Businesses must up their game in 2021 to satisfy “digitally impatient” consumers. Questionmark, the online assessment provider, is calling on employers to ensure that their staff have the skills to create a first-class digital customer experience.

During the months of lockdown, consumers have become more digitally savvy. Research from Deloitte shows that 40 per cent of people shopped online more during 2020. A third increased the amount of video content they streamed and 14% took part in online appointments with health practitioners.1

But the increase in familiarity has made people less tolerant of delay and disruption. Some 41% of customers believe slow and unresponsive service is at the heart of bad customer service.2 Forbes magazine has predicted the rise of the “now customer” in 2021. These are impatient customers who expect the goods and services they want to be instantly available and quickly delivered.3

Lars Pedersen, CEO of Questionmark, said: “Many businesses have been prioritizing digital delivery for many years. But the events of 2020 and the emergence of the ‘now customer’ mean that businesses need to accelerate their efforts. Customers will not wait for what they want. Nor will they tolerate any decline in standards or quality.

“Employers must ensure their staff have the right skills to play their part in this digital upgrade. Online staff assessments can help employers understand the extent of digital skills across the workforce. They can help employers make better decisions on recruitment, training promotions and development.”

Online staff assessments can help employers measure digital skills among the workforce. They can identify strengths and weaknesses, and gaps across teams and business functions.

Employers can then introduce or strengthen training programs. They can ensure that these programs are tailored or not wasted on those that already have the skills by assessing people before training. Employers can check whether it worked by testing participants during and after training, rather than by experimenting on live customers.

Likewise, they can ensure they are bringing the right digital skills into the workforce, by assessing candidates before deciding to hire.

The Questionmark enterprise-grade platform makes assessment content easy to create and adapt. The platform automatically marks papers and instantly compiles results. It is easy to spot trends and patterns. When the stakes are high, a range of anti-cheating measures are available.

Questionmark has also developed the ready-made “Digital marketing knowledge” test which employers can use to assess the digital marketing skills of the workforce. It can help identify areas for training. It can be used in the recruitment process to ensure people with the right skills are joining the team.

www.questionmark.com

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Notes to editors

About Questionmark

Questionmark unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments.

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to leading organizations around the world, delivered with care and unequalled expertise. Its full-service online assessment tool and professional services help customers to improve their performance and meet their compliance requirements. Questionmark enables organizations to unlock their potential by delivering assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.

Questionmark offers secure powerful integration with other LMS, LRS and proctoring services making it easy to bring everything together in one place. Questionmark's cloud-based assessment management platform offers rapid deployment, scalability for high-volume test delivery, 24/7 support, and the peace-of-mind of secure, audited U.S., Australian and European-based data centers.

1 https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/digital-consumer-trends-lockdown-behaviour.htm
2 https://hyken.com/wp-content/uploads/2020-ACA-Survey-1.pdf
3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2020/11/22/ten-business-predictions-for-2021/?sh=444ba362d875