Mobile Customer Experience:The 2011 Results Are In

If you're reading this, I am going to make a couple assumptions. For starters, I'm going to assume that you've tried to shop or book a vacation online, or even conducted banking or insurance-related transactions from a computer. My second assumption is that your experiences have, at times, been fraught with struggle and problems. And my final assumption is that you own a mobile device and have tried to make these same transactions from your phone or tablet—and if you're like some 84% of the online US adults who use their mobile devices that way, you've experienced a problem while trying to do so.

Recently, Harris Interactive conducted a survey on behalf of Tealeaf, and it was all about mobile customer experience and the struggles that consumers encounter when trying to transact on this new platform. This is the sixth year that Tealeaf has commissioned an online consumer behavior survey, so we have the data to prove that despite the hyper-growth of the mobile Internet, one fundamental truth remains: whether the platform is a mobile device, tablet or computer, online customer experience still leaves much room for improvement. The lesson for ebusiness? How successful companies are with their mobile channels will depend largely on their customers' ability to complete transactions and their willingness to return.

Other highlights from our 2011 Mobile Transactions Survey include:

• Faced with a poor online experience, many consumers would abandon their transactions and take their business elsewhere:
  • 43 percent would abandon the mobile transaction and try later on a computer
  • 16 percent would become more likely to buy from a competitor
  • 14 percent would email or log a complaint with customer service
  • 12 percent would abandon the transaction at the app/site and try a competitor's app/site
• Businesses may be losing customers due to poor mobile experiences: 63 percent of all online adults said they would be less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels if they experienced a problem conducting a mobile transaction.


• Almost half (47 percent) of consumers who have conducted a mobile transaction in the past year expect the experience on their phones to be better than the experience in-store. 80 percent expect the experience to be better than or equal to in-store and 85 percent expect the experience to be better than or equal to online using a laptop or desktop computer.


• More adults would be extremely or very frustrated by experiencing a transaction problem on a mobile device (58 percent) than by going to the DMV (50 percent) or being stuck in traffic (56 percent).

It's obvious that the era of the mobile Internet isn't around the corner, it's already here. It's important to note that despite how convenient it is to do things like holiday shopping from a beach in Tahiti, consumers still expect the mobile experience to be struggle-free. Mike Brown, Vice President of Optimization for leading travel and hospitality pioneer VEGAS.com summarizes the market conditions well. "Doing mobile, and doing it well, is no longer a 'nice-to-have' offering," he said. "It's now absolutely critical to focus on optimizing the mobile user experience. To do that, one needs to really grok the realities of your mobile customer experience, as well as have the ability to test and refine it on an ongoing basis."

To see a presentation that highlights key results from the mobile transaction survey and its methodology, please visit: http://portal.sliderocket.com/AHJJM/Tealeaf-Mobile-Transactions-Survey