• by Ben Frederick  @mp_benfred, February 23, 2016

Sixty percent of mobile users said that their expectations of mobile experiences in apps have not been totally met. When that happens, 93% of mobile users say they would take action as a result, including making a complaint to customer services, purchasing from an alternate brand, or never purchasing from the offending brand again.

The data comes from Sitecore and Vanson Bourne, based on 4,500 consumers from North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

“There are material consequences to a bad mobile experience,” says Sitecore CMO Scott Anderson.

Sixty-one percent of respondents say they have a mobile phone that is switched on and near them for 10 hours a day, on average. Fifty-one percent said they check their phone within an hour of waking up, but the average consumer checks their phone within 29 minutes of waking up. About 50% of mobile users replace their phones every two years.

This level of symbiosis with mobile devices has caused many marketers to make the wrong assumptions about the relationship between people and their devices.

“I hope marketers understand that it’s the consumer who is mobile, the device enables that, but it’s not the driver,” says Anderson. “The entire textbook hasn’t been written about how to engage with customers in a mobile environment.”

Anderson says that while some marketers and advertisers try to “train” consumers into new methods of interaction with ads and brands, he believes the most successful cases come from consumers telling marketers what to do and not the other way around.

Citing apps and services like Amazon and Uber, Anderson says once the dynamic of interaction has been changed, it is impossible to go back.