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Covid-19 has boosted the demand for air purifiers with an extensive awareness of the irrepressible virus outbreak, various respiratory ailments, and controlling cross-contamination in residential and commercial segments. The increasing air pollution and health consciousness in global consumers boost the air purifiers market day by day.
With technological advancements, seamless connectivity, and efficient filters, air purifiers have become a part of the USA's must-have home appliances.
During the peak time of the air purifier market, brands need to investigate what peculiarities in an air purifier product make a customer buy it and what is the top area of concern customers face with an air purifier product.
Air Purifiers: Top 3 Aspects Driving Negative Customer Experience
Executive Summary – Key Takeaways
Demand Drivers For Air Purifier Brands
To stay ahead of the competition, each air purifier brand needs to understand its customer's needs and issues by listening to each interaction with the brand. A deep understanding of the demand drivers can produce insights for modifying products and avoiding customer dissatisfaction in the future.
Brands need to understand the critical demand drivers that make customers buy an air purifier that delights them by delivering more than expected.
Clootrack has tracked customer reviews and feedback on air purifiers and found the top 5 demand drivers influencing customers to buy an air purifier.
Air Quality is Always the Topmost Priority
The primary motive for buying an air purifier is to improve the quality of the air. Purifying implies removing various bacteria, viruses, dust, pollen, and other substances to enhance breathing air quality. And, ‘Air Quality’ outscores the next category driver, ‘Noise,’ by 42.5%, making it the topmost driver.
As per Clootrack’s customer experience tracker, some of the aspects under Air Quality are:
- Pure Air
- Clean Air
- Difference in Air Quality
- Air Smells Fresh
- Better Breathing
Category Drivers in the First Half of 2021 (H1) V/s Second Half of 2021 (H2)
To dig deep into the customer experience of the air purifier industry, we segregated the critical category driver scores for two periods.
Apparently, there is not much difference in the driver scores in the first half and second half of the year. And, it clearly shows that ‘Air Quality’ is constantly the top driver that always leads a customer to buy an air purifier. Similarly, Noise, Air Flow, and Ease of Use remain as the top drivers.
‘User Experience’ has come as the 5th category driver in the second half since customers mainly focus on the functional capability of an air purifier more than ‘experience.’ Moreover, customers are satisfied if an air purifier does its job, i.e., purifies and cleanses the air.
Aspects of Air Purifiers That Witnessed an Increase in Negative Customer Experience
While the surface showed that nothing much changed in the top demand drivers, scratching the insights further helped to unravel some aspects of air purifiers that showed a dip in the positive customer experience in the second half of 2021 (H2) compared to the first half of the year (H1).
The top drivers - Air Quality, Air Flow, Noise, User Experience, and Ease of Use have a dip of less than 5% positivity in their reviews.
But lesser critical factors such as the Light Type and Effects, Filter, and Effects on Allergy/Breathing are the aspects that gathered more than a 5% dip in their positive reviews in the second half of the year.
Top 3 Aspects Driving Negative Customer Experience
A drastic dip of 9.53% positivity shows that Light Types in the air purifiers gathered more negative customer experience attention towards the second half of 2021. Air purifier brands need to recheck the lighting specifications and LED lights they use in their products.
1. Light Type and Effects
Night lights, the color of the lights, and over brightness are the core reasons customers feel more negative about Light Type and Effects of air purifiers.
2. Filter
HEPA, washable, carbon, charcoal, filter light, and filter quality are the factors that attracted less positivity in the filter aspect of air purifiers.
3. Effects on Allergy/Breathing
Severe allergy, seasonal allergy, Sinus, and breathing problems are the factors around which less positivity is gathered in the Effects of Allergy/Breathing.
Why is There a Dip in Positive Customer Experience for ‘Light Type and Effects’
LED Light is the critical contributor that caused this dip since there is an 18% dip in positivity around LED Light of air purifiers towards the second half of the year.
As per many customer issues around LED lights, it is clear that customers don’t like bright lights in their rooms, especially at night time. And, customers prefer to have an option to dim the light in air purifiers without letting it turn off.
Few customer verbatims around LED lights:
“during auto mode the led lights could be a bit too bright for some people ”
“don’t forget about the obnoxious led light either- manufacturers of all manner of consumer crap feel the need to put very bright leds in everything these days.”
“Put black tape over the cool looking blue LED light that is Way too bright when the UV is on. This LED blue light color was a poor choice for a nightlight.”
The above reviews reveal that customers don't like bright LED lights in air purifiers, especially in their bedrooms.
Understanding which product or model has gathered the most negativity around LED light can help brands correct the flaws in their next production.
The Price and Quality Ratio
The price range has been divided into five - L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5.
36% of products belong to the lowest price band, priced below $70.
There is an assumption that lower-priced products might be made of cheap materials; thereby, their quality won’t be up to the mark, so that they will attract more negative reviews. But as per, Clootrack’s findings around air purifiers prove that this assumption is wrong.
When checking the customer satisfaction with price bands against each category driver, L2 ($69.99 - $99.99) outscores other price bands in the Air Quality and Ease of Use drivers. This shows that relatively less priced air purifiers deliver high efficiency in air purification and are more convenient.
This indicates that, no matter what all the luxurious advancements and additional options an air purifier offer, customers prefer the one that does its job effectively and promptly, purifying the air.
L1 has less satisfied customers with its Air Quality, Noise, and poor Air Flow features. Comparatively, L5 is not scoring well in any of these drivers. So it raises a concern for brands to invest in improving the quality of products rather than adding bells and whistles to make a luxurious product without quality.
Price Bands V/s Customer Satisfaction Across Top Area of Concerns
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L3 ($99.99 - $161.74) recorded a lower customer satisfaction across all the top areas of concern.
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L5 ($239.99 - $979.99, inspite of being the higher-priced products, dissatisfied customers for its Light Type & Effects, and Filter.
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L2 ($69.99 - $99.99) and L4 ($161.74 - $239.99) reportedly caused customers more allergic and breathing issues.
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Surprisingly L1 ($0 - $69.99), the least priced product, has a higher ranking for filters.
Overall, L3 ($99.99 - $161.74) is the price band in which customers are more dissatisfied with all 3 top areas of concern.
Summary
Air quality is the constant driver that leads customers to choose an air purifier product since it’s the core purpose of an air purifier. But sometimes, even if customers buy air purifiers to clean and purify the air, subsidiary features like noise, lights, and filters can worsen the overall customer experience.
Air purifiers that are relatively less priced have satisfied more customers than other high price bands. If brands are selling a high-priced product, they should not forget about the quality of core functionality while focusing on other advanced and luxurious features.
Overall, brands have to listen to their customers to know what makes them dissatisfied with the product. If a product purifies the air efficiently, it doesn’t mean customers will like it. There can be other factors that fatally affect the whole customer experience.
Detailed Report
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