Global research: Creep to digital-first not working for consumers
Most brands today take the digital-first route to target, engage and retain their consumers. But are their efforts paying off and are consumers happy with the increasingly digital experiences being offered to them across sectors?
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 17 international markets about which sectors they think provide a good digital experience. Since 2022, digital experience satisfactions levels have dipped across each of the 12 sectors we examine in our survey, data shows.
Overall, more than two in five (43%) consumers think banks offer a good digital experience. This figure in 2022 was 46%. Nearly a third (32%) of consumers think streaming companies offer a good digital experience in 2023, down from 34% last year. But it’s clothing and beauty retailers who report the steepest drop, from 30% in 2022 to 22% in 2023.
Consumers are least likely to say car brands (10%) offer a good digital experience in 2023, and that’s down four percentage points from 14% in 2022. Technology manufacturers (20%), cinemas (19%) and sports events (14%) are some of the other sectors consumers are least likely to say offer a good digital experience in 2023.
Let’s now look at individual countries to see what consumers in these markets feel about different sectors’ digital experience.
Great Britain
Over two in five (46%) of Brits say banks offer a good digital experience in 2023 - but the figure marks a seven-percentage point decline from the figure (53%) reported in 2022.
While digital experience satisfaction levels pertaining to a number of sectors have dropped in Britain, they seemed to have dipped the most with clothing/beauty retailers - from 29% in 2022 to 21% in 2023.
Britons are as satisfied with the digital experiences offered by airlines in 2023 as they were in 2022 (18%). Finally, consumers here are least satisfied with experience provided by car brands (65) in 2023. In no sector did satisfaction with the digital experience go up.
Germany
Just like in Great Britain, satisfaction in digital experiences fell across the board. At nearly a third (32%) of all consumers, Germans are most likely to say banks offer a good digital experience in 2023, but that’s down from nearly four in ten (38%) who said the same last year. At 7%, Germans are least likely to say that sports events offer a good digital experience.
Hotel companies and technology manufacturers haven’t really been able to maintain 2022-levels of digital experience for their consumers, say Germans consumers . While 18% of Germans in 2023 say hotel companies offer a good digital experience (down from 26% in 2022), an even smaller proportion (16% in 2023, down from 24% in 2022) cite technology manufacturers as providers of a positive experience
Sweden
According to Swedes, streaming companies offer the best digital experience (36%) - the only sector in our list that has stayed steady with its figures across both years. A third of the consumers (33%) here say banks offer a good digital experience as well, while car brands (7%), sports events (10%) and technology manufacturers (10%) aren’t too favored by Swedes, when it comes to their digital experience.
US
In 2022, more than two in five consumers in the US (45%) said banks offered good digital experiences. In 2023, the figure has slipped to 31% - still the highest share of consumers to say so, across sectors.
Americans are also the least likely across all our markets to say that hotel companies (14%) and airlines (13%) provide good digital experiences. But the overall story for US is bleak, with consumers reporting steep declines in the digital experience across every sector.
UAE
UAE offers a mixed bag. Consumers here are most likely to say banks (48%) offer a good digital experience, marking a five-percentage point improvement (43%) from 2022. Airlines (42%) and cell or mobile phone network providers (38%) follow banks.
Consumers in UAE are most likely compared to other markets to express a positive take on airlines’ (42%) and hotel companies’ digital experience (32%) in 2023. Similarly, consumers here account for the largest proportion of those around the world (20%) who say that car brands (which is a bottom-placed sector in other markets) offer a good digital experience.
India
Consumers in urban India account for the largest share of consumers who are happy with the digital experience offered by brands in a number of sectors. These include clothing/beauty retailers (44%), cell/mobile phone network providers (44%), grocery retailers (42%), and streaming companies (40%). But Indians are most happy with the digital experience offered by banks (51%).
Notably, over half of all consumers here (51%) felt cell and mobile phone network providers provided a good digital experience in 2022 - this figure has now dropped seven-percentage points to 44% in 2023.
Car brands (18%) report the lowest figure here.
Singapore
More than half (53%) of all Singaporeans say they are happy with the digital experience offered by banks in 2023 - making them the most likely across all our markets to say so. In line with the sentiment expressed by consumers in a number of other markets, consumers in Singapore are least impressed with the digital experience offered by car brands.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 513/512 and 2008/2000 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in August 2022 and August 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
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