The report – Understanding the Customer Journey in Asia Pacific, in association with Emarsys – also provides evidence that marketers’ biggest challenge is a lack of collaboration within organisations.

Let’s look at some of the findings from the survey.

The omnichannel customer experience is still a pipedream for many

29% of company respondents admit that all of their customer touchpoints are managed in isolation (in silos) and offer inconsistent delivery.

A further 41% say that though they understand the customer journey, there is ‘little management across touchpoints’.

Though 7% have impressive ‘seamless integration of channels’, the remaining 24% that have ‘integrated touchpoints across channels’ say this work is ‘channel-focused, not customer-focused’. This hints at missed opportunities.

integrated touchpoints

Complexity and collaboration are biggest barriers to understanding the customer journey

When asked what is preventing a better understanding of the customer journey, responses chimed with some of the current themes of marketing transformation. There is difficulty unifying different sources of data (34%), a siloed org structure (34%), lack of sharing between departments (28%), IT bottlenecks (26%) and chiefly a complex customer experience (44%).

At the root of many of these problems is the lack of collaboration between teams. Marketing ops teams may be formed to prioritise work and alleviate IT bottlenecks, with a customer-based / design-led approach to marketing requiring cross-functional teams.

Though culture isn’t a big issue (10%) and understanding the customer journey seems to be on the agenda (only 9% say it is a low business priority), there’s notable mention of lack of leadership (21%) and lack of processes (19%), which again point to the need for marketing transformation.

barriers to cx

More than half of marketers have no CX strategy

When asked about their strategy for improving customer experience, 8% of company respondents effectively said ‘what strategy?’ and 44% said it was in development.

This implies 2017 may be a big year for change in APAC as regards the customer journey, with companies set to focus on customer needs and established channels.

strategy for improving cx

There’s plenty more revealed by the survey within the report, including a large section on the ongoing impact of mobile. Subscribers can download the research today.