Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news. This week, we’re looking at the results of the 4 day work week trial programme, Vodafone’s innovative new lab, Gen Z and social media’s impact on hospitality, and latest comment about the state of Twitter.
Key news
- Zendesk have recently announced their integration of Slack and Zoom into new agent workspaces and mobile devices. Instead of employees going through email chains or waiting on hold, agents can drop a quick Slack message. With Zoom meetings, employees can easily run through complex questions and share screens. Both of these new processes should help to make employee workflows more streamlined, and improve experiences all around.
- Cisco AppDynamics has launched new AppDynamics Cloud capabilities. This will allow organisations to achieve observability over cloud-native applications correlated to business context across the entire IT estate.
- Sitel Group have released CX Study ‘Sitel Group CX Landscape 2022: Evolution or Revolution?’. This examines consumer expectations amid industry and economic changes. Findings say that organisations are still failing to meet their consumers’ expectations. 50% of the consumers surveyed revealed that they have stopped doing business with a brand in the last 12 months due to negative CX. Additionally, 78% of consumers shared that they are ready to walk away from an organisation following a single poor customer experience.
- Finnish retail real estate tech company HyperIn’s latest mall retailer data shows that sustainability-related tenant offers have risen significantly in 2022. The trend is an indicator for retailers on ad targeting, supporting other studies in the US that also show 66% of Americans are even willing to pay premium prices for sustainability-focused products. over the last five years, the use of keywords such as sustainable and green has significantly increased. Counter-intuitively, the data also shows offers with the keyword organic have become much less prevalent.
The 4-Day Week programme a huge success and will be continued by many organisations
More than 30 companies and almost 1000 employees recently concluded their six-month long 4-day work week trial programme. This was coordinated by non-profit organisation 4 Day Week Global. The results from the trial are now in!
The new research reveals that those companies in the programme experienced increased revenue alongside reduced absenteeism and resignations. Workers felt less stressed and burnt out, and reported higher rates of life satisfaction. Findings also show significant declines in the duration and frequency of commuting, plus other positive environmental outcomes. None of the participating organisations are returning to a five-day week.
Companies rated the trial 9.0 out of 10 for the impact it had on their organisation. Revenue increased by more than a percentage point each month, with a total rise of 8% during the trial. When compared to the same six months in 2021, it rose by 38%.
When asked about the monetary value of their extra day off, 70% said their next job would need to offer between 10 to 50% more pay for them to go back to a five-day schedule. Over one in ten saying no amount of money could make them go back.
Reflecting on the journey so far, 4 Day Week Global co-founder, Charlotte Lockhart believes this is only the beginning:
“When our co-founder Andrew Barnes and I first witnessed the benefits of the 4 day week in 2018, we knew we had to share our learnings. The results laid out in this report further prove what we already know and we look forward to expanding this research over the coming months, as other organizations from a range of industries and economies make the switch to reduced-hour, output-focused working. Change is imminent and I commend all involved in this trial for making history happen.”
We covered the 4-day week in our first printed edition, CXM Review; written by Hazel Gavigan. Flick to page 53 to find out how this routine can change business structures for the better.
Vodafone created first UK Edge Innovation Lab
Earlier this week, the mobile phone service provider, Vodafone, opened a new Edge Innovation Lab in famed MediaCity in Salford, Manchester. This is the first of its kind in the UK.
It will offer the opportunity for companies, academics, software developers and public sector organisations to see and test the possibilities of the next generation in network technology – Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC).
MEC technology enables real-time data processing at the network edge, allowing for the creation of low latency services that would not be possible on today’s traditional network infrastructure. Vodafone has partnered with Kyndryl to offer customers professional and managed services for dedicated MEC and wider cloud managed services to Vodafone customers.
By installing specialist servers either in Vodafone or customer facilities, applications are able to respond to command significantly faster. This time applications take to respond, known as latency, is a barrier for next generation innovations that require almost instantaneous reactions, or are powered by artificial intelligence. When combined with 5G, latency could be reduced to speeds faster than the human brain processes information.
This builds on Vodafone’s four-year partnership with HOST in MediaCity, where the lab will be located. Alongside the launch of the lab, Vodafone is also running the Edge Innovation Programme 2.0.
How is social media affecting the hospitality industry?
New research from SevenRooms reveals 58% of restaurants are missing out on an opportunity to maximise the power of social media to capture crucial bookings. This is particularly from younger diners.
Social media has become a key driver of restaurant inspiration. A quarter of consumers would be more likely to visit a restaurant if it had gone ‘viral’. This figure almost doubles to 47% for Gen Z diners. The ‘Making Booking Social’ study of 2,012 UK consumers aged 16+ looks at the opportunity to turn social media from a resource for restaurant discovery into a powerhouse for bookings.
Going viral on social media can change the game for restaurants. This is particularly the case with video content. Newer platforms like TikTok gain potentially hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of views.
- Almost half of socially-savvy Gen Z have visited a venue just because it had gained fame on social media
- More than 1 in 5 Brits (21%) and 38% of Gen Z would spend more in a restaurant if it had gone viral
- 36% of Gen Z have visited a restaurant just so they could post about it on their own social accounts
- Plus, this generation will go to great lengths to visit these destinations. 92% are willing to travel to visit a social media famous venue
For Gen Z, making the decision to visit the hottest new restaurant they spot on socials depends on whether they can book there and then:
- Over half (56%) say they find restaurants they want to visit on social media, but don’t get around to making a booking
- Almost 2 in 3 (58%) Gen Z Brits say they’d be more likely to book a restaurant they found on social media if they could reserve directly on the platform
Gen Z have an average spend of £68.02 spent per week in restaurants, pubs and bars. They are spending 68% more than the average consumer. Given there are an estimated 12.6 million UK Gen Zs, the generation is worth £857 million a week to hospitality.
What does the recent failures of Twitter mean for social media marketers?
Elon Musk’s recent failures and problematic changes to Twitter have not gone down well. Musk assured that a new system of Twitter Blue (a new verification process) would return. It will entail a revamped, colour coordinated system full of manual checks to prevent PR disasters. Government ticks will be grey and companies gold under the revamped scheme. All accounts will be manually authenticated before the logo is activated.
“Advertisers and corporate accounts alike are understandably worried about the future of Twitter and their use of the platform, with half of the top advertisers having recently abandoned their Twitter strategies. Seemingly using the entire user base as their testing team, with little regard to the detrimental effects it may have for users across the board, from personal to corporate accounts. When advertisers are already reconsidering their use of the platform, it will be very interesting to see the aftermath of these changes being implemented.”
– Hannah Wilde, Head of Social at The Audit Lab
Searches for Black Friday deals rise for the first time since the pandemic began
The Audit Lab investigated how the cost-of-living crisis may have impacted search data around the event. However, the digital marketing agency were surprised by the results.
In 2020, searches for Black Friday dropped a staggering 40%. This shaved off more than a million searches from 2.5 million to 1.5 million. 2021 saw these numbers drop a further 6% to 1.49million thanks to the continued effects of COVID on market spending.
For 2022, The Audit Lab found a 5% increase in searches for the generic “Black Friday”, and 8% for “Black Friday deals”. This is against initial thoughts that numbers may be down due to the cost of living.
This could be attributed to many things and multiple sources of data and research that This week in CX has covered previously. For example, Emarsys found last week that Brits were aiming to make the most out of Black Friday deals this year. Perhaps the cost-of-living crisis has pushed for more people to utilise the huge discount day so that they can still gift their loved ones Christmas presents this year. Huge discounts and deals may be the only way to do so this year.
Thanks for tuning into CXM’s weekly roundup of industry news. Check back next Friday for the latest updates of the week!