ emotions, motivations and expectations.

The subsequent amplification programme, spanning Marketing Week, Creative Review and the Festival of Marketing, saw us curate a list of 50 individuals driving customer experience excellence within UK enterprise businesses.

We celebrated the success of these individuals and the key findings from the report through a series of content in Marketing Week, an article in Creative Review and on stage at the Festival of Marketing, as well as assembling a panel, hosted by MW Editor Russell Parsons, at Cognizant’s inaugural CX Summit in September

The Results

Econsultancy used its analyst expertise and pedigree in producing best-in-class research reports to help Zone and Cognizant shift their perception among the marketing community while also enhancing internal awareness of Zone as CX experts within Cognizant on a corporate level.

They were an existing Econsultancy subscriber and by marrying our expertise and theirs with the strength and breadth of our media and events brands, we amplified the message post-publication to an influential audience of both senior marketing and creative professionals.

Headlines from our research discovered that while 73% of marketers agreed CX is seen as ‘integral to commercial success’ within their organisation, only 15% of marketers scored their company 9 or 10 out of 10 for the online experience