Poor online experience leads to rise in 'digital rage'

A new report from performance analytics company Conviva highlights a rise in 'digital rage' as 91 percent of consumers report encountering frustrating digital service issues in the past year.

Businesses risk backlash, lost revenue, and damaged reputations if they fail to address these problems. Poor digital experiences have immediate and tangible impacts on revenue as 55 percent of consumers abandon their purchase, 50 percent switch to another company, and 39 percent cancel their subscription.

The report -- which draws insights from 223 million digital service user sessions globally, as well as data from a survey by Censuswide of 4,000 consumers in the US and UK -- finds people expect perfect digital experiences and are unforgiving when businesses fall short. If poor experiences on a digital platform increase from one percent to two percent of the total time, consumers spend 42 percent less time on it. Conversely, those with at least 99 percent positive experiences spend 6.5 times more time with a service.

"Consumer expectations for seamless digital experiences are skyrocketing, but many businesses aren’t keeping pace," says Keith Zubchevich, CEO of Conviva. "In today's attention economy, customers have zero tolerance for digital friction. Distracting them with more 'digital to-dos' or disrupting them with issues sends their attention, money, and loyalty straight to competitors. More marketing and new features won't suffice; flawless digital service performance for all customer cohorts is critical. Companies that fail to deliver exceptional experiences for every customer will face increased churn, revenue losses, and lasting damage to their brand reputation."

Among other findings 49 percent of consumers think companies don't care when their customers have a poor digital experience. One in four consumers say they abandon online purchases if they can’t complete their transaction within 10 seconds. The most common digital experience irritants are broken webpages or links, unexpected crashes, and login issues.

"It's not just about finding and fixing outages. Businesses must address the 'thousand little cuts' -- repeated issues impacting distinct groups of customers that quietly drive them away," adds Zubchevich. "Customer complaints are increasingly visible on social media, yet outages are reducing. This means many customers experience friction points and abandon purchases without businesses even knowing. Empowering teams with real-time performance analytics and automation to pinpoint and resolve issues at every touchpoint in the customer journey helps deliver seamless experiences, protect revenue, and turn customer experience into a strategic advantage."

You can get the full report from the Conviva site.

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