Published on the 03/08/2015 | Written by Beverley Head

A survey of 3,000 Australians has uncovered an “experience gap” between the digital experience consumers want and the one they receive…

In the first of what it plans to become an annual series, German software giant SAP quizzed consumers about the digital experience they have across six different sectors of the economy. It asked about how brands performed during the discovery, transaction, delivery and support phases – 13 attributes in all – and the results, released today, weren’t pretty.

With the exception of one insurance company – Suncorp – all of the 34 brands performed poorly with consumers registering an overly negative experience.

In all, 47 percent of respondents were unsatisfied with the digital experience delivered by 34 leading Australian brands.

Food retailers as a sector performed best, with telecommunications and utilities companies the worst.

However, only 32 percent of respondents ever engaged with grocery suppliers online – a much more meagre penetration than banking, where 84 percent of those people surveyed said they used digital banking services.

Each sector was given a score based on the responses. Grocery retailers, were the “least worst” with a score of -10 percent. Banking followed on -18 percent, insurance -19 percent, retail (consumer) -20 percent, telecommunications -26 percent and utilities with the lowest score of -33 percent.

According to Sameer Areff, vice president and head of industries for SAP Australia and New Zealand, this index will act as an initial benchmark for companies which want to lift their digital game. SAP plans to repeat the analysis in future years to see how companies and sectors fare.

However SAP is being entirely opaque about which companies did well and which did poorly, in fact only naming two – Suncorp Insurance and Kogan – as even featuring in the study.

Suncorp proved the standout, scoring positively in 11 of the 13 tested attributes.

Areff said that in general however; “Australian brands are not delivering the digital experience customers want.”

According to SAP analysis of the responses from consumers showed that there are tangible benefits for enterprises which lift their digital game, saying that the report suggested that customers who were happy with their digital experience were four times more likely to remain loyal than those who were not pleased. Of the consumers who had a negative digital experience, only 17 percent said they would remain loyal to that brand.