The importance of mobile

Three-quarters of organisations surveyed say that mobile is ‘important’ (42%) or ‘critical’ (32%) to their business objectives. Just 6% of respondents don’t consider mobile important.

Compared to European respondents, a higher proportion of those based in North America consider mobile as ‘critical’ to their business objectives (39% compared to just over a quarter (27%) of European companies).

Companies are also seeing their mobile traffic growing fast. Almost three quarters (72%) of respondents say that mobile accounts fro 10% or more or their traffic. This has increased from 52% in 2012. 

Some companies are seeing much higher levels of mobile traffic. The proportion of respondents who say that more than 20% of their traffic can be attributed to mobile has more than doubled in the last 12 months, from less than a fifth (17%) in 2012 to 41% this year.

On average, survey respondents indicate that 19% of their total traffic is via mobile devices, up from 17% last year.

How companies rate the mobile customer experience

The proportion of companies describing their understanding of the mobile user experience as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ has almost doubled in the last 12 months, from just under a fifth (18%) in 2012 to 30% this year. 

How companies rate their understanding of the mobile user experience (compared to the overall online customer experience)

Understanding of mobile user experience - Econsultancy / IBM Tealeaf Reducing Customer Stuggle 2013

Challenges cited by companies looking to improve the mobile customer experience included budget and resources, but also a disjointed approach. 

Here’s a selection of quotes from respondents: 

Internal attitudes towards mobile and doubts it is a viable channel to be concerned about in 2013!

Mobile ‘marketing’ site managed by marketing, while mobile ‘client’ site managed by products. Disjointed experience.

Separate teams developing for mobile – no crossover, so disjointed approach resulting in disjointed offering. The same challenge we face universally – no one really responsible and no overarching vision.

Customer experience problems on mobile

More than a quarter (27%) of responding organisations say their customers rate their brand’s mobile user experience as ‘good’ (23%) or ‘excellent’ (4%), up from a fifth in 2012.

As the chart below shows, bad navigation and screen-sizing issues are the two biggest problems for customers (both 36%), closely followed by form-filling (26%).

Slow page-loading, cited by 23% of respondents, is another customer experience problem for customers.

What do you think are the most serious issues your customers encounter when they interact with your brand via a mobile device?

 Most serious issues customers encounter when they interact with brands via a mobile device - Econsultancy / IBM Tealeaf Reducing Customer Struggle 2013