Taiwan

Customer Experience Excellence report 2022

The pursuit of customer experience excellence through digitalization is a clear unifier for Taiwan’s top-performing brands in this year’s CEE brand rankings. But these brands also need to be wary of the threats rampant digitalization can create, and many will face key challenges in the coming months.

The first relates to Google’s decision to end third party cookies. As a result, brands will need to proactively design and implement their own customer data collection mechanism. To earn trust and ensure the integrity of their CX model, brands will need to be transparent about data collection and carefully evaluate the relevancy and security of their approach. At the same time, Taiwan's national police agency reports that online shopping fraud is on the rise. Digital platforms had helped businesses and consumers access goods and services during the pandemic and, as this legacy continues and criminals use its omnipresence and success as a guise, it's crucial for brands to educate their consumers on how to recognise fraud.

Many retailers are facing challenges from the rapid growth of e-commerce, though the Grocery retail sector in Taiwan grows steadily – and tops the 2022 CEE sector rankings. Brands in this sector adapted well to consumer behavioural change since the pandemic, providing omnichannel retailing by collaborating with delivery platforms such as UberEats and FoodPanda.

Meanwhile a world-renowned Chinese restaurant tops this year’s Taiwanese CEE brand rankings. Famed for its steamed buns, Din Tai Fung has won praise for its customer service and staff training, qualities it's maintained through the challenges of the pandemic and expanding overseas. “Din Tai Fung has never let me down,” says one customer. “Its quality, taste, and service consistency are impeccable.”

Each step of the customer journey, from the queues to the tables, pouring tea to taking orders in dialects or foreign languages, is designed through skilful internal training and assessment. Knowing its employees are key to its success, Din Tai Fung committed to uphold its employee welfare in 2021 despite a quarter loss of revenue as a result of the pandemic. Today Din Tai Fung exports its celebrated CX model to 175 branches in 15 countries and, to ensure consistency, the restaurant chain sends its service training team to each location to establish the high-quality end-to-end customer service delivered at home.

Din Tai Fung is in some ways an outlier in this year's rankings, but no single sector dominates the list of highest ranked brands. Repeatedly high-performing Starbucks and Nike sit side by side with new entries to the top ten, among them Netflix, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation and DAWHO, the third-largest digital bank account in Taiwan.

Customers, like businesses, are facing the challenges set by advanced technology. They can be overwhelmed with information and options, not to mention new mediums that shape their experiences. Businesses should carefully evaluate whether their strategy and investment are creating something that will exceed customer expectation or the other way around.

Wayne Lai
Chief Digital Officer, Head of Digital
KPMG in Taiwan