CX Insider

“With the second wave of the dreadful Pandemic, fear of contact has been engraved in the minds of the customers. It forced the most reluctant retailers to adopt limited digital means to continue their business, in a contactless manner. The large format retail outlets rose up to the challenge and Conversational Commerce, became their saviour. This not only helped them continue their business with more vigour, it also helped uplift their store sales by reaching out to customers with a phygital in-store experience. With Contactless Commerce, it is a win-win situation, for all”

Crisis-driven digital disruption has been a challenge & opportunity for retailers in India. As retailers look for tech solutions, conversational commerce has emerged among the top sought-after but at the same time, it is easy to get it wrong. Built on data, powered by right tech, without losing simplicity in interface and execution are all important in retaining customer base, and deliver on their expectations, while they remain indoors. Indian retailers must embrace the modern marketers’ playbook in formulating their digital strategies to battle the headwind.

In my book “Marketing in a Digital & Data World” there are 3 opening quotes from people I look up to as leaders who defined Customer-Centricity – Peter Drucker, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. Quoting Steve Jobs “You have to start with the Customer Experience and work backwards to the technology” and relating it to the recent pandemic, it simply accelerated a trend that had already begun before the pandemic. M & E-commerce, digital payments and customer data and insights coupled with AI have simply changed the way we market. So, if you were customer-centric you would simply customize your solution to meet this growing consumer need, there is no option.

“In this era of digitisation, it is imperative and even retailers now prefer to speed up the checkout process. From the transactional data captured by the system, you can get to know your customers and their individual needs with greater clarity and accuracy, leading to higher customer satisfaction, greater loyalty and more referrals. Further, digital receipts offer a much lower environmental footprint when compared to paper-based receipts, with the potential to save tens of thousands of trees each year.”

“Since mid-2020, most customers prefer the convenience of contactless payment, be it from their cards or mobiles or any other smart devices. Tap and Go is the new norm millions of people have already adopted contactless technology, with COVID-19 boosting contactless payment adoption not only in India, but worldwide. UPI payment have replaced physical wallets and Card taps have replaced swipes. Contactless payment has emerged as a secure bet for both the businesses and the customers”

“I believe that technologies that facilitate an easy convergence of both online and offline shopping can help retailers to deliver seamless phygital shopping experience. Phygital shopping experience would support the speed and ease of the digital world incorporated with the immersive-ness (the feel-factor) and interaction of the physical world.”

“I see the Travel and Transportation industry investing more in digital transformation in the current pandemic situation to improve profit, reduce cost, optimize operations and secure customer loyalty. The customer data and the ability to derive more from the same customer base is key. Also, there are some important shifts and the businesses which are agile and able to reinvent themselves are clearly reaping the benefits. Looking forward to 2021 and to drive some of these key customer partnerships forward and to build some new relationships.”

The pandemic has accelerated the migration of consumers to digital platforms and there is definitely a paradigm shift in the way we shop, work and communicate. As organisations scale up, utilizing petabytes of data intelligently is the key to providing smoother user experiences. The ability to create a unified profile for each customer and using it in real time for personalised experiences can lead to much better user journeys and have direct impact on customer loyalty. Of course, combining this with the right technology choices with ML/ AI being at the forefront to make predictions will help organisations to sustain and also increase market share.

“Retail industry is growing at an incredible pace with enormous amount of data (both structured and unstructured) getting captured which can be interpreted in different ways. Today customers seek a preferred service which makes their shopping experience convenient, personalized, super quick with a touch of surprise and delight. Artificial Intelligence can help in consuming huge Volume and Variety of data to convert it into meaningful actions in no time. AI solutions will not only help in creating a better customer experience but also revolutionize retail industry by bringing in efficiency and automation at various touch-points including operations, inventory management, trial rooms, product search, pricing etc.”

“…An IPO is a milestone that would not have been possible without your partnership and support. Together we have carved many success stories and victories that have established Burger King as one of the most important ‘Burger’ brands in India. I would like to express our gratitude for all the support that your company has given in helping us reach this milestone. We look forward to our continued partnership with excitement and belief that we would achieve many more such milestones and success together…“