The Analysis of Billions of Interactions Shows that Customer Journey is Becoming More Complex and Mature as Brands Seek to Influence the Entire Customer Experience in Real Time

Kitewheel, a provider of the leading Customer Journey Hub, has announced the release of its annual State of the Customer Journey for 2018. The report, based on an analysis of over five billion customer journey interactions between 2014 and 2017, provides insight into how brands are investing in customer journeys across a variety of verticals and channels.

This year’s report includes data on chat interfaces for the first time and also uses Kitewheel’s recently-launched the Customer Journey Maturity Model for additional analysis on the sophistication of each industry’s journey campaigns. Overall, total customer journey interactions across the Kitewheel platform grew – exceeding 3 billion for the year.

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Currently, Kitewheel orchestrates intelligent customer journeys by unifying decisions across all touchpoints for brands and their agencies. Kitewheel’s innovative Customer Journey Hub unifies disparate systems, touchpoints, and technologies to provide seamless customer experiences that drive real-time revenue as well as long-term loyalty.

Key findings from the report include —

1. Adtech – optimizing the delivery of targeted and personalized ads – saw the highest rate of growth, as marketers seek to target digital ads using customer interaction data
2. Financial services journeys grew at 129% YoY, as customer experience-based competition heats up among players in the industry
3. The retail industry has the highest degree of customer journey maturity based on Kitewheel’s maturity analysis, a first for this year’s report
4. Social media, once the most dominant channel by volume, declined another 60% YoY
5. In-store interactions are growing at 115% YoY, pointing to retailers’ demand for more insight into physical behavior
6. Mobile app interactions grew another 50% after skyrocketing last year, a sign that the overall trend towards app-based experiences is still a priority for brands
7. Chat, a new channel this year, now accounts for 1.5% of total interactions as chatbots evolve as a customer service tool, particularly for younger adult audiences

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“Over the four years that we’ve published this report, a profound shift has taken place in the customer journey space,” said Mark Smith, President of Kitewheel.

Mark added, “What was once primarily a marketing tool is now the way that many brands design and influence the entire customer experience. We’re seeing our clients’ customer journey strategies maturing as they realize the business imperative to deliver great experiences.”

Methodology

To build the State of the Customer Journey Report 2018, Kitewheel analyzed and compared over five billion interactions across the retail, auto, travel, telco, healthcare and financial services industries from its industry-leading customer journey hub. Campaigns from 2014 – 2017 were also categorized by maturity level, per Kitewheel’s Customer Journey Maturity Model, for an additional layer of analysis. Findings reflect the customer experience strategies of a wide variety of brands and partners.

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