As the attention spans of time-poor consumers slip, how can marketers ensure cross-channel coverage and engagement in a crowded marketplace?

SAS invites you to read the full Harvard Business Review, ‘Real – Time Analytics: The Key to Unlocking Customer Insights & Driving the Customer Experience’ study, to learn how you can make the customer experience timeless with real time analytics »

Digital transformation has made us impatient, we want it now. How often do you find yourself getting irritated in a Facebook message at ‘so and so is typing‘, planning your commute by Googling traffic reports or instantly giving up on Netflix if an episode freezes?

Today, consumers are increasingly time-poor and in our busy day-to-day lives, it’s all about time efficiency. This is illustrated by how often we utter phrases such as, ‘I just don’t have time’ and ‘If only there was more time in the day’.

According to Adweek, Facebook users spend an average of 1.7 seconds on one piece of content. It seems impossible to properly digest information in such a short timeframe.

Customer attention spans are getting shorter and this forms part of a long-term trend. The cherry on top is consumers also expect personalised interactions, delivered in a timely manner. These personalised expectations have been silently sculpted by the day-to-day interactions consumers have with brands such as Netflix’s ‘Recommended for You’ section or Instagram’s new search feature, ‘For You’.

The growing challenge for marketers is ensuring coverage across channels in a crowded marketplace. Gaining the attention of audiences is one thing, but converting that attention into loyalty is even harder..

“The expectation of consumers today is that everything exists in the world of the now, and their interactions will be personalised,” says Jeff Jacobs, partner in the category growth strategy and marketing procurement groups at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. “Real-time analytics is absolutely core to enabling companies to deliver those kind of experiences.”

What is real-time analytics? According to TechTarget, real-time analytics can be defined as, “the capacity to use data and related sources as soon as it enters a system.”

For marketers, it’s the opposite of creating an up-front marketing plan to a fixed schedule then executing it. Real-time marketing involves using data instantaneously to develop a strategy based on current, relevant trends and immediate customer feedback – it’s about connecting consumers with a product or service that they need in that moment.

No wonder almost two-thirds – of the 560 business leaders surveyed by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services earlier this year – say that real-time customer analytics is important to their overall performance today.

Other key findings included:

• 60% saying real-time customer analytics is important to improve the customer experience today,
• over half saying that real-time analytics has provided better understanding of, and has strengthened, the customer journey, and
• 58% have seen a significant increase in customer retention and loyalty with customer analytics.

The key benefit of real-time analytics amongst respondents was no shock, delivering an improvement in customer experiences. But more than half say they’ve gained increased sales/marketing efficiencies, speedier decision making and now collaborate better with other business functions.

From these findings, it’s safe to say brands are utilising real-time analytics to personalise the customer journey and keep customers coming back.

Read the full Harvard Business Review, ‘Real – Time Analytics: The Key to Unlocking Customer Insights & Driving the Customer Experience’ study, to learn how you can make the customer experience timeless with real time analytics »

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Image credit: José Martín Ramírez C