Mobile phone consumers became less loyal in 2020, research suggests

Research from 15gifts also predicted big changes in 2021

Online mobile phone buying behaviour shifted significantly in 2020 with consumers becoming less loyal and spending more time shopping, research from 15gifts has indicated.

15gifts, which powers guided selling engines for sites including Vodafone, Verizon, Virgin Media, EE, and O2, analysed 17M buying interactions across most major telco sites and noted that customers have increasingly searched online for guidance normally provided in-store.

2020 was dominated by covid and store closures which meant 9.2 per cent of all enterprise telco site prospect customers engaged with 15 gifts guided selling engine which represents a 16 per cent increase on 2019.

15gifts anticipates that cautious shopping behaviour will continue going into 2021 and there will be a greater focus on streamlining the technologies on the right service for customers.

15gifts also predicts that customer profile data, modelled from guided selling interactions will open the door to more effective on-site personalisation within prospect flows in 2021.

Currently, minimal browsing data and restrictive cookie policies hinder brands from delivering personalised prospect sales flows but this will change with new access to real-time prospect profiles.

15gifts CEO Tom Cox said of the findings: “We have seen substantial changes in consumers’ online buying and decision-making behaviour in 2020.

“These changes have highlighted a wide range of challenges and opportunities for telcos, not least in terms of how to enhance their online customer experience.

“We believe 2021 will be a year in which telcos will fast track the deployment of technology and data to address this. The most forward-thinking companies will go one step further, looking to use principles of consumer psychology to increasingly humanise the online buying experience.”