Digital customer experience takes retail to the next level!

Importance of customer experience services and marketing team's contribution to digital commerce

Longevity, loyalty and profit are the pillars of retail business which can only be strengthened via great customer experiences. Although, retail industry has grown leaps and bounds with increasing digital commerce, nonetheless, digital commerce strategies does not only mean redefining through online and social platforms, but to focus on the value delivered to customers. Today’s customer is much more active, increasingly indecisive as to what and where to buy from as well as much more knowledgeable about their rights. Thus, it becomes necessary to deliver on the customer expectations and elevated customer demands across various touch-points through cohesive and seamless interactions.

In digital retail services, the customers expect not only an easy and smooth buying process but an equally good or even better after-sales service. In other words, cohesive digital commerce connects channels and devices from targeting to retention of a customer by segmenting and targeting digital marketing content and offers so as to reach the right audience at the right time. Wherever the customers decide to shop from, they expect a seamless transition and same standards whether it is on the website or their mobile platform. Consumers are becoming finicky and fickle-minded as never before, which may well serve as an indication to retailers that they should evolve as well by giving their customers a digital experience by attracting, engaging and converting them from prospects to buyers by providing them personalised services and products sometimes both onsite as well as offsite (for instance, through follow-up emails). According to Gartner, as depicted in the figure, the marketing team plays and contributes the most towards digital commerce of a brand/ business. Moreover, the onus to design the customer experience strategy also lies with the marketing team. On an average, marketers spend 20% of their budgets on support for digital commerce. Marketer’s prime spending focus is towards offering of customer experience services, with digital advertising accounting for 12.2% to attract customers, mobile marketing to engage customers at 9.5% and finally, digital commerce spending at 9.6 percent to convert prospects to buyers.

Value creation comes through the entire customer experience of the retail brand, not just through the pricing of the product. For example, in USA, as Lionbridge observed, 59% of Americans are willing to try a new brand for a better customer service experience. Thus, it makes sense how customers can help in building a brand, drive online and offline sales and generate leads for the businesses. 


Author:  Debaleena Debnath
Debaleena is a digital media consultant @ speradigital.
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