The customer is still king, and delivering a positive, memorable experience remains a top strategic objective for any company.

A PwC report highlights that nearly three quarters (73%) of consumers say CX is a crucial factor influencing their purchasing decisions. In a survey of 2000 South African consumers, 55% said at a grocery retailer, healthcare facility or fashion outlet.

A good Customer Experience means different things to different people, however. Regional differences driven by cultural differences and varying levels of sophistication means there is no one-size-fits-all solution to delivering a great CX.

For many consumers, a positive CX means seamless, fast and personalised buying journeys. For others, it’s quick, responsive customer service. Organisations need to put themselves in their customer shoes to understand what the different expectations are for the various customer segments.

Key differences in CX expectations across industries and regions

The regional differences in CX was made clear during a recent trip. Traveling through the US, the experience in bigger cities and metros was built on automation and efficiency, with extensive use of technology. In the smaller towns, the focus was more on personal touch and a slower pace.

Similar disparities are apparent in the Middle East. Companies in Dubai seek customer experiences built on efficiency, with a strong focus on digital experiences. In Saudi Arabia, companies focus on building relationships with customers, and prioritise maintaining those relationships over the long term.

Back home, recent interactions with companies in Cape Town and Johannesburg revealed disparities between two of the main business hubs in South Africa. As the country’s main industrial hub, Johannesburg’s business sector is led by manufacturing and services industries, which have different expectations of CX to those of companies in Cape Town, where the retail and financial sectors dominates.

The danger for companies seeking to enhance their CX efforts is that they fall back on cookie-cutter strategies. A successful CX initiative in the manufacturing sector – for example for Sasol – is vastly different to a successful CX initiative for a retailer such as Shoprite. Getting the balance right for your business will be the fundamental element of CX success in the months ahead.

Fundamentals of great CX

To deliver a consistent, positive experience, companies leverage technologies that can remove friction from customers’ lives and ensure a memorable and seamless journey across every touchpoint.

The use of powerful cloud technologies allows companies to deploy, test and quickly scale up new customer-facing innovations, or wind down CX-related activities that are not producing the desired results. In today鈥檚 world this agility is a must have as the days of long go-to-market periods are gone.

However, understanding the fundamentals underpinning a consistently positive customer experience is even more important than the technology mix that is deployed to enable it. Three of the most important CX fundamentals in 2024 and beyond include:

1 Understanding unique customer needs

Cultivating a deep understanding of customer needs and expectations is a first step in developing an effective customer experience strategy. By using data and technology to gain insights into customer expectations and preferences, companies can design experiences that feel tailored and relevant.

This contributes to increased customer satisfaction, improved retention, and building trust. Companies leveraging advanced analytics and cloud-based CX technology platforms such as 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud can shift their CX strategies beyond assumptions to actionable insights. Powerful new AI-powered technologies accelerate companies’ ability to act on data-driven insights, ensuring scalable and adaptive CX strategies that consistently meet or exceed customer expectations.

2 Hyper-personalisation

Companies that deliver relevant and meaningful customer experiences have a distinct advantage over their peers.

Here, technology is crucial, as it’s the cornerstone of hyper-personalisation. Advanced tools and cloud-based platforms enable companies to collect, process and analyse vast amounts of customer data that can be applied to CX strategies.

Tools such as CRM systems and real-time analytics powered by AI enable companies to gain a 360-degree view of each customer, while marketing automation tools ensure each customer receives the most relevant message or offer at the right time and via their preferred channel.

3 A focus on building trust

Trust is the foundation of all customer relationships and a key ingredient in effective CX. Without trust, even the most advanced personalisation efforts simply won’t break through. But trust is hard-won and easily lost.

Disappearing loyalty points that expire before customers can redeem their value create negative perceptions that erode customer trust. Similarly, rewards campaigns that expect customers to navigate lengthy and complex redemption processes will likely fail to meet customer expectations, undermining broader CX efforts.

Modern CX technology solutions help companies build and maintain trust by prioritising transparency, privacy, customer engagement and value. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants ensure honest and clear communication with customers, preventing misunderstandings. And AI-powered feedback platforms help companies listen actively to customer concerns, ensuring they take corrective steps to protect and reinforce trust.

In conclusion

As we head into 2025 take the lessons from 2024 and do not forget about the customer in your 2025 CX strategy. Start with understanding their expectations and build appropriate experiences based on their segment, be it regional, industry or even maturity level.

The post The Fundamentals of Positive Customer Experience for 2025 appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Every consumer鈥檚 needs evolve as they adopt new communication technologies available to them. Today, consumers want faster, ever more personal experiences when interacting with their favourite brands, while also demanding to buy products or services at the best possible price and quality. To meet this need, brands have had to adapt quickly to use technology to engage consumer audiences and increase customer experience, and so are now realising ever more AI-powered interactions with customers on channels like SMS, WhatsApp and Instagram. With publicity on new AI platforms like ChatGPT increasing consumer interest in AI, it has also helped build their trust in AI, as they are seeing the benefits of AI themselves firsthand, outweighing a lot of previous scepticism. Therefore, far more consumers are more open to AI and like the increased customer experience it offers.

However, without the right kind of data, AI will never be able to provide meaningful insights that can help brands create the personalised experiences that build business growth, provide consumer value and develop customer loyalty. Consumers are far more likely to share their data when they know that doing so will provide benefits to them, in terms of cost savings, better customer care and closer connections to brands they love. Transparency is needed from brands as it’s crucial in gaining trust. Sharing how data is being used when consumers first interact with a company means those brands that provide transparency and direct value will enjoy the kind of wide-reaching brand loyalty that only comes from more personalised, value-oriented interactions.

It is also important that consumer data isn鈥檛 seen in isolation. It can span engagements across customer service, marketing and sales transactions. So, it鈥檚 important it is not siloed by companies and covers multiple communications channels the consumer uses to interact with brands.

, Senior Sales Lead, Africa & Israel for 鈥� a global communications platform as a service (CPaaS) leader 鈥� says: 鈥淢odern customer engagement has to enable rich, interconnected, omnichannel communication across multiple channels for a personalised experience. So, to gain a full 360-degree view of the customer, including their prior engagements and sentiment, a brand need access to consolidated omnichannel data.鈥�

He cites, for example, the retail opportunity to generate targeted digital marketing, linked directly to sales, customer verification, delivery confirmation and engagement, returns, complaints and customer service. However, consolidating and integrating disparate systems and data plus integrating and automating key processes to achieve this can prove challenging.

鈥淥rganisations need to choose solutions designed to integrate and deliver business value through improved customer engagement. Their customer experience strategy should be supported by established partners who have the expertise to guide them and the advanced technologies to support their business strategies,鈥� he adds.

, Sales Leader, at , adds: 鈥淲ith ever-improving and sophisticated algorithms, we can now better understand customers, anticipate their needs while providing a human-like conversational interaction. Yet, complex and tailored solutions that cater to unique business requirements demand a vast and composable partner ecosystem. Intelligent customer experience comes from working with technology partners that understand individual industry needs, providing connections across departments and their technologies. Working with the best technology partners that can provide integrated operational and contextual data from across the entire enterprise with AI insights to support a seamless customer experience is therefore critical to success.鈥�

It is therefore vital that any business that wants to have an intelligent customer experience approach must support current and future growth and have feature-rich, composable, core platform capabilities. This allows customisation at a flexible pace through vetted, certified and integrated technology partners.

Sinch, recognised as a leader in the , and in the , is the only 麻豆原创-endorsed contact centre solution that works with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 CRM and 麻豆原创 Service Cloud. With out-of-the-box integration with 麻豆原创, Sinch supports omnichannel contact centre communication across channels, including telephony, e-mail, chat, video, SMS and a broad range of messaging apps. It also supports RCS communication 鈥� the next generation of SMS that is听听in the near future. Sinch is also the partner for SMS and WhatsApp. Its own chatbot solution 鈥� Sinch Chatlayer 鈥� is pre-integrated with Sinch Contact Centre to deliver 24/7 human-like voicebot and chatbot conversations.

麻豆原创 Customer Experience Partner Director EMEA South, says: 鈥淎s a key partner, Sinch fits perfectly into 麻豆原创’s customer experience strategy, the Sinch Contact Pro solution together with its AI-enabled Chatlayer, gives 麻豆原创’s Service Cloud customers the opportunity to communicate with their customers on all mobile channels and reduce the number of calls to customer service by approximately 80% 鈥� a true customer experience moment.鈥�

Sinch and 麻豆原创 will co-host a webinar for South African organisations, focusing on the future of customer engagement, on 21 September 2023. For more information and to register for this event, click听.

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At the same time, cost volatility, supply chain disruptions and workforce shortages further exacerbate these challenges for retailers. Moreover, the dual challenges of cost-push inflation and the shifting landscape of consumer behaviour represent a formidable test for even the most resilient players in the retail sector. The retail sector has seen tremendous change, with traditional brick-and-mortar retailers now facing fierce competition from their online retail counterparts.

This fierce competition takes place in a dynamic environment where consumer loyalty is influenced by rapidly changing customer needs and expectations. Customers today have a multitude of options, making it crucial for retailers to adapt swiftly to meet their demands. However, within all these challenges also lie unparalleled opportunities. The future of retail doesn’t have to be characterised by doom and gloom. Rather, it is a future in which cutting-edge technology can serve as a guiding beacon, illuminating untapped avenues for innovation, growth, and prosperity for retailers.

But how do听retailers deliver on these priorities?

To thrive in this dynamic environment, retailers must prioritise and excel in several key areas:

• Deliver differentiated customer experience.
• Build, and monetise new and innovative business models.
• Prioritise the sustainability imperative, while maintaining emphasis on profitability and financial sustainability.

To seize these opportunities, retailers must embrace technology and embark on a journey of digital transformation. This involves investing and adopting emerging and transformative technologies such as predictive data analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Simply put, retailers need to leverage technology to build robust customer relationships.

All of these are areas where technology can help close the gap; from leveraging the cloud to lower the cost of setting up and using technology, to leveraging digitalisation to better manage procurement and warehouse management processes, or Machine Learning to better manage and gain insights from customer data; one thing is certain: technology can play a significant role.

Innovation is no longer a nice to have.

Many retailers are aware that success is no longer solely about market share, competitiveness, and profitability. Success is directly linked to staying ahead of the curve, anticipating market shifts before they materialise, and designing retail experiences that deeply resonate with consumers. To remain relevant, retailers must surpass the conventional boundaries of commerce. They must prioritise innovation and evolve into more than mere transactional retail spaces, but rather, into centres of innovation and immersive consumer experiences.

Join us at the Africa Chapter of the

On October 11^th, in Cape Town, 麻豆原创 will host a retail event centered around the pivotal role of technology in the retail industry. We will unpack technology solutions and tools that can help retailers with omnichannel planning and optimisation, predict shifting consumer behaviours and needs, build, and run modern sustainable supply chains, automate inventory management, offer personalised and tailored shopping experiences.

At 麻豆原创, we believe in the power of collaboration, the strength of innovation, and the promise of a brighter, more connected future leveraging our purpose-built retail solutions embedded with emerging technologies such as AI, ML, and predictive analytics. Together with our partners, we look forward to welcoming you, and creating unique and profoundly impactful shopping experiences for your customers.

Are you ready to see Retail in Motion? Cape Town awaits, .

The post Retail In Motion: Driving Resilience and Adaptability In Modern Retail appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

听had its first-ever 鈥渄rive event鈥� in Nairobi for customers and partners in November 2022 to explain more about business innovation and transformation and to show companies how with the right technology and insights, and with the right partner, they can grow exponentially.

麻豆原创 bills itself as the听鈥渃oolest software company you have never heard of鈥�听running the critical systems of top companies in diverse industries like ice cream, pet food, beauty products, and finance where 77% of all global transactions go through an 麻豆原创 system.

Excerpts:

Why Innovate?听Hardeep Sound, the 麻豆原创 Regional Director, East Africa said that since 2000, 52% of the Fortune 500 companies have gone out of business. In Kenya, household names like Intercontinental and Tuskys were among the 1,300 and 2,530 companies that folded shop in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

The pace of growth has also accelerated in recent years; whereas between 1955 to 2011 it took a Fortune 500 company 20 years to reach a billion-dollar valuation, today they are getting there in 4 years. He said that companies in Kenya could enhance their value by mining customer data, doing analytics, managing customer relationships and experiences, managing human resources, digitizing supply chains, and monitoring how they spend their resources.

Easy Connections:听Stanley Dube, 麻豆原创鈥檚 Head of Presales in Africa explained how Nokia sold 126 million model 3310 devices, and while his still works 22 years on, the company is a shell of its past. He said that one teaches people how to use phones and applications 鈥� they simply buy new devices and start using apps, without realizing how they are partners with companies like Apple and Google who do software updates and backups in the cloud. And if someone loses their phone, they can recover everything back in a matter of hours on a new device.

He likened owing a phone to 麻豆原创鈥檚 vision to enable companies to be intelligent and sustainable enterprises to deliver business and societal outcomes, with 麻豆原创鈥檚 modular ERP in the cloud that can manage finance, procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, asset management, research, supply chain and human resources combining 50 years of experience and meeting 80% of the enterprise needs of most companies. 麻豆原创鈥檚 ERP can connect with apps from other technology vendors while they also have a store that has 2,000 applications where companies can find products that others have built and which they can use.

Aside from the savings that can be 20% to 30% over five years from having 麻豆原创 run backups, operations, data centres, software, licenses, and maintenance, it frees up managers from doing things like generating reports and shifting to do other things that can add value to companies like strategic planning.

Finding Value in Data:听Bhavesh Chavda, Senior Director of Business Technology (BTP) Platform, spoke of the importance of harnessing data; it鈥檚 not just about migrating data from an unsafe on-site server room to the cloud, companies also must assess the quality and timeliness of their data for it to be useful and accessible and interrogated by management and by other applications. He said managers should be able to interrogate data, without knowing how to do any coding听(鈥渘o-code, low-code鈥�). The 麻豆原创 BTP cleans up enterprise data and enables data-driven decisions, with continuous automation, low code extensions, and application testing. The BTP discovery centre is a free tier to try out for companies to connect, automate, and innovate and 12,000 customers around the world use BTP. He said that 麻豆原创鈥檚 ERP can connect even with third-party apps while companies can sign on to the free business technology platform (BTP) and start building on new applications.

Rapid Feedback with 麻豆原创:听Sherif Hamoudah, Head of Ecosystems & Channels for 麻豆原创 Signavio spoke about 麻豆原创 Signavio, a transformational system that enables companies to do what used to take consulting teams months to do. Signavio drills through 60 different processes for enterprise transformation within a day, spotting redundancies and inefficiencies and recommending fixes that have been adopted by other organizations for continuous improvement. He gave examples from the auto industry where semiconductor shortages are affecting car manufacturing, and in finance, where global firms are using Signavio for risk compliance.

Using Data to Drive Revenue:听Rais David, Senior Customer Experience Solutions Specialist 麻豆原创 spoke of the value of data and the importance of using current data to discern trends in revenue. Google is phasing out cookies by the end of 2023 and this is at a time when mobile e-commerce accounts for $511 billion or 7.5% of all sales. At the same time, $93 billion of online sales are abandoned each year because customers find there are too many steps to complete a purchase transaction. 麻豆原创 systems manage 3 billion consumer data identities, while protecting their privacy, and process $570 billion making them the 7th largest entity in sales.

Fast Turnaround on Implementation:听Lewi Maina, Consulting Services Manager at 麻豆原创 emphasized the importance of businesses being quick to implement changes if they are to thrive in fast-changing environments. He said that once they took a path, they should aim for a quick turnaround time for projects as he said that some companies in Africa can now deploy Rise and other 麻豆原创 projects in a few weeks. This is a takeaway from previous transformation projects at companies that took up to three years. He said that the five keys to a successful deployment were implementing cloud with an agile mindset, using preconfigured solutions, leveraging on modern integration and extension technologies, and ensuring transparent documentation on deviations.

At the drive event, testimony was shared from some clients of 麻豆原创 including;

• David Kariuki, ICT & Innovation Manager of the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO), the state agency that builds high voltage transmission lines across Kenya. In 2018 after the government asked entities to take procurement online and plug into their central procurement system, known as IFMIS, KETRACO chose 麻豆原创鈥檚 Ariba as it sought to replace a manual procurement process where suppliers brought in envelopes and huge booklets of tender documents to be reviewed and scored in a time-consuming and laborious process. After a long process of digitization, standardizing procurement, tracking activities to reduce time loss, and overcoming supplier resistance, KETRACO, which was one of the first companies in East Africa to deploy 麻豆原创鈥檚 Ariba is now a centre of benchmarking for e-procurement. They also have access to innovation, as 麻豆原创 updates come over the cloud quarterly for them to adopt.
• John Wachira the Group Manager of Information Technology at the Safal Group (popularly known for its Mabati Rolling Mills products) spoke about the complex deployment with 麻豆原创 to consolidate the group鈥檚 36 operations that are in eight countries. They are in the second phase now to consolidate the end-to-end manufacturing, downstream operations, and commercial operations into one standard business environment on the cloud. They have gone live in six countries with two to go.

This article first appeared on the .

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To ensure said growth, it is the customer experience (CX) element that requires the greatest amount of attention, refinement and fine tuning. As such, when considering the CX journey, an experience that is as frictionless and helpful as possible is the end goal, but companies should not stop there either.

To that end, the future should also play a key part when developing an effective CX journey.

This was one of the major talking points during a recent C-Suite roundtable hosted by听and bespoke software provider, where the pair listened to some of the CX pain points of other enterprises, as well as offering up their own insights on the matter.

Think about the destination

Unpacking some of the overarching problems that were highlighted by those in attendance in developing a CX journey,听, marketing director at 麻豆原创 Africa, noted that legacy systems are a continuing issue for many.

Moyo also noted that it is not just the systems that are an area of concern, but also legacy in terms of the approach to disruption.

鈥淎s an example, if you think of legislation in the financial sector and how much of a hurdle it can present, fintech has found an effective way to negotiate that,鈥� he illustrated.

鈥淚 think it is key when you talk about disruption, to zoom into the fact that technology enables good strategy. Customer strategy is not really a function of technology, and while technology can make it better, it ultimately enhances what your company needs to deal with, whether that be good or bad. There are countless examples of companies with vast resources and access to technology, but they simply cannot get it right,鈥� he continued.

As such, Moyo emphasises the need to think about the future in approaching the CX journey, as those organisations saddled with legacy, both in terms of systems and its approach to technology, will ultimately never break free of the current customer experience model.

鈥淲hen you think about the technology that enables your customer strategy, it is based on sound principles,鈥� he stressed.

One of the other aspects that Moyo addressed as a direct result of the conversations that took place during the roundtable was that of omni-channel in terms of how the customer is viewed.

No singular view

鈥淔or me, it is not about a single view of a customer, it鈥檚 rather about developing a customer for life. In order to do that you need to have the right data, connect it correctly and then you need to understand the insights that are coming out of that data,鈥� he explained.

鈥淲e have to think about how we unify the ecommerce experience. Not only that, but we also have to think about the traditional way that we take our value to the market. Things like how we bring our physical stores and operations to the online space, along with paying attention to the end-to-end value chain,鈥� posited the 麻豆原创 executive.

Another area he made particular mention of is trust in the CX journey. When you consider the desire to create lifelong customers, trust might be the most crucial ingredient, which once again feeds into the theme of the future as a central pillar in the development of a CX journey.

鈥淭oday鈥檚 customer does not just want to buy a car. They want to know where it was made, how it was made and whether it was done in a responsible way, so data becomes a necessary consideration for that aspect of the customer journey,鈥� he added.

As such, there is much for businesses that deal with customers or have a service they wish to bring to the fore, to think about. In the view of 麻豆原创, Consnet and many C-Suite executives, building a solid CX journey requires forethought and an understanding of the destination, as well as the ride.

To find out how 麻豆原创 and Consnet can assist your business in developing a winning CX journey,听.

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According to Amrish Singh, Global Customer Experience Advisor at 麻豆原创 Africa, South Africans were traditionally used to physical purchases where they can see the quality of a product or the freshness of a loaf of bread 鈥� but that has changed dramatically.

鈥淭he past few years have seen massive growth in online purchases as consumers become more comfortable to enjoy the convenience of online purchases. Where South African e-commerce has traditionally lagged behind more developed markets, a new wave of digitally-mature companies are driving e-commerce, ably supported by a rich ecosystem of fulfilment partners, forward-thinking retailers and digitally-native consumers. However, this is putting significant pressure on retailers to ensure they offer great online customer experiences at all times.鈥�

Digital adoption driving digital maturity

, e-commerce purchases in South Africa grew by 66% in 2020 to reach more than R30-billion 鈥� double what it was two years prior. 鈥淒espite the relaxing of strict lockdown measures that restricted the movement of consumers to brick-and-mortar stores, online shopping continues to grow in popularity as more retailers introduce e-commerce offerings tailor-made for SA鈥檚 burgeoning consumer market.鈥�

Singh, who advises companies on improving their customer experiences and digital maturity, adds that companies seeking to introduce online offerings will first need to determine their level of maturity to understand what further development is needed to create compelling customer experiences.

鈥淒igital maturity refers to a company鈥檚 performance across hundreds of touch points in a typical digital customer journey, grouped in four main categories, namely Mobile, CX, Digital Marketing and Social Media,鈥� says Singh. 鈥淎s companies explore new revenue opportunities in the age of the always-connected consumer, keeping track of digital maturity will be essential to creating compelling customer experiences online.鈥�

To help companies in their efforts to develop seamless and effective online customer experiences, Singh provides tips for improving each of the four pillars of digital maturity:

Pillar 1: Mobile

In a country where听, having a mobile presence is essential to any company鈥檚 digital ambitions.

鈥淎 fast, responsive and user-friendly mobile app or mobile web responsive site is a must-have for companies as it creates a powerful channel for sales and customer service while also delivering vital information, such as where to find the nearest store,鈥� explains Singh.
More digitally mature companies will also integrate other services such as WhatsApp for customer support discussions or Google Maps so customers can navigate to the nearest store directly from their device of choice.
Singh adds that companies also need to build tailored functionality into their mobile apps based on the type of business. 鈥淔or example, if you are a pharmacy, does your app indicate whether there is an on-site clinic? If your business receives high volumes of customer queries, are your contact details hyperlinked so customers can reach you with a single tap?鈥�

Pillar 2: Overall Customer Experience

Customer Experience forms an important part of the Experience Economy and has become a core tenet of successful businesses, on par with traditional metrics such as product quality and price.

Some studies suggest that听, while听.

鈥淕reat online customer experiences are essential to the success of any company鈥檚 digital efforts,鈥� says Singh. 鈥淗ow well-designed and easy to navigate is your homepage? Can customers easily create an account profile? An easy win here is to use social logins so your customers don鈥檛 have to remember yet another set of usernames and passwords.鈥�

Guided selling, which employs the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to help customers find exactly what they are looking for 鈥� sometimes before they even know they鈥檙e looking for it 鈥� is also growing in popularity as the underlying technology improves.

鈥淗aving clear product images with detailed information, as well as ratings and customer reviews, further help create a compelling experience that can build trust with consumers and encourage repeat purchases. A seamless returns experience, especially for consumer goods and fashion items, is also vital, as any delay in replacing a defective product can damage the relationship with the customer and push them to your competitors.鈥�

Pillar 3: Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is an essential driver of modern commerce and has given rise to some of the world most valuable companies. In a survey of more than 14 000 online shoppers,听.

鈥淐ompanies have to make sure they rank highly for their relevant keywords on popular search engines such as Google,鈥� says Singh. 鈥淎spects such as which branded keywords they track for, strong calls to action, and ensuring that all ads direct to a live link 鈥� and not an unfortunate 404 page 鈥� are also vital.鈥�

Regulations such as the Protection of Personal Information Act and the European Union鈥檚 GDPR add a compliance element to customer communications.

鈥淭he ability for consumers to easily opt in and opt out of communication is both a customer experience and a regulatory requirement. Digitally mature organisations will also ensure there is a pleasant and relevant rollout of content to a newly opted-in customer to deepen their interest and start building a positive relationship with the customer.鈥�

Pillar 4: Social Media

With nearly听, social media has become a ubiquitous part of modern digital life.

Singh says modern brands simply cannot afford to not have a strong social media presence. 鈥淎t a minimum, companies should have systems and processes in place to regularly post content according to a well thought out social media policy, track engagement, and respond quickly and effectively to negative posts on their social pages.鈥�

For more digitally mature companies, social commerce could help drive valuable traffic and sales. 鈥淗ow easily are your customers directed from the social post to a product page with e-commerce capabilities? And how do you leverage content to build strong connections with a specific audience? For example, if you鈥檙e a hardware supplier, do you have a YouTube channel with tutorials for how to use certain tools or how to fix common household DIY problems? And do those videos direct to other products relevant to the tutorial?鈥�

According to Singh, companies should partner with experts that can lend a global perspective on best practices to accelerate their move to greater digital maturity.

鈥淥ur customer experience advisory team assesses more than four hundred touch points across the four pillars of digital maturity to give organisations a clear picture of their strengths and areas of improvement. This can eliminate wasted effort and more quickly push them to greater digital maturity, with all the customer satisfaction and revenue-boosting benefits that brings.”

The post How to Measure and Improve your Digital Maturity for Online Sales Success appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

This has involved servicing, selling, and consulting to top South African corporates, and Emert has extensive experience selling SaaS products such as CRM, Marketing Automation, CIAM, ECPM, eCommerce solutions, CDPs, and much more.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Customer Experience division focuses on rapid transformation and agility across all channels, and makes products that cut costs, time, and complexity so that businesses can focus on innovation and strategy.

On this episode of What鈥檚 Next, Emert explains that he encounters many businesses that are lacking in their customer experience approaches because they aren鈥檛 prioritising a personalised relationship.

He details how the national lockdown has driven major change within the customer experience industry and how personalisation has been key to this 鈥� making it a must for all businesses.

Emert also provides examples of how certain businesses approach customer experience correctly, such as Amazon, which prioritises a personalised customer experience in almost everything it does.

He then explains how 麻豆原创鈥檚 customer experience solutions help businesses collect important front-office and back-office data in a GDPR and POPIA-compliant way.

This data is then fed into marketing automation systems, enabling you to provide a superior, personalised experience to your customers.

You can access the full interview with Emert here: . You can see all .

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How would you describe the Machine Learning (ML) landscape?

听The ML landscape growth will continue at an exponentially accelerated rate. Globally, companies are expected to invest over $265 billion in new intelligence technologies by 2023. Whether you鈥檙e ordering a book online, deciding what movie to watch or receiving a bank warning about suspected fraudulent activity on your credit card, ML is all around us. Machines now have the capability to not only execute set instructions based on algorithmic programming, but improve automatically and autonomously, through experience and the continuous injection of data. This has led to machines having the ability to make decisions without being specifically programmed to do so. This has huge implications for the world of business and society.

What are some of the standout developments in ML right now and how is this affecting business?

One of the biggest trends we鈥檙e seeing now is hyper-automation, where repetitive tasks are being performed by machines at a greater scale, timing, and accuracy than any human could ever hope to achieve. Consider the example of forecasting stock levels and ordering new stock in a warehouse or understanding documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). These capabilities are providing differentiated business value and competitive advantage for early adopters. 听All businesses strive for improved efficiencies, greater levels of cost reduction, and greater profit margin, particularly in the wake of COVID-19 and the disruption it has wrought. Hyper-automation allows companies to focus on these strategic businesses while remaining adaptable and agile.

Is ML increasing efficiencies?

Absolutely, although there are teething problems; humans and machines are still learning how to work together. But already we are seeing ML driving efficiency in business in multiple ways.

As business processes become more digitised, companies have access to an ever-increasing stream of data which, with the help of ML, can be harnessed to automate different tasks. As this trend progresses, spending will decrease in the following areas: maintenance; payroll costs, which are now largely automated; raw material and quality control costs; equipment and machinery; and operating costs, which includes sales and marketing.

Although some have been resistant to embrace this new technology, slowly the light is dawning for SA businesses as to the extent of the savings they can achieve through AI and ML. Soon there will be an ecosystem of companies offering solutions that drive real business value and competitive advantage, based on these exponential technologies and giving support to those implementing them.

听How would you describe the evolving nature of man鈥檚 relationship with machine?

In the past, man was pitted against machine, but the new normal is not either/or, its AND. Gartner researchers posit that ML cannot match the human brain鈥檚 breadth of intelligence and dynamic ability to learn, yet. Instead, ML should be used to scope specific functions in business, particularly automating routine human activities. This is based on the current maturity of the technology and the ability of the technology to drive the best types of business value in todays complex multifaceted business environments.

The future will depend on a symbiotic relationship between man and machine, as Forrester analysts have picked up on. It won鈥檛 be a case of humans leading and machines doing the work. Instead, machines will match humans in terms of leadership, decision-making and even executive tasks.

The marketing intelligence firm IDC predicts that AI will be inescapable by 2025 and that about 90% of key enterprise applications will be driven by AI and ML. These applications will deliver incremental improvements to automate processes and replace rule-based techniques to enable applications to be operate more intelligently and dynamically.

How is ML developing based on real-time customer experience?

As far as customer experience (CX) is concerned, near real-time experiences are fast becoming the minimum requirement for most industries as companies are pressurised to build matching real-time customer experience signals. Forrester researchers predict that CX leaders will manage a portfolio of automation experiences, from the building and testing of data to the delivery and perceived value (or lack of value) of those experiences.

If a machine can memorise customers鈥� preferences and understand speech and text the more it鈥檚 used, we will be a step closer to achieving hyper-personalisation, streamlined processes and a memorable and ultra-convenient uniquely tailored customer experiences that truly differentiate brands.

What impact will ML have on employment? Will humans be replaced by machines?

This is a difficult topic to explore with any certainty. In a country like South Africa which is in desperate need of higher employment, anything that is seen to replace jobs is seen as a threat, which is understandable. But AI and ML won鈥檛 necessarily ONLY take people鈥檚 jobs away; they might just make them easier. If the boring part of your job could be done by a machine, it would free you up to concentrate on more important, higher-level work. Distinction must be drawn between tasks, jobs and work as a whole.

In a recent Gartner survey, 75% of respondents said they wanted AI and ML to help with tasks rather than completely take over tasks. That is probably because the same respondents said their top reasons for using AI and ML was automating repetitive or manual tasks, improving customer experience, and reducing costs.

As far as people are concerned, Forrester analysts have advised workers to learn core skills, adapt to new working models and understand what it means to be ready and fit for the future. This involves maximising your 鈥淩obotics Quotient鈥�. In other words, it鈥檚 time to make friends with machines.

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Although product recommendations by eCommerce sites have become a familiar sight to online shoppers, it seems many of these retailers are still missing the mark. A recent global survey by 麻豆原创 has indicated that three out of four online shoppers worldwide fail to regularly see product recommendations that interest them.

There are numerous reasons why so few shoppers receive meaningful referrals, but perhaps the single biggest one comes down to personalization , according to Amrish Singh, customer experience solution architect at 麻豆原创.

He explains that true personalization is all about the brand connecting with the customer on a personal level. It is about understanding their past, knowing what they are doing now and, most crucially, how to influence their future through personalized messages and recommendations.

鈥淭he vast majority of marketeers believe that personalization is the key to customer experience (CX) success. After all, it is believed that at least two thirds of online customers prefer to buy from brands that deliver relevant recommendations. Of course, the challenge is to do this without invading the customer鈥檚 privacy,鈥� he says.

鈥淚n fact, there are three challenges to be overcome to ensure that you have the right customer and are targeting them correctly. Firstly, the data needed to achieve true personalization is found in different systems and departments, so it is essentially siloed. Therefore, it is necessary to find a way to integrate this or to create a centralized data management platform to provide a true 360-degree view of the customer.鈥�

It is important to know your customer at every possible touch-point, in order to deliver personalization that creates lasting loyalty. This, in turn, boils down to the company鈥檚 ability to collect customer data effectively and then to analyse it to gain deeper insight, suggests Singh.

鈥淩emember that when you have information silos, you will always have a fragmented view of the customer. Without a single view, your customer engagement strategy will miss critical opportunities 鈥� basically, you won鈥檛 know when the exact right time is to market something to them.鈥�

鈥淭he second challenge is data privacy, as regulations governing this are very strict and any failure on your part here exposes you to legal and brand reputation risks. The way to solve this is to give the customer the tools needed to manage their own data. That way, they can tell you what products they would like to have marketed to them.鈥�

Finally, there is also the issue of the inability to manage data volumes. Singh points to a plethora of touchpoints that exist, which create vast amounts of information. However, many organisations don鈥檛 have the flexibility or agility to manage these many and varied touch-points properly.

鈥淭here is one other important part of personalized CX, and that is to ensure that you keep the promise you offer to customers in terms of the service or delivery you are supplying. You need to understand the back-end processes 鈥� such as invoicing, delivery schedules and what is available in the warehouse – and connect this expertise to the front end. In this way, you can ensure the customer receives the product that they ordered or a suitable replacement, and delivered according to the estimated delivery time or quicker.鈥�

CX is all about creating a living, breathing customer profile that delivers a 360-degree view, adds Singh. For this you must gather three forms of data: first party, where the customer tells you about themselves; second party, which is about what they are doing; and third party, which is more in-depth data from social media platforms.

鈥淭rue personalization is about much more than sending a client an automated 鈥榟appy birthday鈥� message. It is about knowing specific details so you can deliver a specific service. A good example might be knowing the client recently bought a new phone from your store, because you have that data, so send them a personalized birthday voucher offering them a discount on a new phone cover. This is the ultimate aim of CX 鈥� to create hyper-personalization, or the so-called 鈥楽egment of One鈥�. Remember the key to engagement: the right content at the right time via the right channel at the right price,鈥� he concludes.

Amrish Singh is customer experience solution architect at 麻豆原创.

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