Online shoppers comprise all ages and incomes now

From the ‘unboxing’ of a new purchase to the many abandoned transactions that are costing online retailers billions—the marketing gurus behind The 2021 South African Digital Customer Experience Report will unpack the compelling, and sometimes, surprising results from the survey during an exclusive panel at the upcoming CEM Africa, taking place from 10–11 November.

CEM = Customer Experience Management
CX = Customer Experience

It is the third major annual study undertaken by marketing and advertising agency Rogerwilco, market research company ovatoyou and certified customer experience professional Julia Ahlfeldt.

“Money left on the table”
The report states that “ecommerce has finally come of age in South Africa, one of the few sectors to find a silver lining in the COVID-19 cloud”. The data shows that income and age are no longer barriers for participation in online shopping. For example, the 50+ category is just as likely to be conducting research and making online purchases as their counterparts in their 20s and 30s, while 73% of those with a monthly household income of less than R10 000 per month are shopping online.

However, the report emphasises that basic flaws in the online experience for customers are costing etailers billions in potential turnover.Cart abandonment, where a consumer adds a product to their cart but does not go through with the transaction, is high among South African online shoppers according to the report (76% of those surveyed), and is estimated to cost online retailers more than R20.4bn.

“Cart abandonment is money left on the table, plain and simple”, notes Julia Ahlfeldt. “A customer has invested the time to choose a retailer, investigate products, and then jumps ship because the experience falls short. This leaves a double whammy of lost revenue and an annoyed customer.”

‘Unboxing’ the purchase
Amanda Reekie, from ovatoyou, believes that even though the fulfilment landscape has matured, challenges remain: “It is going to take real creative thinking and collaboration to open up improved delivery options that are less expensive”.

Delivery, however, was surpassed in the report by the 34% who said unboxing their new purchase was the most memorable aspect of their online shopping experience (the balance spoke to the point at which they made the purchase (19%), the thrill of the research (10%) and the after sales support (4%)).

“Good UX minimizes frustration”
The report further reveals that Takealot is one of South Africa’s most loved and trustworthy brands, thanks to (among others) the user experience (UX) of the online customer.  

According to Rogerwilco CEO Charlie Stewart, good UX minimises frustration, reduces second guessing and stops customers from switching across to a rival site: “Retailers need to recognise that consumers are becoming more loyal to the experience than they are to the brand. Anything that improves the experience creates stickiness”.

CEM Africa’s exclusive panel on The 2021 South African Digital Customer Experience Report will include the authors: Charlie Stewart, Amanda Reekie and Julia Ahlfeldt. Joining them are Joseph Sindaha from Nestlé, and Janine George from Carrol Boyes. The discussion will be streamed live on Day 2 from 09:30am–10:15am SAST on 11 November. 

Honest retellings of CX experiences
The CEM Africa Summit has been around for a decade and has played a leading role in South Africa’s customer experience journey and has connected thousands of CX professionals over the years. 

Confirmed event sponsors so far include Freshworks, Verint, Insider, Infobip, Rogerwilco, Simplify360 and Inquba.

CX experts from some of the most recognised and successful brands on the continent, including Multichoice, Woolworths, Shoprite, Superbalist, African Bank, DHL and Rand Merchant Bank, will share their successes, failures and lessons learnt during the event.

How to join them?
CEM Africa returns via a world-class virtual event platform offering access to the live keynotes, panel discussions and the agenda. Attendees will be able to engage with the speakers and participate in Q&A sessions, polls and surveys. They can also contact exhibitors via chat or video call, exchange business cards with other participants and download brochures. To register and access the full programme, click here.

About CEM Africa
CEM Africa is the largest online CX event on the continent and is organised by Kinetic Events, which is a partner of The Vuka Group (formerly Clarion Events Africa).

Dates and location:
Dates: 10–11 November 2021
Venue: Online

Website: https://cemafricasummit.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cem-africa-summit/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/CEMAfrica/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CEMAfricaSummit

Media registration: You can register to attend for free here

Media contacts:
Adam Fletcher, Chief Marketing Officer, CEM Africa
Mobile: 071 130 9160
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Annemarie Roodbol
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

“Covid pandemic showed that your customer can change in a heartbeat”

Customer experience (CX) experts from some of the most recognised and successful brands on the continent, including Multichoice, Woolworths, Shoprite, Superbalist, African Bank, DHL and Rand Merchant Bank, will share their successes, failures and lessons learnt during the next edition of CEM Africa Summit, taking place from 10–11 November 2021.

* CEM = Customer Experience Management

“CX is about managing the end-to-end journey that a customer experiences with a brand or solution that makes them feel heard and understood—from touchpoint through to advocacy—of a brand, a company, a solution and more,” says Shannon Mackrill, co-founder of the CEM Africa Summit.

According to Mackrill, over the last three to four years the importance of the customer has grown in this very specialised segment of consumer marketing: “The movement towards the gig economy and on-demand solutions has helped shape customer expectations of companies. This puts brands to the test, increases competition and forces them to perform better.”

He says the biggest lesson that the market has learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic is “that your customer can change in a heartbeat. It is not this thing or ideal that is constant. Your customers’ needs change as technology and expectations do, and so should a brand or a business. The consequence will be falling behind and losing customers.”

ROI is key
November’s CEM Africa Summit will gather heads of CX, marketing, MDs, owners of companies or business units. “Essentially anyone who has an interest in their customers,” says Mackrill. “They attend to expand their knowledge and more specifically to learn from others who have faced challenges or successes in managing their own customers experience, practical insights and real examples from those who are entrenched within the industry. ROI is key, as well as demonstrating the power that great CX has on customer retention and creation.”

Honest retellings of CX experiences
The CEM Africa Summit has been around for a decade and has played a leading role in South Africa’s customer experience journey and has connected thousands of CX professionals over the years.

States Mackrill: “We are proud of having been at the cradle of this discipline, way before CX was a consideration, let alone a job title; and until today it is still an event that helps shape the way people think about and engage CX in their daily work lives and has been essential to push the boundaries of understanding and shaping the experience a customer has with a particular product, solution and company.”

He adds: “As always we look forward to honest retellings of leading companies’ customer-related experiences and projects. If they failed, how they failed and why. If they succeeded, explanation of their recipe for success. Panel discussions and keynotes, no death by power point, just real people telling real stories.” He continues, “this sentiment was a tough sell in the early years, however, nowadays it is essential in the vision and growth of a company. We have also seen CX shift to include employee experience as a means of manifesting good customer experience.”

The 25+ CX experts in the CEM Africa Summit programme line-up include:

• AutoTrader: George Mienie, CEO
• Dischem: Lynne Blignaut, Group Loyalty and Customer Rewards
• CX Visionary: Steve Towers, Process Management & CX enabler
• Rand Merchant Bank: Mumbi Odambe, Head of CX and Design
• Rand Water: Kamohelo Potloane, Head of Customer Experience Development
• Shoprite Group of Companies: Kia Abbott, Rewards Programme Manager
• South African Tourism: Debbie Damant, Head Visitor Experience
• Superbalist: Brenda Zuma, Customer Service and Operations Manager
• Woolworths: Hanz Rauch, Head of Digital Online Products
• African Bank: Eloise Boezak, Head Customer Experience
• Multichoice: Clint Payne, Senior Manager, Customer Experience
• Majid Al Futtaim Group: Qaalfa Dibeehi, Dean of Customer Experience Leadership Institute

Confirmed event sponsors so far include freshworks, Infobip, Insider, Rogerwilco and Verint.

How to join them?
CEM Africa returns via a world-class virtual event platform offering access to the live keynotes, panel discussions and the agenda. Attendees will be able to engage with the speakers and participate in Q&A sessions, polls and surveys. They can also contact exhibitors via chat or video call, exchange business cards with other participants and download brochures. To register and access the full programme, click here.

About CEM Africa
CEM Africa is the largest online CX event on the continent and is organised by Kinetic Events, which is a partner of The Vuka Group (formerly Clarion Events Africa).

Dates and location:
Dates: 10–11 November 2021
Venue: Online

Website: https://cemafricasummit.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kineticevents/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/CEMAfrica/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CEMAfricaSummit

Media registration: Use the code CEMPRESS to register here

Media contacts:
Adam Fletcher, Chief Marketing Officer, CEM Africa
Mobile: 071 130 9160
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Annemarie Roodbol
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Cape Town, August 8, 2018:  Africa’s customer experience leaders gathered in Cape Town last week for the 2 day Customer experience Management Africa Summit. The delegation of over 600 customer experience professionals discussed pressing issues such as generating a return on investment in cx, practical application of data and driving emotion to create exceptional experiences.  

South Africa’s customer experience professionals are slowly emerging as some of the best in the world, and the data is there to back this up.  

Sarina de Beer, Managing Director of Ask Afrika stated in her keynote “As mentioned right up-front it is a celebration year. Service levels are at its best ever…with satisfaction ratings of 91%, delight ratings of 54% and very low dissatisfaction scores of 5%. This is largely driven by technological advances and progress, with systems, and technological solutions, self help channels and chat bots in place to deliver bigger, better, faster.”  

Looking into how these results have been achieved, much of it can be contributed to the work customer experience professionals are doing in designing deliberate customer journeys. Diane Magers, CEO of the world’s largest and foremost association for CX professionals, the CXPA, elaborated; “Designing these deliberate customer experience is like building a bridge. Just like any team sport, it takes coordination and a clear understanding of the goals and it requires collaboration and contribution by all team members to ensure the bridge across the support structures is solid and consistent.  Building in silos or vacuums creates an inconsistent experience for our customers. Inconsistent experiences are one of the key factors commonly identified as a factor of dissatisfaction by many other organizations, particularly B2B, as a key opportunity to improve CX.” 

“The results presented by Ask Afrika were for me a great reward and justification for what we do, but great customer experience is a double-edged sword. The better you get, the higher the customers’ expectation and that baseline sets a new bar. You have to keep improving, keep evolving and stay moving when it comes to delivering exceptional customer experience. Finding and nurturing talent in the CX profession will be the next great challenge businesses face within in this industry” Juan Mouton, Portfolio Director for the Customer Experience Management Africa Summit.  

Grace Sikapokoo, the Chief Customer Office for AIG, South Africa spoke on this topic in both her keynote and as part of a panel discussion on customer centricity. The AIG CCO shared five steps to remain relevant and continually skilled; understand your organisation, understand you customers, understand customer experience management, understand technology and most importantly understand your purpose.  

The future for Customer Experience in South Africa is bright and there is much to be positive about, but the challenge will continue to grow harder, and the search for CX talent will be a driving competitive advantage for businesses serious about customer experience through 2018 and beyond.  

Follow @CEMAfricaSummit on Twitter and join the conversation using the #CEMSummit18 hash tag.

ABOUT CEM AFRICA CEM Africa is a meeting place for CX professionals and innovative CX solution providers. The show took place on the 1-2 August 2018 at the CTICC in Cape Town, where like-minded customer experience experts and the top CX solution providers gathered for an informative and educational summit with the common goal of improving customer experience across Africa. The event provides a platform for like-minded CX professionals to showcase their industry knowledge as well as solutions to better the customer’s perception of the brand.

ABOUT KINETIC Kinetic is an international business-to-business conference and exhibitions producer based in Cape Town. Our mission is to equip senior management executives with knowledge, market intelligence and viable commercial opportunities. Kinetic are leaders in providing business facilitation platforms throughout Africa.

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Released by:  KINETIC SA
Juan Mouton:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.