FeatureThe habits of consumers in the UAE mirror the world around them. The surging appetite for digital services, while initially a knock-on effect of a global pandemic, is unlikely to reverse itself when the crisis is over. Brands will continue to be judged on their digital experiences. Only the ones with the best tools and insights to meet heightened customer expectations will prevail.
A recent AppDynamics report App Attention Index 2021: Who takes the rap for the app? shows that 98% of UAE consumers, 14% higher than the global average, believe digital services have had a positive impact on their lives during the pandemic.
Consumers say they want the Total Application Experience, that means applications which are responsive, easy to use, secure, always on, and constantly improving to align with even more demanding user expectations. In the coming year, all brands will face the pressure to meet these demands for flawless customer experience.
Digital gratitude
The App Attention Index reveals a strong sense of attachment, from customers, towards the brands that supported their needs during the pandemic through digital services. A majority said that applications gave them a sense control and a feeling of empowerment, acting as a lifeline to normality. And consumers are not shy to acknowledge and express gratitude for the efforts behind those digital experiences.
85% of UAE respondents said they were grateful to brands that invested in digital to ensure access to the services they most relied on, and 82%, 15% higher than the global average, indicated that they now feel more loyal to those brands that went the extra mile to deliver high quality applications.
Blame game
Given the fact that consumers are now perfectly aware of how a state-of-the-art application should look and work, it is no surprise that our report found they are not willing to put up with flawed applications anymore. They rarely ask questions about the source of an outage, a slowdown, or any other deterioration in a digital service. They immediately resort to finger-pointing. In the UAE, 69% of consumers believe the responsibility for flawless, uninterrupted experiences lies solely with the brand.
First impressions
73% of UAE consumers, 16% higher than the global average, say they are not prepared to give second chances to brands that disappoint them on the first try. This is, again, hardly a surprising finding, given the volume of choice within reach for consumers. Tolerance for poor digital experience has all but disappeared. And if an alternative brand manages to impress them the first time, then digital-savvy consumers will have no reason to return to the platform that irked them.
To respond to the demand for the total application experience, technologists need unified, real-time visibility into IT performance across their entire IT estate, from the applications themselves to the core infrastructure — full-stack observability. Without this level of comprehensive observability, they do not stand a chance of being able to rapidly identify and fix performance issues before they impact the end user.
Brands will continue to be judged on their digital experiences and only the best tools and insights to meet customer expectations will prevail.
