Digital services are so intrinsic to consumers’ lives, the majority (70 per cent) don’t realise how much they rely on them.

The world’s fastest growing APM vendor (a type of technology performance management) AppDynamics, which is owned by Cisco, has today released the latest report in its App Attention Index research series. It has declared the era we are in as ‘The Era of the Digital Reflex’. Among its findings:

  • 45 per cent of Australian consumers (55 per cent globally) can only go without a mobile device for up to 4 hours before they find it difficult to manage everyday tasks;
  • 56 per cent (61 per cent globally) admitted they reached for their phones before talking to anyone else before they woke up; and
  • while average consumers estimate they use seven digital services daily, they are using nearly 30.

But ironically 70 per cent say digital services help reduce stress in their lives. Furthermore, 68 per cent claim digital services have improved their productivity, up from 43 per cent only two years ago.

Danny Winokur, AppDynamics General Manager proclaimed it was an era where businesses could not afford to let consumers down.

“In The Era of the Digital Reflex, consumers will no longer forgive or forget poor experiences. A great digital performance is now the baseline for any business, but the real winners will be those that consistently exceed customer expectations by delivering a flawless experience,” he said.

How to survive?

But most importantly for tech businesses

  • 42 per cent of Australian consumers will pay a premium for a better product
  • 78 per cent expect to select brands on the variety of services provided
  • 60 per cent place higher value on digital interactions over physical ones
  • 43 per cent will turn to competitors if they encounter performance issues

The report made three suggestions for brands seeking to meet customers’ high customer experience expectations. First it suggested focusing on application performance.

Second, to align this performance to business outcomes — by measuring and analysing applications. It suggested digital service performance should be aligned to broad business objectives such as customer experience and revenue.

Third, to make decisions and take action based on factual insight. This means monitoring consumers, collecting data and analysing the performance. The report suggested this be done using machine learning and AI so this could be done quickly and automatically.