Aussies Are The Most ‘Fastidious’ Online Consumers in The World

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online-consumer

These days, Australia-based consumers are more demanding than ever. They have bigger expectations of brands online than US consumers.

However, many brands aren’t aware enough to provide the best services that match up their customers’ expectation. Half of Aussies go online to express their dissatisfaction at brands, 86% of people go online to get help online and 72% expect a same day response, according to Lithium Technologies. The company conducted an online survey of more than 1,000 people in May.

“Brands are risking their reputations by not offering services that match expectations”, said Katy Keim, the CMO of Lithium Technologies. “They need to think from a disruption perspective and how customers are changing. In Australia we were surprised that people’s expectations were more extreme that than we see in the US. There’s a digital native here that feels more extreme than we see in the US,” she said.

Furthermore, Keim stated that consumers are starting with digital. There’s a gap between consumers’ expectation and what brands are delivering in terms of services. More than two thirds (72%) of Australians expect a same day response to online requests, compared with 66% of people in the US. Keim added that 41% of Aussies want a response to an online query within an hour, yet brands are not ready for this.

Companies are still investing $300 billion globally into call centres, but but two thirds (64%) of Australian consumers say that “a call centre is a last resort for customer service”.

“There’s conversation happening within all companies, digital is high on the agenda but where the rubber meets the road is where investment changes. Where we’ll see disruption being managed [by brands] is when customers start shifting, not just to free Facebook pages, but investment of real dollars to how they are going to serve the needs of the customer,” she said.