Download pdf - Build Brand Humanity By Mastering Empathy At Scaleinfo.braze.com/rs/367-GUY-242/...Mastering...Scale.pdf · customer relationships are at the top of brands’ to-do lists (see Figure

A Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper Commissioned By Braze

October 2019

Build Brand Humanity By Mastering Empathy At ScaleBrands Must Understand The Drivers Of Human Communication Then Operationalize Against Them

Table Of Contents

Executive Summary

Understanding What Drives Human Communication

Customers Intensify Their Demand For Human Communication

Operationalizing Brand Humanity: The Brand Humanity Maturity Model

The Foundations Of Brands’ Human Communication Programs Are Showing Cracks

Investments In Powerful Technology Will Fuel The Future Of Brand Humanity

The Benefits Of Brilliance: Better Business And Brand Outcomes

Key Recommendations

Appendix

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© 2019, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to forrester.com. [E-43419]

Project Director: Nicholas Phelps, Senior Market Impact Consultant

Contributing Research: Forrester’s CMO research group

Executive SummaryHow do brands reinforce customer relationships in an era when customers are more empowered to choose which brands they engage with than ever? That was the central question in 2018, when Forrester Consulting and Braze embarked on a unprecedented journey to better understand both the components and results of human communication — or rather, how do customers come to believe that a brand had spoken with them in a human way, and what happens when a customer has a human experience with that brand?

This previous study revealed that customers use a mix of emotions and functional triggers to evaluate a brand’s humanity, and demonstrated that the case for brands to focus on human communication was compelling. Customers who had a human experience with a brand were more likely to: 1) make a purchase with that brand; 2) say they loved the brand; and 3) be satisfied and remain loyal to that brand.

In October 2019, Braze commissioned Forrester Consulting to reexamine and take these questions one step further — how have customer’s expectations for human communication changed? And how ready are brands to deliver these experiences today? To explore these questions, Forrester conducted two online surveys, one with 3,336 global consumers and another with 1,617 marketing decision makers to explore this topic. We found that customer expectations are rising for brands to communicate with their customers in a human way, and that many brands struggle with the fundamental building blocks of human communication programs.

KEY FINDINGS

› Consumer demands for human communication are rising. Year-over-year comparison shows that customers’ expectations for how brands can demonstrate humanity are rising. Overall, the bar for qualifying as a human interaction has risen about 5% since 2018, meaning that brands now need to register that many more emotional and functional cues in order for an interaction to be registered as being human.

› Brands must start their human communication journey with customer empathy and insights. Generally speaking, brands struggle the most with insight management and creation, as well as executing on delivering human communication at scale. These are foundational elements of brand humanity. Insights management and creation represents brands’ ability to listen to and understand customer needs, whereas execution represents their ability to act. It’s impossible to deliver humanity at scale without first mastering empathy at scale.

› Brands are investing in powerful technology to capture the key business and customer benefits of human communication. Customers reveal they are significantly more likely to love, make purchases from, be satisfied with, recommend, and be loyal to brands that deliver human experiences to them. As a result, brands plan to invest in technology that powers human communication, especially those brands that perform well in human communication.

Human communication is defined as occurring when a brand communicates in a way that comes across as natural, or in a way that a real person would talk.

1 | Build Brand Humanity By Mastering Empathy At Scale

Understanding What Drives Human CommunicationCustomers in 2018 delivered a simple yet compelling message for brands, “We expect you to meet us on our level with human experiences, and we will reward you for doing so with lasting, rich, and profitable relationships.” Brands’ response is both encouraging and demonstrates a truly human side, “We hear you.”

Ninety-six percent of brands feel that human communication is important or critical to their organization. Furthermore, this focus makes sense in context of the key objectives that brands are looking to tackle this year. Improving customer trust and satisfaction, excelling at capturing attention and market share, and driving more profitable customer relationships are at the top of brands’ to-do lists (see Figure 1). This customer centricity is essential to modern brands’ survival in an era when customers are more empowered than ever to dictate the terms of their relationships with companies. The current iteration of customer loyalty shows itself as a willingness to abandon brands that fail to meet their demands in favor of brands who obsess over delighting them.

“Our customers trust us more when we speak to them in a human way. They know that we care about them, and that we’re not just trying to make profits by having them face emotionless robots.”

Executive survey respondent verbatim answer


Figure 1

54% Improve customer trust

“What are your organization’s key marketing objectives for this year?”(Select up to 5)

Base: 1,617 global marketing decision makers responsible for or in�uencing their organization’s brand strategySource: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Braze, October 2019


Nearly every brand understands that human communication is important:

54% Improve customer satisfaction

45% Win new customers

96%Important to critical

4%Not at all to somewhat important

44% Increase brand awareness

43% Increase customer lifetime value

39% Drive repeat purchases/customer loyalty

39% Increase pro�tability per product/service

Customers Intensify Their Demand For Human CommunicationThe first Brand Humanity Index (BHI) study drew a direct line between brands’ pursuit of objectives like improving customer satisfaction, driving purchase and loyalty, and an ability to deliver humanlike experiences to their customers. This gave rise to a central question, what does human communication really mean? To better understand how brands can create human experiences, we created the Brand Humanity Index, or BHI, based on consumer surveys that asked questions about a recent and memorable interaction they had with a brand and whether that interaction was positive or negative. Thirty different positive emotional associations and 18 functional communication attributes were tested for their predictive value in determining whether or not the brand demonstrated “human communication” during the specific interaction.

The BHI is based on four main components. Emotion, being one of these four main components, is based on the nine most powerful emotional reactions consumers have that predict whether or not they experience human communication in a brand interaction. Finally, all four components of communication — “emotional,” “personal,” “considerate,” and “natural” — were assigned weights based on their ability to predict how likely a customer was to describe a brand’s interaction as exemplifying human communication.

A comparison of BHI results year over year reveals that brand humanity is in a state of evolution, where customer expectations both rise and shift around the margins. Both in terms of the bottom-line BHI index, as well as with the individual emotional and functional characteristics that comprise it, customers’ demands have risen. Overall, the bar for reaching a human interaction has risen about 5% since 2018, meaning brands need to hit that many more emotional and functional cues in order to register a human interaction. Similarly, the bar for each component of the BHI has risen accordingly as well (see Figure 2).


Figure 2

Comparing 2018 and 2019 BHI results

Base: 3,336 smartphone owners, who shop online at least once a month, made an online purchase, or used a digital service in the last monthSource: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Braze, October 2019

BHI622018 65

Emotion632018 66 Action

Natural612018 66

Considerate622018 67

Personal592018 64

So what’s happening here? As brands translate their belief of human communication’s significance into action, customers are exposed to more humanlike communication efforts. Subsequently, customers make this kind of experience more and more central to how they expect brands will communicate with them. In other words, as brand communications become more human, customers become more demanding of these experiences, and brands must therefore work even harder to deliver them.

EMOTIONS DRIVE HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Modern intelligent branding is centered around a customer-centric, emotions-driven approach to forming brand impressions. Innovations in branding have taken insights from neuroscience to shape an understanding that human mental processes favor emotional decision making. And that emotional resonance dictates the difference between a brand impression which changes hearts and minds, and those communications that fade into the background din of marketing messages which consumers tune out as a matter of course.1

In short, emotions are the engine that drives brand engagement and resonance. But what are the emotional characteristics that are most likely to cement a human experience in the minds of customers? Respondents told us that they responded most to brands that demonstrated empathy and responded with warmth and a touch of the unexpected (see Figure 3).

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Comparing 2018 and 2019 BHI results

From 2018:


Rank Characteristic

Responsive 1

Social (Dropped)2

Friendly3

Thoughtful4

Helpful (Dropped)5

Personable6

Intelligent (Dropped)7

Reassuring9

Honest (Dropped)8

From 2019:Rank Characteristic

Understanding (New)1

Friendly2

Comforting (New)3

Personable4

Reassuring5

Surprising (New)6

Thoughtful7

Happy (New)9

Responsive8

Comparing the most important emotional drivers of brand humanity year to year illustrates that the fundamental truths uncovered in 2018 are still in place, however, things are shifting around the margins. Last year, responsiveness was the most important predictor of human communication, compared to the power of understanding taking the top spot in 2019. Crucially, these are different but intertwined concepts. Responsiveness requires that the response aligns to its corresponding need, and that identifying that need is the core of understanding — in other words, showing you’re actively listening is a first step requirement.

Year over year, customers demand that brands first locate and internalize the context or need that customers express to them. Additionally, customers react to the manner in which brands communicate with them. Customers have carried over many of those core expectations — that brands respond in a way that is friendly, thoughtful, personable, and reassuring.

Conversely, emerging criteria like surprising and happy represent a significant departure from 2018, when customers reported that emotional responses like being exciting, fun, or quirky had relatively small impact on whether an interaction was human or not. Customers this year are showing they are more impacted by the entertainment value of an interaction than was the case previously — though it’s worth noting that these indicators still lag in relative importance, compared to the ones which indicate they are being heard and treated warmly.

BRANDS EXPRESS THEIR HUMANITY THROUGH FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

The functional characteristics of the BHI look at what actions a brand can take to demonstrate and reinforce their sense of brand humanity. These actions are categorized into three primary categories:

› Natural communication. The natural characteristic means that the brand speaks in a voice that is similar to that of a regular person, i.e., using casual, clear, and conversational tones. Last year, customers chose multiple natural communication characteristics as being important drivers of human communication. This year, only a single characteristic in this category was qualified, the natural tone of a brand’s messaging. However, customers told us this was the most powerful driver of human communication. Customers are increasingly adept at sniffing out canned bot interactions, and perhaps more importantly, they have a strong aversion to the “obvious bot” — as 54% of US consumers expect a bot interaction to negatively affect their quality of life.2 Natural communication therefore goes to the heart of how to avoid turning off customers when communicating with them at scale.

› Considerate communication. The considerate functional characteristics show that a brand cares about their customers’ needs. Considerate brands demonstrate that they: 1) value their customers’ time and business; 2) are responsive to their customers’ needs; and 3) put the convenience of their customers before their own. These brands understand and use a given customer’s preferred channel or contact method, not just necessarily what’s most efficient or convenient for the business.

“Human communication is a conversation between humans to find out what strengths, desires, shortcomings, or needs help form mutual understanding with each other. In the business field, it’s about letting companies understand what customers want.”



› Personal communication. The personal communication characteristic demonstrates that a brand understands their customers’ context and attitudes, while also reflecting that the customer has internalized the brand as playing a role in their lives. The number of personal characteristics expanded this year, including whether the brand is one the customer would recommend to friends and family, how much the brand fits the customer’s lifestyle, and how much the brand reflects an understanding of what the customer cares most about (see Figure 4).

Overall, this study points to an evolution of customers’ attitudes toward human communication. The fundamental finding — that human communication is achieved through a mix of emotional resonance and functional execution aligned to personal, natural, and considerate communication efforts — remains intact. We do see, however, that personalization is taking a more central role in how customers conceptualize what is and is not an example of human communication.

For example, customers show they take the entertaining nature of an interaction into account with how they define human communication. Furthermore, how a brand aligns with a customer’s life or identity is an important part of human communication. Customers report that human communication requires more kinds of personalization to qualify, and customers’ expectations for brands to personalize these interactions are on the rise.


Figure 4

Most important functional drivers of human communication

Base: 3,336 smartphone owners, who shop online at least once a month, made an online purchase, or used a digital service in the last month Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Braze, October 2019

Driver Ranking (2018) Characteristic Description

Speaks like a regular person would

Shows they value my time and business

Communicates with me in the tone I want them to

Is responsive to me when I need it

Sends me clear, understandable messages

Shows they understand what matters to me right now

Communicates with me at convenient times

Communicates with me using my preferred contact method

Provides great recommendations

Understands my preferences and avoids what I don’t like

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

9

8

10

Driver Ranking (2019) Characteristic Description

Speaks like a regular person would

Is responsive to me when I need it

Is a brand I would recommend to friends/family

Shows they value my time and business

Communicates with me at convenient times

Shows they understand what matters to me right now

Fits my lifestyle

Communicates with me using the contact method I preferUnderstands my preferences and avoids what I don’t like

Gets me and what I care about

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

9

8

10

Natural Personal Considerate

“The most crucial component in all of marketing is the human connection, and without that you won’t be able to stay in any kind of sales/marketing-centered business for too long.”


Operationalizing Brand Humanity: The Brand Humanity Maturity ModelThis year’s exploration of the BHI forms a helpful update to how brands should conceptualize brand humanity and human communication. And yet, it leaves a central question in place: how can brands best prepare to deliver human communication at scale? To answer this question, the study introduces the Brand Humanity Maturity (BHM) model, a methodology to identify and test the critical functions that power human communication.

Brands must identify these functions and plot a course to address them, because customers demand it and also because delivering these experiences is a complicated task that requires coordination across multiple disciplines. We know that human communication arises from programs that help solve for a number of hot-button challenges that brands face today, from unmet expectations with customer data platforms, to the risks of betraying customer privacy and trust, or leveraging technology to get your customer interactions right in the moment when it’s most needed.3

The BHM covers six brand humanity dimensions that form the backbone of delivering human communication at scale:

› Importance and investment. How much does the organization prioritize and invest in their human communication strategy? Brands that excel at importance and investment have established that programs which drive human communication are important to their companies’ future, so they are continuously improving these capabilities with investments.

› Teams and structure. How much has the organization optimized its people, teams, and technologies to deliver human communication at scale? Brands that thrive in teams and structure appropriately leverage automation to create individualized customer journeys at scale — leaving employees to focus on marketing, product, and service strategy.

› Insight management and creation. How able is the organization to leverage customer insights to create integrated, individualized customer experiences? Brands that exemplify insight management and creation leverage customer insights in real time to generate live, individualized customer views and insights to inform their marketing campaigns and touchpoints.

› Execution. How aligned is the organization to best practices for delivering personalized customer messages across all available channels and touchpoints? Firms with brilliant execution deliver personalized messages to customers regardless of device or touchpoint, and they are constantly feeding insights back into the program to optimize their approach over time.

› Tools and capabilities. How able is the organization to leverage technology to deliver dynamic, personalized content based on real-time data and continuous testing? Brands that excel at tools and capabilities leverage dynamic content in real time and at scale, basing most of their campaigns against segments that are based in customer insights and are continuously tested, adjusted, and optimized. The customer insights of brilliant brands flow across data and technology silos seamlessly.


“Human communication means communicating with customers across all platforms in a personal manner, to make communication with each customer seem individualized and tailored to them specifically.”


› Human communication. How aligned is the organization to best practices for embedding human communication qualities into its communications across all available channels and touchpoints? Excellence in human communication means a brand has applied principles of human communication to every customer-facing message. These brands are always refining their language to match what they learn about their customers’ preferences and points of view.

Brands in this study selected one of four descriptions of their current capabilities to create the baseline scores of the maturity model — from least advanced earning 1 point to most advanced earning 4 points. These scores were then indexed to a maximum 100 points for each dimension. Brands were categorized into one of four maturity categories depending on how their scores fit within the overall scoring distribution: basic, good, great, or brilliant. Ultimately, two key findings emerged from analyzing over 1,600 brand responses: 1) that nearly half of brands belong to the lower two groups and 2) that brands are most likely to struggle with insight management and creation or execution (see Figure 5).

There are some fundamental and telling differences between the brands that registered in the lower versus higher maturity groups. For instance, basic firms were least likely to say that human communication was very important or critical to their organization, at 60%. Basic firms also tended to be smaller than other groups, with 51% reporting annual revenues of less than $500M. Conversely, brilliant firms were the most likely to say that human communication was central to their business, and 53% of them reported annual revenues of $500M or above.

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Brand Humanity Maturity model results

Maturity score distribution


69 Importance and investment

72 Teams and structure

61 Data management and insights creation

Brilliant(Score: 79-100) 22%

29%

26%

23%

Great(Score: 67-75)

Good(Score: 54-62)

Basic(Score: 0-50)

62 Execution

72 Tools and capabilities

74 Human communication

9

The Foundations Of Brands’ Human Communication Programs Are Showing CracksExamining scores across the different dimensions of the BHM reveal that many brands have some fundamental work to do before they can reasonably expect their human communication programs to take flight. While study respondents performed relatively well in a number of the softer (yet still important) skills that make up successful programs. i.e., human communication, teams and structures, and tools and capabilities, they indicated that their data management and insight creation, and execution dimensions were lagging. Here’s why this hints at a significant problem:

› Data management and insight creation. One-third of study respondents rated themselves at the lowest level of maturity in this dimension. They indicated that while they track customer interactions to inform their understanding of customer preferences, they have not yet taken the step to translate that into a customer persona program. They also indicated that: tracking does not occur across all available touchpoints; tracking does not take place in real or near real time; and individual-level personalization is out of reach for them currently.

Customers consistently report that the emotional and functional levers they use to determine a brand’s humanity starts with listening to and understanding the customer’s context. We know that customers expect you to know them, know what they care about (both in terms of the topic but also in how and in what channels brands should interact with them), and then respond in kind. Yet one-third of brands are executing this foundational element at the lowest level of maturity, and less than one-quarter are able to reach the highest rung of maturity.

› Execution. The execution dimension examines how well a brand is able to deliver personalized messages across touchpoints at scale. Brands that excel at execution deliver one-to-one messages to their customers coordinated across devices and touchpoints. They also use insights from customers and from the program itself to continuously optimize their human communication. Unfortunately, only 22% of study respondents fell into this category, as brands struggle to adopt best-in-class practices for tying together customer insights across data and technology silos and translating those insights into action.

The task before brands that are looking to delight their demanding customers is to listen, understand, and act — and it’s nearly impossible to do these out of order. Brands that struggle to listen and understand simply are not set up to take the correct course of action. It’s impossible to deliver humanity at scale without first achieving empathy at scale.


“Customers are the foundation of my company’s survival, so any subjective insights and personal views of our customers are very important, in order to improve customer satisfaction, all kinds of customer communication channels are necessary.”


Top-performing brilliant brands separate themselves from basic ones on the strength of their insight management and execution.

10 10 | Build Brand Humanity By Mastering Empathy At Scale

These two criteria are arguably the most important elements of the BHM, and are also where we see the greatest divergence between firms with basic human communication programs and those firms whose programs are brilliant performers. The scores on insight management and creation for brilliant brands were twice as high as basic brands, scoring an 80 versus 40, respectively. Basic brands scored an even lower 38 on execution as well, compared to an 88 for brilliant brands.

Indeed, brands told us their most significant marketing challenges align to listening, understanding, and taking action on what their customer data is telling them. Collecting, integrating, and managing their marketing data was the top marketing challenge, followed closely by translating customer insights into marketing outcomes. Brands told us they also struggle to coordinate marketing activities across the multiple channels, devices, and touchpoints that customers use today (see Figure 6).

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Full page Figure 6: Data Management And Insights Generation Ranked As Top Marketing Challenge

“Which of the following marketing-related challenges does your company experience today?”


40% Collecting, integrating, and managing marketing data

39% Translating customer insights into actionable marketing outcomes

38% Coordinating messages and interactions across channels, devices, and touchpoints

38% Understanding the relative contribution of marketing channels to conversions

37% Hiring, retaining, and organizing marketing staff

36% Enabling cross-team access to relevant data in a timely and productive fashion

Brand struggles, i.e., data management, insights generation, and omnichannel execution, re�ect problems with BHM challenge areas.


HUMAN COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS REQUIRE COORDINATION ACROSS TECHNOLOGY, ORGANIZATION, AND DATA SILOS

It’s important to note that brilliance isn’t the end of the journey, and that even brilliant brands face challenges delivering relevant, humanlike communications to their customers at scale. We found that brilliant brands distinguish themselves across multiple dimensions by their willingness to keep learning and improving their programs over time. Brilliant brands told us they are most likely to struggle with the same issues that hold back many firms, namely making a business case for human communication programs to executives and aligning the multiple technologies required to execute a program at scale (see Figure 7).

We know from the BHM dimensions results that data collection, management, and deployment are challenges for many firms. Indeed, half of brands surveyed told us that knowing they are collecting the right customer data and turning it into actionable insights is one of their two biggest human communication hurdles. They also told us that their marketing efforts in general were most likely to be hindered by issues with collecting, integrating, and managing marketing data.

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Full page Figure 7: Brilliant Brands Can Still Struggle With Human Communication

“What is the biggest obstacle hindering your organization from prioritizing and capitalizing on more human brand communication?”


Even brilliant brands say that technology silos are their biggest human communication challenge.

Dif�culty overcoming misaligned technology or technology silos

25%

22%

Lack of a business case for investment/no proof of ROI

25%

22%

Dif�culty overcoming organizational or team silos

16%

17%

General executive skepticism/lack of buy-in

16%

19%

Lack of an executive champion11%

13%

Brilliant brands All brands


Investments In Powerful Technology Will Fuel The Future Of Brand HumanityOverall, human communication requires considerable coordination across silos — be they technological, organizational, or across data types and formats. Brands require powerful technologies to provide the kinds of integrations, stakeholder access, and single point of truth for customer data that make human communication at scale possible. Specifically, brands now consider AI/recommendation engines to be the most important technology capability driving human communication, followed by customer analytics, customer data platforms, and cross-channel campaign management and automation tools.

A majority of brands told us they are looking to add or revamp their tools across these areas next year. They were most likely to want to acquire or replace an AI/recommendation engine, but a majority are taking a similar approach to campaign management and automation, data warehousing, customer analytics, attribution and customer data platforms as well. Interestingly, brilliant brands, who have had the most visibility into successful programs, are most likely to say they are going to increase their investment in human communication technologies next year, according to 54% of brilliant respondents (see Figure 8).

Since customers won’t wait for brands who struggle to show they hear, understand, and are ready to help customers in their time of need, brands are turning to technology to help with the complexity of managing human communication — be it through the automation of recommendations and campaign content, or through powerful systems of record for managing, analyzing, and acting on customer inputs across channel and device sources.

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Full page Figure 8: Brands Are Gearing Up For Human Communication

“For each of the following technologies, does your company plan to acquire or replace it over the next year?”


54% of brilliant brands plan to increase investment in human communication technology.

We plan to acquire this technology for the �rst timeWe plan to replace the technology we’re currently usingWe don’t plan to acquire or replace an existing technology in this category

Customer data platform

Attribution solution

Customer analytics

Data warehouse

Cross-channel campaign management/marketing automation

AI/recommendation engines 37% 33% 29%29%Decrease investment

17%Maintain

investment

54%Somewhat or greatly increase investment

28% 38% 32%

28% 38% 32%

30% 38% 31%

28% 41% 27%

28% 38% 33%

13 13

The Benefits Of Brilliance: Better Business And Brand OutcomesThis study demonstrated that brand humanity rests on an organization’s ability to listen, understand, and act on customers’ needs at their moment of need. Brilliant brands who excel at the dimensions of brand humanity are particularly adept at translating customer information into insight and action. But the data also shows that mastering the dimensions of brand humanity requires technology investment, and that often, even brilliant brands struggle to point to the business case for these purchases.

However, the data also demonstrates that there is a strong correlation between a brand’s BHM ranking and its revenue performance. Fifty-seven percent of brilliant and great brands reported they exceeded their revenue goals last year, with 24% and 20% saying they overperformed by 10% or more, respectively.

Famously, correlation does not imply causation. However, there is more evidence that a company’s human communication performance is a significant driving variable of performance. This study found that brilliant firms were more likely to cite the support they receive for their most important business goals. Brilliant firms were more likely to say that their human communication approach made it easier to improve customer-oriented objectives, like better customer satisfaction (9 percentage points), or customer trust (7 percentage points). And better human communication were even more powerful in driving bottom-line improvements such as: driving repeat purchases or customer loyalty (an 18 percentage point boost from basic to brilliant); better customer lifetime value (a 15 percentage point boost); or increasing average purchase size (a 26 percentage point boost).

Human communication also provides support to brands for their most important business objectives. Improving customer trust and satisfaction were the top objectives that brands reported focusing on this year, and are also the two areas where brands say their customer communications approach gives them the most support (see Figure 9).

Brands that excel at human communication find that their strategies significantly help achieve their key business goals.


CUSTOMER BENEFITS OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT

Without happy and engaged customers, brands are sunk. This is where human communication can really move the needle for brands that prioritize their abilities. Customers were far more likely to report loving brands that successfully demonstrated human communication with them. Customers were 1.8 times as likely to be satisfied with the brand, 1.7 times as likely to make a purchase, and 1.9 times as likely to recommend a human communication brand. Additionally, more than two-thirds of customers say they would be more loyal to a brand if they experienced human communication from them (see Figure 10).

The course is clearly set. Your customers demand that you treat them as people and they expect responsive interactions that show you hear, understand, and are responding to their needs — and brands that invest in the processes and technology to deliver these experiences at scale enjoy significant advantages over those who are being left behind.

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Full page Figure 9: Human Communication Enables Brands To Achieve Their Key Business Goals

“How well do you believe your customer communication approach helps you meet your business goals?”

Our customer communications program makes it easier or much easier to achieve this goal:

Improve message open rates/content engagement

Increase profitability per product/service

Win new customers

Decrease cost per acquisition

Decrease attrition rate

Improve customer satisfaction 70%

70%

70%

71%

72%

63%

71%

65%

69%

67%

51%

64%

61% 2

1

6

63%

52%

459%

557%

858%

945%

1053%

751%

354%

1251%

1151%

Improve customer trust

Drive repeat purchases/customer loyalty

Increase brand awareness

Increase customer lifetime value

Increase conversion rates

Increase average purchase size

Base: 1,617 global marketing decision makers responsible for or influencing their organization’s brand strategySource: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Braze, October 2019

Importance ranking

Basic brands

Brilliant brands

9%

7%

18%

12%

15%

5%

26%

12%

18%

13%

13%

0%

Figure 10: Human Communication Powers Customer Relationships

Customers who have human communication experiences with brands are:

More likely to say the “love” that brand

1.7xMore likely to be satis�ed with that brand

Most customers say they would be more loyal to a human brand

1.8xMore likely to make a purchase with that brand

1.7xMore likely to recommend that brand

1.9x


67%Would be more loyal


Key RecommendationsForrester’s in-depth survey of global consumers and marketing decision makers about brand humanity yielded several important recommendations:

Build humanity relentlessly. In our first iteration of the BHI, the message was clear. Brands that communicate with humanity reap rich rewards. In this iteration, we find validation and reinforcement with brands. Ninety-six percent of brands view humanity as the critical cornerstone of their strategy, and the ones that do humanity well see disproportionate revenue growth. Yet, consumers tell us that the humanity bar keeps getting higher as brands rise to meet the challenge. Brand humanity does not work under a fix-it-and-forget-it approach. It is a relentless pursuit requiring an ongoing marshalling of significant organizational resources and attention.

Be a brand ally. The texture of humanity must be shaped by the emotions that most activate consumers to engage, participate, and remain with a brand. In our most recent findings of key emotional drivers, there is a clarion call for brands to be empathetic allies. Perhaps emanating from a surge in social strife, manifesting in various forms across the globe, the yearning is for a brand to demonstrate that it is understanding, friendly, and comforting.

Operationalize empathy. To communicate with humanity in a way that is natural, personal, and considerate requires a tremendous amount of empathy. This is not a trivial ask of brands, and it requires giving form and function to a human trait. The best brands demonstrate empathy by listening, understanding, and then acting accordingly. When operationalized, this requires a program to capture the right information about consumers, glean the right insights, craft the right responses, and act in the optimal manner. Brands that want to exceed the rising bar of humanity must organize their systems, processes, and people to operationalize empathy.

Be relevant at scale. Top brands build relationships not on their own terms, but on the terms of their customers. Today, that means having a keen sense of how customers engage (which flows from empathy) and catering to them on that field of engagement. Typically, modern brands need to serve a syncretic engagement model across numerous touchpoints and devices. This engagement must be hyperpersonalized to the individual, yet be able to scale effortlessly and cost-efficiently. Brands must execute with the right tools, e.g., increasing investment in AI and recommendation engines (as brilliant brands are doing), to deliver relevance at scale.

Break silos. Brand humanity is steeped in customer centricity and empathy, and the only way to do it right is to have every corner of the organization committed to service of the customer. Two of the greatest barriers to brand humanity are tech silos and the need for a business case for ROI. Business technology strategies must move toward systems that seamlessly compile and analyze toward a single source of customer truth. A business case for brand humanity also requires overcoming broken silos, in that it is an organizationwide effort, with participation from diverse functions like technology, finance, marketing, and operations.


Appendix A: Methodology In this study, Forrester conducted two online surveys, one with 3,336 global consumers and another with 1,617 marketing decision makers, to evaluate customer attitudes and behaviors and brand readiness to deliver human experiences. Survey participants included global consumers and decision makers in marketing or marketing-adjacent roles. Questions provided to the participants asked about the current state of brand humanity. Respondents were offered a small monetary incentive as a thank you for time spent on the survey. The study began in March 2019 and was completed in October 2019.

Appendix B: Consumer Survey Demographics



24%US

9%CA

9%UK

14%DE12%

FR

1%TH

11%AU

NA: 33%; EMEA: 35%; APAC: 32%

1% KR17% VN1% SG

Online purchase frequency

11%

26%

25%

19%

19%

18 to 24

25 to 34

35 to 44

45 to 54

55+

10 times a month or more

5-10 times a month

2-5 times a month

once a month

GenderAge groupings

42%Male

58%Female

20%12%

41%

27%

Appendix D:Endnotes 1 Source: “The Rise Of Intelligent Branding,” Forrester Research, Inc., July 1, 2019.2 Source: “Forrester Infographic: Customer Service Chatbots Fail Consumers Today,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 30, 2019.

3 Forrester has conducted specific research on: 1) unmet brand expectations with customer data platforms (Source: “For B2C Marketers, Customer Data Platforms Overpromise and Underdeliver,” Forrester Research, Inc., October 26, 2018); 2) the risks of betraying customer privacy and trust (Source: “The New Privacy: It’s All About Context,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 4 2019); and 3) leveraging technology to get your customer interactions right in the moment when it’s most needed (Source: “The Future Of Enterprise Marketing Technology,” Forrester Research, Inc., June 6, 2019).


Appendix C: Executive Survey Demographics

1/2 page

Minimum Height

Maximum Height

Full page


22%US

11%CA

27%UK

3%DE

1%IL

3%FR

3%TH

8%AU

NA: 33%; EMEA: 35%; APAC: 32%

5% KR3% VN3% SG8% ID

Respondent level

22%

19%

17%

16%

14%

Financial services and/or insurance

Retail and eCommerce

Quick service restaurants or fast casual dining

Media and entertainment

Travel and hospitality

12%Health/�tness or wellness

C-level executive

Vice president

Director Brand manager

69% in advertising/marketing31% in customer data & analytics

Company size

Industry

6%$100M to $199M

12%$200M to $299M

15%$300M to $399M

16%$400M to $499M

20%$500M to $999M

23%$1B to $4.9B

8%>$5B

21% 19%

54%

5%

Brand & Marketing Strategy 60% primarily responsible22% share responsibility18% provide input and execute