The retail landscape is undergoing rapid change. It has always been one of the first industries to be affected by economic fluctuations or political turbulence, but when you add to that the myriad of other factors impacting the sector today—chief among them being technology—traditional retailers and disruptors start speculating about and often fearing the future.
For starters, the retail industry is and will continue to be alive and well for the foreseeable future. A recent study by Deloitte predicted that “consumers will spend confidently throughout 2018.” In fact, the research highlights that the sector is expected to see a growth of 3.2% to 3.8% this year. This projected growth is for the global retail industry, which includes brick-and-mortar and online formats. The competition and the wide range of choices in channels and formats is also expected to continue, according to the study. The customer has always been king—and despite the changes the sector is undergoing, retail has remained and will likely always be the customer’s kingdom.
https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/en/for-retail-to-thrive-online-and-offline-retailers-must-learn-from-one-another/
As a member of the online retailer, The Iconic’s executive team, Anna Lee, is at the forefront driving strategic growth plans and leading over 200 people in her role as the firm’s chief operating officer. Lee recently spoke to Which-50 about successful approaches she has led that allowed her firm to innovate, and how best to employ emerging technologies.
Lee said there are a vast array of innovative technologies available but at The Iconic their focus is on innovating to cater to the fundamental needs of their customer.
“At the heart of innovation is doing something you are already doing either differently or better. It’s all about changing your mindset to approach something more imaginatively and effectively,” Lee said.
“We like to test and learn, before rolling out new methods and features. As a business, we innovate by continually testing new updates to create the best shopping experience for our customers – from our Snap-to-Shop feature, which allows customers to image-search for similar items, to our one-hour delivery trial to new supply chain processes.”
https://which-50.com/the-customer-is-at-the-heart-of-innovation/
We have the technology to listen to customers, but we're still not getting customer experience right. According to the State of Customer Experience 2017 report from business process services company Conduent, brands fail to provide 80 percent of customers with first-step resolutions. Further, 75 percent don’t provide enough support to encourage successful self-help.
https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/10-common-voice-of-the-customer-mistakes/
The notion of customer experience has always been hugely important, but it does feel that lately, its importance is bigger than ever. Perhaps it’s the changing customer expectations – expecting speedier deliveries, more personalized experiences, and so on. Or maybe it’s because of the biggest millennial brands – like Airbnb and Uber – that are all about ease, speed, and convenience. Whatever the cause/s may be, one thing is for sure: you need to constantly improve the customer experience in order to keep and stand out.
In this blog post, I’m going to share top tips and technologies that will help you improve the customer experience.
https://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/tips-and-technologies-that-will-help-improve-the-customer-experience-02107229/
As marketers, we can be too quick to chase innovation for innovation’s sake. Shiny, new digital platforms that have a lot of buzz about them can tempt brands in but too often they don’t deliver on the promise and become white elephants.
At Just Eat, our vision is to create the world’s greatest food community. In essence, connecting customers with the restaurants (and the food) they want around the world.
Our diverse restaurant partners, be they a local curry house, an up-and-coming cafe in Manchester or a national brand, such as KFC, are our lifeblood. Everything we do is focused on delivering on that partnership. From a marketing perspective this means we need to continually find ways to connect our customers with our restaurant partners through whatever platform the consumer wants to find them.
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-noise-voice-chat-will-louder-brands/1490120/
Anyone selling into the government market knows it takes time, patience and investment. The rewards can be great, both intangibly through satisfaction in serving the public good, and financially by winning contracts that can be stable and long term. But competing in this space is no small feat.
It’s no longer enough to count on past performance, a low price and (for smaller businesses) a set-aside designation to give you the winning advantage. Correctly positioning and actively promoting your brand and your win themes has become equally important to standing out in a crowded market.
https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2018/08/24/insights-weisel-marketing-differences.aspx/
As creatures of habit, established customers will come back to your business unless you give them a reason not to. 92% of consumers will stay loyal and increase their business with a company when their queries are handled quickly and effectively. However, bad communication and poor customer experience is overwhelmingly (81%) the cause of clients taking their business elsewhere. With over 60% of companies citing customer experience (CX) as the best tactic for increasing customer lifetime value and loyalty, seamless communication is the key to addressing clients’ needs.
https://www.uctoday.com/news/blog/bad-customer-experience-a-good-reason-to-jump-ship/
Technology has been the cornerstone of economic growth around the world for hundreds of years. It has underpinned the last three industrial revolutions and is now the driving factor in today’s Fourth Industrial Revolution — marked by emerging technologies in a variety of fields.
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence is one of the key technologies driving this new revolution. As described in the 1950s by the father of modern computer science, Alan Turing, “What we want is a machine that can learn from experience.” His paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” is the earliest description of neural networks and how computer intelligence should be measured. While the concept of AI isn’t new, we’re only on the cusp of seeing AI drive real business value in the enterprise.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/13/powering-customer-journeys-in-the-age-of-ai/
By using event detection to listen to patterns in data, and then applying Artificial Intelligence, your business can now sense these moments of needs as they are happening
Customer experience or ‘CX’ as it is popularly referred to is one of the most important verticals that businesses need to address in order to thrive. And tanks to artificial intelligence and data, CX can be achieved via the use of these technologies in an improved and efficient manner. From artificial intelligence to IoT, Don Schuerman, CTO and VP Product Marketing, Pegasystems, states 7 ways in which technology will aid customer engagement.
https://www.dqindia.com/artificial-intelligence-technology-improved-customer-engagement-cx-2019/
Do you remember that joyous feeling when the thing preventing you from having an easier life was removed? Can you remember what it feels like when the elephant that was sitting on your chest finally gets up? Have you ever experienced relief when that huge barrier preventing you from being more customer centric was finally removed?
The irony of many legacy contact center communication platforms that are being used to serve customers often prevent you from doing it effectively. Most of these platforms were primarily built from voice being the foundation and then as channels grew, they were merely added onto the voice channel versus being merged with voice from a workflow and queuing perspective.
http://customerthink.com/contact-center-technology-finally-enables-you-to-be-customer-centric/
