Qualtrics Unveils 2024 Consumer Experience Trends in India: Great Customer Service Trumps Low Prices

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management (XM) category, has released its 2024 Consumer Trends Report, shedding light on the evolving preferences of consumers in India. Contrary to common assumptions, the study reveals that for Indian consumers product and service quality, excellent customer service, and an easy digital experience all take precedence over low prices.

The key drivers for making purchase decisions in 2024, as identified by 1,200 responses Indian consumers in Qualtrics report, include:

• Product & Service Quality: Consumers in India prioritize the high quality and excellence of products and services when making purchasing decisions, with a significant 57% emphasizing this factor.
• Customer Service Support: A noteworthy 53% of Indian consumers value effective customer service support, ranking it as a crucial consideration in their decision-making process.
• An Easy Digital Experience: The ease of a digital experience plays a substantial role, as 34% of consumers prioritize seamless interactions and transactions in the digital realm.
• Price: While price remains a factor, it takes a backseat for Indian consumers, with only 29% considering it a primary driver when choosing products or services.
• Does Good for Society: Social responsibility matters to Indian consumers, with 26% considering a brand’s positive impact on society as an influential factor in their purchasing decisions.

These findings challenge the conventional belief that price is the primary factor influencing consumer choices, emphasizing the growing importance of overall customer experience.

The major trends defining customer experience in India in 2024

With great customer experience critical to increasing market share and consumer loyalty in 2024, the Qualtrics report highlights a critical barrier organizations need to address – raising morale and enabling frontline employees. Frontline employees, including cashiers, bank tellers, and restaurant servers, play a pivotal role in shaping customer experience. However, the research indicates that this group is less satisfied with pay, development opportunities, and support compared to non-frontline employees.

The Qualtrics study identified four major trends that will define consumer experience in India in 2024:

• A winning AI strategy must address consumers’ fear of losing the human connection

In the realm of AI adoption, addressing consumers’ concerns about losing the human touch is crucial. While 64% of Indian consumers are comfortable engaging with AI-powered services, their primary worries include the potential loss of human connection, job displacement, and misuse of personal data.

• Great service beats low prices in the battle for customer loyalty

Despite economic considerations, Indian consumers prioritize quality service over low prices, with 53% highlighting customer service support as a key factor.

• Customers aren’t giving feedback like they used to – companies must listen in new ways
  Since 2021, the direct feedback share from consumers after a negative experience has dropped by 7 percentage points (to 53%). Despite this, consumers are providing feedback in less direct ways, such as in call center conversations, online chat, product reviews and social media posts. Organizations must intelligently gather feedback from various sources, including both direct and indirect channels, to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer expectations and uncover insights that traditional surveys may miss.
• Digital support creates winners and losers

While digital channels contribute significantly to revenue and have an outsized impact on loyalty, the study indicates consumers are less satisfied with their digital support experience compared to human-assisted interactions. Addressing this trend is pressing given the increasing reliance on digital channels by brands around the world.

Moira Dorsey, Principal XM Catalyst at Qualtrics XM Institute, commented on the findings, saying, “Consumers in India expect more than ever from the organisations they engage with. Brands need to find ways to capture valuable customer feedback in all the places where it’s being shared – such as through surveys, on social media, call transcripts, chat logs, and review sites – and combine it with operational data – such as average spend and visit frequency – to gain insight into what consumers are doing and better understand how to serve them better.”

Read the full 2024 Consumer Experience Trends Report here.

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, is a cloud-native software provider that empowers organizations to deliver exceptional experiences and build deep relationships with their customers and employees – so they can understand their greatest friction points, retain and engage top talent, and deliver the right products and services. Nearly 20,000 organizations around the world use Qualtrics’ advanced AI to listen, understand, and take action. Qualtrics uses its vast universe of experience data to form the largest database of human sentiment in the world. Qualtrics is co-headquartered in Provo, Utah and Seattle. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.