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Digital-first experiences and customer engagement have exploded over the past two years, causing massive overnight shifts in how the world works and conducts business. A new report from Twilio analyzes how consumers and businesses alike have embraced digital engagement and where the biggest gap exists between what brands think they offer and how customers experience it.

The report reveals the key trends shaping current customer engagement and finds that digital customer engagement is a revenue accelerator. Companies that have invested in digital customer engagement reported an average revenue increase of 70% and expect their investment to double by 2025.

Data is the currency of an accelerated digital age and the battle for data is currently reshaping the internet. Business leaders recognize this – 95% say fully owning and using customer data will be their biggest growth driver in the next three years. B2C companies around the world say the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by 6.5 years, and 17% of companies say they jumped 10 to 14 years into the future.

As companies focus on using data to understand their customers, they face another challenge: the cookie clock. With Google joining Firefox and Safari to officially ban third-party cookies by 2023, companies need to break their addiction to third-party data. The report finds that 55% of businesses are not fully prepared for the approaching cookie-free world, with 81% of businesses relying on third-party cookies, while 85% of consumers want brands to use only first-party data. With third-party cookies traditionally serving as a major pillar of advertising and social media, companies must shift their approach to first-party data. This means that collecting and relying on first-party data will no longer just be a competitive advantage – it will be a survival strategy.

For its report, Twilio enlisted Lawless Research to conduct blind surveys of 3,450 business leaders and 4,500 consumers in 12 countries between December 2021 and January 2022. Additionally, the report displays aggregated, anonymized data from the trillions of interactions on Twilio’s platform, revealing the patterns of how more than 250,000 organizations around the world interact with their customers through digital channels.

Read Twilio’s full report.

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This post Report: 70% increase in revenue for organizations investing in customer engagement

was original published at “https://venturebeat.com/2022/04/08/report-70-increase-in-revenue-for-orgs-that-invest-in-digital-customer-engagement/”