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.

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This collaboration enables brands to connect with customers on their preferred channels, from SMS and MMS to popular messaging applications like WhatsApp and Viber, ensuring data protection and compliance with easy opt-out options.

鈥淎 unique challenge in markets like South Africa is the digital divide, where consumers have varied access to devices and data,鈥� says Andre Odendaal, Senior Sales Engineering (EMEA) at Sinch.

Sinch鈥檚 integration with 麻豆原创 Emarsys offers a flexible solution that allows brands to tailor messaging to each customer鈥檚 preferred channel, including text messaging for those with limited data access. By leveraging Sinch鈥檚 robust messaging infrastructure alongside 麻豆原创 Emarsys’ data-driven platform, businesses can create a unified communication strategy that is both personalised and accessible.

For SMS campaigns, Sinch鈥檚 direct connections with telecoms operators worldwide ensure rapid, reliable message delivery, giving brands confidence that their communications reach audiences without delay. On social messaging channels, Sinch provides direct connectivity to WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, where customers already spend significant time. This allows brands to maintain high-performance engagement across multiple channels, reaching customers exactly where they are.

Simpler, smarter omnichannel engagement

The Sinch and 麻豆原创 Emarsys partnership combines the advanced capabilities of the Emarsys MarTech platform with Sinch’s omnichannel communication solutions. Sinch鈥檚 SMS and MMS delivery services are natively integrated within the Emarsys platform, enabling marketers to create and edit rich text messages and incorporate them into marketing automation flows without leaving the platform.

Marketers can create SMS campaigns with drag-and-drop personalisation, and leverage 麻豆原创 Emarsys Automation Programs to create and launch SMS automations based on dynamic triggers that respond to customer behavior in real-time. Built-in analytics enable marketers to measure SMS campaign impact by tracking ROI and revenue contribution.

, VP, ISV Partnerships at 麻豆原创 Emarsys, says: 鈥淢obile has transformed customer behaviour, quickly becoming one of the most dominant and important ways people shop for goods and services, interact with brands and consume content. Our latest Customer Loyalty Index Research highlights that over half of global consumers (53%) find SMS/MMS messages the most useful communications channel.鈥�

鈥淪inch and 麻豆原创 Emarsys鈥� integration allows brands to dial up their customer engagement and reach their audiences where they often hang out 鈥� on their mobile devices 鈥� with personalised and targeted conversational messaging through SMS, MMS and WhatsApp. It keeps things simple, offering the ability to connect multiple channels with Conversation API 鈥� one integration for an omnichannel and conversational messaging experience.鈥�

Marketers can create interactive experiences with text, images and video, and reach customers globally on these feature-rich channels. Plus, with access to Sinch鈥檚 Professional Services, they can master mobile marketing essentials and build advanced, multi-touch strategies for impactful campaigns, says Bergstr枚m.

The integration of Sinch鈥檚 AI-powered chatbots within 麻豆原创 Emarsys adds value to customer support by providing 24/7 assistance. This enables businesses to address client queries round the clock, with smooth transitions to human agents when needed, creating a balanced, responsive support experience that builds customer satisfaction and trust.

Through advanced automation, Sinch enables brands to send timely updates, promotions and reminders based on pre-set customer triggers, ensuring that communications are both relevant and delivered at the optimal time. Sinch鈥檚 AIT (Artificially Inflated Traffic) protection and fraud detection capabilities address concerns around spam and fraud by safeguarding customer communications and preventing unwanted message traffic. This makes Emarsys campaigns not only more secure but also more effective, especially on a global scale.

As Sinch and 麻豆原创 Emarsys continue to enhance their collaboration, businesses gain powerful tools to reach audiences across diverse channels while protecting customer data and optimising engagement strategies in the digital-first world.

Visit the Sinch/麻豆原创 Emarsys partner page for more insight on how marketers can boost customer engagement through mobile messaging听. You can also reach out directly to the Sinch Partner Team at听partner-sales@sinch.com.

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In today’s fiercely competitive retail landscape, prioritising customer experience has become crucial for attaining sustainable competitive advantages and ultimately ensuring long-term success.

This underscores the need for retailers now more than ever to prioritise customer engagement, and aim to enhance the overall customer experience and deliver unparalleled customer satisfaction.

Customer engagement has a direct impact on customer loyalty, revenue growth, and brand reputation. Engaged customers are likely to make repeat purchases and become brand advocates. Furthermore, customer feedback offers valuable insights for improvement, making a well-crafted engagement strategy essential for building and enhancing trust and credibility with customers.

AI presents retailers with the most significant opportunity to fundamentally reshape and elevate customer experiences. By facilitating customised and personalised customer interactions, AI-driven pricing strategies, streamlining processes for enhanced efficiency, and anticipating customer needs with greater certainty, AI stands out as a true game-changer.

Personalised and tailored customer interactions

听AI significantly enhances customer experience by empowering retailers to personalise their interactions with customers. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, businesses can meticulously analyse extensive customer data sets. This analysis delves into customer preferences, purchasing behaviours and purchase histories.

This comprehensive understanding empowers retailers to customise their interactions, offering customers tailored recommendations and personalised offers. As a result, customers receive a more individualised and relevant experience, fostering a deeper connection and satisfaction with the brand.

听An e-commerce app can enhance the shopping experience by utilising AI to suggest products tailored to a customer’s browsing history and purchase patterns. For example, if a customer searches for a pair of sneakers and their preferred colour is unavailable, the app can proactively prompt them to add it to their wish list. Subsequently, the app automatically notifies the customer when the desired colour becomes available, ensuring a seamless and personalised shopping journey.

听Streamlining processes for better efficiencies

Retailers can harness the power of AI to streamline workflows and inform data-driven decision-making. By drawing insights from historical data and adjusting to dynamic scenarios, they can automate repetitive tasks. This automation not only accelerates processes but also frees up valuable human resources, allowing them to focus on more complex, creative, and revenue-generating tasks.

Additionally, AI-driven predictive analytics helps in anticipating and predicting potential bottlenecks in processes, optimising resource allocation, and improving overall operational performance. Whether in manufacturing, finance, retail or other sectors, AI has the capacity to continuously learn and improve, enabling businesses to achieve higher levels of efficiency, productivity, and adaptability in an ever-evolving business environment.

In customer service environments, the transformation is underway with the integration of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants. These intelligent systems adeptly manage routine or repetitive queries, delivering instant responses and providing uninterrupted support 24/7 without the need for human intervention. This not only improves response times but also frees up human resources to concentrate on tackling more complex and sensitive issues, culminating in customer service experiences that are both efficient and responsive.

Predicting customer needs and simplifying the buying process

Predictive analytics is another area where AI excels in enhancing customer experience by analysing historical data and predicting customer needs and preferences. This enables businesses to proactively address customer requirements, whether it’s restocking popular product lines, anticipating service issues, or offering timely and personalised promotions. This predictive prowess can help retailers stay one step ahead, fostering customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Through advanced analytics, AI can identify patterns in customer behaviour, preferences, and historical interactions and purchases. By tapping into this predictive power, retailers can accurately predict the changing needs of their customers. This foresight enables the tailoring of product recommendations and personalised offers, creating a more engaging and satisfying shopping experience.

Lastly, chatbots not only guide customers through the buying journey but also enhance the accuracy of inventory management, ensuring that products are readily available when customers search for them. This minimises delays and enhances customer satisfaction. In essence, AI not only predicts customer needs but also transforms the entire buying process into a more seamless and customer-centric endeavour.

听Driving the segment-of-one and cross-channel consistency

听Omnichannel encompasses both retail and e-commerce, representing a seamless and integrated approach to sales and customer service across various channels, including physical stores, online platforms, mobile apps, and other digital channels. Omnichannel recognises the interconnectedness of these channels, aiming to deliver a consistent and cohesive customer experience. It reflects the idea that modern businesses must operate across multiple channels to address diverse customer needs, preferences, and expectations.

On the other hand, segment-of-one refers to the idea of tailoring products, services, or marketing strategies to meet the specific needs and preferences of individual customers. The concept of segment-of-one underscores the move away from mass marketing strategies towards more targeted and personalised approaches. It aligns with the idea that treating each customer as a unique segment can lead to more effective and satisfying interactions, potentially enhancing customer loyalty and overall business success.

The seamless integration of omnichannel and segment-of-one approaches enhances customer engagement by delivering highly personalised interactions across various channels. Here the emphasis is on the use of data and transformative technologies such as AI to create a seamless experience tailored to individual preferences and characteristics of each customer.

AI stands out as a true game-changer for the retail sector

AI is indeed transforming customer engagement and redefining experiences. The real-time capabilities of AI empower retailers to promptly address customer needs and adapt their strategies in response to the ever-changing market dynamics.

By seamlessly integrating personalised recommendations, facilitating smooth interactions, and leveraging innovative technologies, AI emerges not only as a technological enabler but as a catalyst, ushering in a customer-centric revolution within the retail sector. Retailers that harness the power of AI will not only attain a competitive edge but also forge enduring and meaningful connections with their customers.

听AI is a powerful tool for retailers seeking to elevate their overall customer experience. The integration of AI technologies into customer engagement strategies is pivotal to unlocking unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. As the retail sector continues to embrace AI, the future of customer experience looks increasingly intelligent and customer-centric.

听

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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, .

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This year, 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud powered US$31.9 billion in digital commerce gross merchandise value (GMV) for the entire holiday season, covering more than 70 countries around the world. Specifically, our retail customers saw a year-over-year increase of 80% in GMV, with a 29% increase in average order value (AOV).

According to . The metrics from MasterCard are not adjusted for inflation and with , most of that growth can be attributed to it. Online sales increased 10.6% year over year, making up 21.6% of total retail sales.

There is no doubt that inflation has changed the way consumers shop. Many have adjusted to spend less on discretionary items and spend more on experiences. Therefore, it was critical for retailers to offer valuable deals this season with consumers likely hunting for the best promotions. Retail customers of 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud saw a healthy growth in GMV and AOV in addition to a 138% increase in conversion rates. All this indicates better targeted traffic by retailers.

“Despite the challenging macro-economic environment, 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud retail customers were able achieve record-breaking holiday results,” said Riad Hijal, global head of Marketing and Solution for 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud. “Our embedded intelligence and broad capability set enabled them to identify and target the right customers with relevant promotions and offers without over-sacrificing margin. This led to higher conversion rates, AOV, and ultimately profitability.鈥�

According to the Economist Intelligence consumer goods and retail outlook for the 2023, we can expect inflation to continue to dominate the discussion as it squeezes retailers, their profits, and the job market. Consumers will continue to look for deals and price reductions, likely fueling larger market shares for discount stores. They also predict that online sales will slow down even as its share of total retail sales will continue to steadily grow.

To learn more, and join us at NRF: Retail鈥檚 Big Show. Learn more about .

https://youtu.be/FIVuB3qKWWg

Winnie Tran is director of Product Marketing for 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud.

All 麻豆原创 data presented here is approximate and is based on various assumptions. All data is unaudited and is subject to adjustment. Financial figures have been converted into USD. Data represents sales made by 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud global merchants.

This article first appeared on the 麻豆原创 News Center.

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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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CX Agility is defined as companies monitoring changes in customer demand and business conditions to predict how they may impact their activities, proactively adjusting their activities to keep-up with and lead those changes and facilitate business growth. Keeping-up with customer needs and wants while听delivering effortless experiences across all business departments and through all interaction channels is now a necessity.

Aberdeen鈥檚 recent CX Executive鈥檚 Agenda Survey observed responses from hundreds of businesses regarding key trends and best practices influencing their CX activities. The findings revealed that听business leaders struggle with several challenges impacting their ability to create happy and loyal customers. The survey also revealed that just 25% of businesses have modernized their traditional CX program by transforming into agile CX organizations.

Put your business on a clear path to agile CX with 麻豆原创 by registering for听Ignite the Consumer Power Event.

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The severity of COVID infection seems to be waning, vaccination and antibodies are both on the rise, and employees are now more likely to be in the office and emotionally engaged than in the past two years. Those of us who are still here are the determined ones. We’ve escaped mortal danger that earlier waves of the pandemic caused at scale. We’ve navigated ‘The Great Resignation’ – the exploration of purpose and meaning by employees – and have either already made a career move or have decided to stay… both very powerful mindset and career stances.

As the great return to normality unfolds, it’s a good idea for businesses both large and small to consider two key themes for survival and growth in 2022 – Employee Relevance and Customer Value.

Employee Relevance

We don’t merely work for money these days. We need meaning, alignment, a deeper sense of involvement, accountability, respect, belonging, recognition, purpose and joy. If you asked a group of staff members what they value most at work now, I would argue that self-esteem factors rank significantly higher now than in pre-pandemic times.

We also don’t have time for friction. Office politics, gossip, inefficient processes, slacking colleagues, stigma, discrimination, unfair practice or antiquated tools and systems fall into the category of听‘yeah, we know it’s a problem but it’s not that urgent’听issues that businesses cannot afford to ignore any longer.

For employees, the elusive work-life balance challenge seems to have shifted where people now make time for work and life comes first, within reason. To drive productivity, revenue growth and profitability in 2022, businesses need to prioritise investment of time, energy and funding into the projects that will ensure employees want to work there and projects that remove the likelihood of giving them a reason to look somewhere else.

Customer Value

If you get employee relevance right, customer engagement naturally benefits as your internal culture has a knock-on effect to your customers, suppliers, shareholders and partners. Imagine the difference between a customer support consultant in a call centre who truly appreciates where they work and another who is disgruntled due to poor office culture. Now image the same comparison in a retail store, where your business is still trying to make the sale.

To determine customer value, we need the customer to tell us that the product or service they consume is adding value and to quantify or qualify this to some extent. We don’t get to decide customer value, we can merely perceive expected value. So, to achieve this, it means employees need to do a great enough job to convince a customer to make a purchase – be it online, in-store or through a partner, then we need to have the confidence and means to reach out to that customer in order to ask if the product or service was as expected and useful, and we need to convince them to give us the feedback as honestly and constructively as possible.

Seems achievable right?

Maybe… but the true measure of value delivered will be determined by whether or not they return to buy the same product or service, recommend it to others or buy from the rest of the product catalogue. Lifetime value can be measured once a customer repeats their buying behaviour or expands their range of products bought. You can start to drill down into their recency of purchasing, frequency of purchasing, typical monetary value per purchase, or total purchase value over time. As a business, if you achieve repeat purchase behaviour it means you’re getting something right. Either the customer loves the brand, or they value the quality of products, or they appreciate the way you personalise communication and appear to truly understand them.

In 2022, if businesses begin to put customer lifetime value top of mind, it will force the right line of questioning in every big business decision.听Do we make those changes to the loyalty app? Do we invest in the track and trace capability, so customers can track their deliveries? Do we switch couriers or suppliers to improve lead times? Do we change the profitability dashboards, so that we know how much customers have spent on our brand? Do we create a single view of customer engagement and history so that our support teams know the status of orders or complaints when a customer calls in?

Progress

Good things come in threes, so a third consideration that lends itself to employee relevance and customer value is to measure progress. It’s no good introducing new processes or tools if you are not tracking the usage and value gained from those new additions. If there is a way to track data for one of these investments, do it and share the insights far and wide so that both staff and project sponsors can see the outcomes in near real-time. Providing some correlation between usage of employees tools and the reduction in sick days or growth in job satisfaction scores, or providing some correlation between customer-facing add-ons and the growth in customer browsing behaviour online or revenue growth, will do wonders to show the real positive impact being achieved through process and system investments.

Generally, when good news is shared in a transparent and authentic manner, it fosters a great working culture that is continuously improving and is willing to share and receive feedback as a means to do so.

There are only 365 days to make an impact this year and some of those have already passed by in the haze that is New Year.听To make this more tangible, try to commit to identifying one project that will improve employee relevance and one project that will improve customer value by the end of January. Don’t worry about how to deliver the projects just yet… just use the process to begin asking the right questions and getting the buy-in from colleagues and executive management to commit the right level of focus and attention to these two themes this year. Do this, and 2022 will be off to a great start!

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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 .

The post What鈥檚 Next 鈥� Marc Emert from 麻豆原创 Explains why Personalisation is Key in Customer Experience appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.