Embarking on the

Maltese Customer

Experience Journey

Index

Introduction.

Customer Feedback.

Skills of tomorrow.

Dream testimonials.

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Is the customer always right?

The ideal company.

Customer concerns.

How can PwC help you?

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Customer Experience (CX) is the aggregate impact of every interaction a customer has with a company’s product, service, solutions, and brand messaging.

Get that right, you will be giving customers a great experience and they’ll buy more, be more loyal and share their experience with friends who will buy more, be more loyal and share their experience with their friends. And repeat.

This is nothing new but it is more important today as customer expectations have been profoundly affected by digital innovation. Customers have more options, influence and demands, so understanding how to keep customers satisfied is crucial today.

What do our local executives think ofall of it?

We’ve spoken to Maltese business leaders from various industries to gettheir take on customer interactions in the past, present and future. Theresponses we gathered, shed light on an acute awareness that delighting an increasingly fragmented and fickle customer base boils down to two separate factors:

Leveraging the right technology atevery step of a customer’s journey.

Nurturing the right employees who, in their turn, will strive to satisfy customers.

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Is the customer always right?

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First off, is the customer always right?

No, not always. There may well be factors that the customer is unaware of that give rise to an undesired outcome. What is certain is that the situation should always be explained respectfully”

The correct reply is yes but it depends on the nature of the issue as it might need explaining”

This is of course a cliché, but a meaningful one. In a literal sense, obviously it isn’t always the case, but as an outward-looking and customer-focused organisation, we must assume that the customer is right and act accordingly as far as possible, i.e. unless the customer is brazenly attempting to elicit an unfair advantage”Alf Mizzi & Sons Group and AMSM Ltd

Leading Insurance Company

Strand Palace Agencies

The adage “the customer is always right” has hung on many customer serviceemployees’ walls. Through strained conversations with dissatisfied clients, thebattle between reluctantly acquiescing in order to avoid confrontation orchoosing to cast out an unreasonably demanding customer is a constant.However, as pointed out in the responses received, the key is taking time tounderstand what your client perceives as your shortcomings.

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Whether the client is right or not is completely irrelevant. Ifyour customers have negative feelings towards your brand,product or service then you must take steps to unearth thereason for these feelings. However, the face-value complaintis often different from the underlying issue so it takes somedigging into the problem before offering a solution.

Empathy is imperative here. Empathy is a key differentiator of humans and allows for real human connection. This is important because a lot of business is done not only because we trust one another, but because we feel a connection at an emotional level. In the digital age, businesses need their employees to connect even better with co-workers and customers on an emotional level to understand their deepest needs and create trust in the relationship.

A director rightly said:

Any complaint is an opportunity to learn more about customerbehaviour and a chance to make small improvements to yourbusiness that delight current and future customers.

The Voice of the Customer (VoC) has long influenced the way companies define their customer service models, unlocking growth potential by getting inside customers’ heads.

If complaints are reasonable, their issue may be turned into an opportunity”

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The Business Value of Voice of the Customer (VoC) to PwC clients

VoC is a collective insight into customer needs, wants, perceptions, and preferences gained through direct and indirect questioning and observations.

Value for your customers and your company comes only when these insights are translated into meaningful objectives that enable your products and services to meet – and eventually exceed – your customers’ expectations.

Unlocking this value means gathering and distilling VoC into clear, reliable measures of what your customers expect from you, what matters most to them, and how well your products, services, and their experiences meet those expectations.

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CustomerFeedback

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What is the most unusual customer complaint or compliment you’ve received?

Quite often, you don’t have to try too hard to figure out how to please your customers, as they share their opinions quite candidly. In striking up a conversation with the people your business depends on, you will receive feedback which spells out the company’s value add, the customer’s pain points and, often, how to fix it:

This candid insight begs to be prioritised in the Customer Strategy pipeline. But what should an effective and holistic marketing plan nowadays look like? The rules of customer engagement have changed, especially when it comes to the new digital consumer, where it is no longer enough to pitch products via one predominant mode of connecting with customers or even a predictable set of proven channels. It’s all about personalisation and moving towards an omnichannel approach.

The new digital customer seeks to use a widening array of touchpoints to create an integrated and relevant customer experience. And that experience will be unique for each customer—whose interactions with and expectations of both business and consumer brands have also greatly evolved. The end game now is personalisation—an outcome that’s constantly evolving as innovative companies find new ways to create meaningful experiences for each individual that fuse the online and offline worlds and strike the optimal balance between transaction and emotion.3

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Understanding how to use social media data to enable personalisation is becoming a basic requirement.

of internet users in Malta areactive on social media.1

of respondents say that deliveringpersonalisation is critical or important to reaching customers.2

87%94%

Appropriate and intelligent targeting requires an intimateknowledge of your customers and their behaviour across different media, platforms and when and where they will be receptive to specific appeals. According to a study on Internet and Commerce use in Malta,

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By knowing your customers you can offer a better service andimprove your product. That’s not to say that all feedback will behurried to the executive board for deliberation. Little can be donefor one dissatisfied customer:

And the same car park that may have replaced a well-loved food establishment will find appreciation for the benefits it brought in urban regeneration:

Underlying drivers can have a surprising impact on customer perception. The producer of an iconic Maltese savoury snack explained how, whenever there was a minor amendment to the design of the snack’s packet, some customers lamented:

Brands such as Cadbury’s and Coke have received similar backlash when they made packaging alterations to some of their darling products. These are the tricks that human psychology plays on consumer’s impressions through packaging alone, where the experience of the consumable product is conditioned by nostalgia and the wider range of human senses.

I wish the restaurant which previously stood on thesite of your new car park had remained”

Your car park has transformed the shopping experience in the town centre”

They don’t taste the same. You’ve changed the recipe’’

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Tongue-in-cheek compliments point to the underlying trust in your product and company. The managing director of a paint distributor recounted:

Authentic, positive reviews help build customer perception that lead to conversions. Additionally, when they are shared internally, employees feel more passionate about your brand, it boosts morale and employee satisfaction.

At a point a few months back, when it seemed that houses and apartments were collapsing every other week due to poor construction practices, one elderly man told me that if it weren’t for our paint holding houses up things would be so much worse’’

customers in Malta follow favourite brands and look up reviews prior to purchase.4

write positive or negative comments about their experience with a product/brand.5

1 out of 6

31%

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The ideal company

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Every organisation wants the best talent in place to offer a greater experience for the customer. And every organisation is struggling to find and keep the right people at every level. In fact, retention of key talent was identified amongst one of the top HR priorities amongst local organisations as the retention and attraction of talent remain ongoing challenges.6

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There is an acknowledgement that a company worth working for has its finger on the pulse to keep relevant across the board:

Respondents also put forward measures tackling flexible working, compensation and ways to support employees deliver the work which is most meaningful and fulfilling to them.

We listened to our employees and then we listened to our customers... We moved with the times to meet customer needs”

We embraced collaboration and automation”

We have remained attractive by adopting HR policies that allow flexibility and cater for the needs and aspirations of millennials and Gen Z employees”

We gave our employees the opportunity to do what they liked and we also gave them the means to learn more about what they find interesting. Then, together, we found ways of making that work for the company”It’s 2025 and you are the

best company to work for in Malta. What did you do to earn this achievement?

Many of these responses fall in line with some of the key factors PwC suggests organisations to adopt to secure the right people experience for your organisation in the future world of work. The five imperative actions include tackling worker ‘burnout’, building social resilience, enhancing adaptability, supporting ‘intrapreneurship’ and providing autonomy.8

We applied firm but fair treatment of employees plus rewarding those who made an effort”

The best talent will choose to work for the best organisations. For example, many employees, especially those forming part of the millennial generation, have the expectation that businesses should be contributing to society at large. This is not only influencing their decisions on which products they purchase but also on which companies they choose to work for.7 Envisaging a utopian world, where the ideal people management practices could be implemented in a blink of an eye, we asked our respondents:

We went to a 4 day week while maintaining pay rates”

We let the workers choose their hours, and allowed them to work remotely for much of the time”

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Speed, convenience, helpful employees and friendly service matter most, each hitting over 70% in importance to consumers. Those who get it right prioritize technologies that foster or provide these benefits over adopting technology for the sake of being cutting edge.9

All employees understood our purpose”

Additionally, technology plays a massive part in facilitating more sophisticated ways of working. However, your employees remain the primary interface between the brand and the customer. Even if the product is a purely digital and automated one, all interactions are built and shaped by humans. We want to be able to reach a stage where the human-and-machine fusion is able to craft customer experiences that make a real difference. One way of achieving this is by putting people at the centre of changes to technology in the workplace. Recent findings indicate that if organisations want to achieve better results from their technology investments they must involve their people more in the process of implementing technology. In this case, you are looking at your employee as you do your customer.

Finally, there is consensus that the leadership team is responsible to drive the commitment to customer-centricity and ensure employees are immersed in a unified CX vision:

Companies need to getthe must-do’s right.

We built a leadership team that cares about building new leaders and lives the customer experience”

All our employees from the top to the bottom were totally aligned with our values”

We built a leadership team that lives the company mission and executes their responsibility to scale the mission”

A recent PwC study on family businesses emphasises that being clear on values and purpose, as mentioned in the quotes, could result in better returns, resilience and a competitive advantage over other businesses.10 From top to bottom, all employees should be focused on, and accountable for the organisation’s customer value proposition. Organisations must take the time to understand the moments where employees impact customer experience. Customer Journey Mapping is an effective way of identifying these touchpoints, determine the capabilities needed and educate staff members who play a critical role in the customer experience.

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If your employees’ experience isn’t given the importance it deserves, how are your employees expected to give your customers the experience they deserve?

Journey maps aren’t process flows. They tell the story of user needs through the eyes of your customer. We create journeys to support a human-centered approach to design, helping to identify opportunities that satisfy needs and goals tied to end-user experience. It allows an organization to take an outside-in, rather than inside-out perspective on a solution.

Customer Journey MappingPwC

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Skills oftomorrow

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Your business environment is rapidly changing. What kind of skills would make a difference for your success tomorrow?

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Able to apply machine learning methods

Cloud computing

Can develop ecommerce opportunities

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Complex problem solving

Transformative, futuristic mindset

Ability to entice younger generation customers

Generate revenue from alternative streams

Practical

Organisational skills

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Eloquence

Strong communication skills

- Able to propose new ways of generating value to

customers to ensure retention

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Observant of patterns/trends

Ability to analyse market reality

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Tecchy

Knowledgeable in AI

Proficient in digital marketing

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Leadership

Team building

Dependability

Critical thinking

Visionary

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Proactivity

Positive attitude

Ability to embrace change

Eye for detail

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Listening

Curiosity

Persuasiveness

Soft Skills Communication Skills Technological Skills

Leaders today feel pulled in all directions when trying to figure out the kind of talent which will help their businesses stand tall. On the one hand, the responses from the research reflects leaders’ awareness that they stand to miss out on major opportunities if the skills gap is not closed quickly on advances in emerging technology.

Skills of tomorrow

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On the other hand, the human value lies in our ability to sense unfulfilled needs in order to direct innovation properly. For instance, PwC’s Global Consumer Survey has shown that smartphones have become the go-to technology for online shopping.11 Designing these frictionless customer interfaces required empathy with end users to demolish barriers that could discourage consumer engagement. Customer interfaces are also anyintersection with your frontline employees - as we know, in sectors such as insurances and financial services, customer acquisition requires education, explanation or personalisation. As yet, we cannot expect AI to fill in for the intensive personal effort that allows an understanding of customers’ deepest needs or create trustful relationships.

The talent to build the businesses of tomorrow will increasingly need to combine human and machine to generate unique value.

Importance of specific skills to CEOs.

Problem-solving

Adaptability

Collaboration

Leadership

Creativity and innovation

Emotional intelligence

Risk management

Digital skills

STEM skills

Very important

Somewhat important

Not very important

Not important at all

Source: 2017 PwC Global CEO Survey

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Customerconcerns

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Which customer issues keep you up at night?

“Not delivering what you pitch” says the CEO of a local cleaning company. In fact, customer experience is all about closing the gaps between customer expectation and reality. Nothing is worse to the customer than hype and the definition of poor customer experience occurs when you fail to meet customer expectations.

Delivering can mean different things in each sector and to each customer. Price and product quality are a given—79% of consumers say they might switch from one brand they like to another for a better price, 52% for product quality.12 Product quality concerns would have anyone tossing and turning particularly if you trade in comestibles as one respondent explained:

Delivering what you promise is key for building customer trust and loyalty.

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Bad employee attitudesUnfriendly service Untrusted CompanyUnknowledgeable employees InefficiencyProduct not always available

People are driven away by:

Figure 8: What drives people away

Q:Source:

Which of the following would stop you from doing business with a company?PwC Future of Customer Experience Survey 2017/18

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Being in the FMCG sector, distributing and marketing food products manufactured by third parties, means double-checking the quality of all we sell, even when sourced from highly reputable producers. One can never become complacent”

Doesn’t use celebrities

Not global

Not automated

Doesn’t know me

Slow to introduce technology

Technology doesn’t help guide purchases

Inconsistent store experiences

Product not always available

Inefficiency

Unknowledgable employees

Untrusted company

Unfriendly service

Bad employee attitudes

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Any Fortune 500 company struggles with ticking all the boxes, so it is inevitable that the challenge would be greater for smaller organisations, torn by the pressures of today.

In order for a company to provide a product or service that is completely enjoyed by its consumer, it must learn to adapt to a constant changing environment. This concern with “Keeping up with rapid change” in conjunction with the “short term, instant gratification mentality”, are key concerns mentioned by our respondents.

For a company to provide a product or service that is completely enjoyed by its consumer, it must learn to adapt to this constant changing environment. A more feasible approach is for companies to target loyal or high paying consumers rather than those that filter in and out of the company and this requires personalisation and customisation as we lean towards a deeper understanding of our customers’ needs.

Using a service design approach to identify customer pain points at every touchpoint with your brand will allow you to sleep better at night.

All possible issues that we aren’t yet aware of and aren’t working on improving. Without knowing what your issues are you can never move your customer experience forward” Owner of a home retail shop.

In engaging customers, companies start and end the experience as best they can but they have much less direct control over the biggest part of the story— the middle — which acquires a life of its own via word of mouth traveling fast across social networks. This brings us back to the relevance of reviews and the curation of small and big moments that will predominate customers’ memory of the business.

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Dream testimonials

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What would the dream testimonial from a customer say?

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This is the crux of it all. Everything mentioned till now isthere in service of delighting customers and exceedingexpectations. Remember, expectations are set by thestatus quo, so a business that empathises and goesabove and beyond will cement themselves in the mind ofa customer as the place to be. If people look forward tointeracting with one of your touchpoints, you’re on theright track. It’s just building up from here on.

It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience.13

News of bad customers reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good service or experience.14

12:12x

Referrals

On average loyal customers are worth up to 10 times their first purchase.15

Of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with you again.16

10x91%

Loyalty

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How can PwC help you?

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Growth comes with knowing your customer

A crystal-clear understanding of what customers want, need and value most can point the way toward competitive advantage.

Organisations that put their customers first see their value grow. In fact, doing a better job of meeting the customers’ needs remains one of the only sources of competitive advantage still available at a time when many potential sources of differentiation have been commoditised.

PwC’s approach to connecting with today’s empowered customer can make the difference between simply listening to what they say and truly getting to know them. How customers behave can be more telling than what they say—and lead to better experiences.

Let us support you in designing and delivering customer experiences that set you apart from the competition and reinvent your organisation to put the customer at the very centre.

How can PwChelp you?

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Differentiating, brand-defining customer experiences

Higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty

Lower customer churn and acquisition costs

Expanded market share

Sustainable revenue growth

The result?

Michel GanadoAdvisory, PwC MaltaTel: +356 2564 7091michel.ganado@pwc.com

Advisory, PwC MaltaTel: +356 2564 4226justine.benoit@pwc.com

Justine Benoit

Contact us:

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MCA, 2017. Insights into Consumer Buying Behaviour Attitudes. Internet & eCommerce Use by Consumers Survey.

PwC, 2016. Forbes Insights & PwC Content Survey, 2016. Leading with customer-focused content: driving growth through personalized experiences.

PwC People and Organisation practice, 2019. Secure your future people experience: Five Imperatives for action.

MCA, 2017. Insights into Consumer Buying Behaviour Attitudes. Internet & eCommerce Use by Consumers Survey.

MCA, 2017. Insights into Consumer Buying Behaviour Attitudes. Internet & eCommerce Use by Consumers Survey.

PwC Malta, 2018. HR Pulse Survey.

PwC Malta, 2019. Family Business Survey.

PwC People and Organisation practice, 2019. Secure your future people experience: Five Imperatives for action.

PwC Consumer Intelligence Series, 2018. Experience is everything: Here’s how to get it right.

PwC Malta. Family Business Survey 2019: The Value in Family Values.

PwC, 2019. Global Consumer Insights Survey. It’s time for a consumer-centred metric: introducing ‘return on experience’

PwC Consumer Intelligence Series, 2018. Experience is everything: Here’s how to get it right.

Newman, D, 2015. Customer Experience is the Future of Marketing, Forbes.

White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

Lee Resources International, Inc.

Endnotes

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www.pwc.com/mt/cx

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©2019 PricewaterhouseCoopers. All rights reserved. In this document, “PwC” refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers which is a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each member firm of which is a separate legal entity.

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