How a DXP helps Deliver Excellent Customer Experiences in the Ecommerce-Retail Industry

Even though the e-commerce industry has been growing since its inception, it skyrocketed after the arrival of Covid-19. In response to this new and unknown global pandemic, people sought safer and more convenient ways to synchronize their shopping needs and lifestyles. Consequently, online shopping became a "New Normal."

While buying a product online has historically been distinct from shopping in person at a store, customers enjoy the ease, flexibility, and agility of online shopping. Since customers have now access to both, online and offline shopping, they interact with multiple touchpoints, which greatly influence their buying decisions. Right from mobile, desktops, and tablets to kiosks, and digital banners, it’s crucial for e-commerce brands to realize why various customer touchpoints matter.

Consumers crave experiences that can connect them better with a brand. Therefore, it is important for businesses to deliver a connected customer experience by interacting with their target audience at the right time on the right channel. Consequently, e-commerce brands can successfully turn their consumers into repeat customers and then into loyal assets.

Taking a Step Ahead with O2O Commerce

With a rise in digitalization, the e-commerce industry boomed, which created a sense of insecurity and a challenge for offline stores to run their businesses. However, with the advent of Online-to-Offline (O2O) commerce, new business and marketing strategies came into existence. This helped retailers target their customers over online platforms and drive them to offline stores and vice-versa. Furthermore, it became easier for businesses to reach more customers and apprehend their buying patterns.

Today, brands and enterprises have an immense opportunity to gain valuable and deep insight into their customers. Thanks to the vast amount of data available that can be quickly processed with the help of data science and turned into useful information.

In addition to using a strong marketing approach over the online mediums, retailers must deliver a similar offline service to their customers. As a result of comprehensive and omnichannel experiences, shoppers will enjoy convenience and flexibility and turn into loyal customers.

Allbirds, one of the most popular shoe retail brands, became a unicorn within two years of its launch. With their strong e-commerce presence, they aimed at opening and expanding their brick-and-mortar stores. Using a correctly implemented O2O strategy, the brand successfully delivered a seamless and omnichannel experience to its customers.

As a part of its O2O commerce, Allbirds ensured that the buyers wouldn’t leave the physical stores empty-handed due to a lack of stocks. Therefore, with Shopify POS, they offered their customers to complete the transaction at the store, post which the particular item was shipped to their address right from the warehouse. This resulted in the brand’s rapid growth and immense customer acquisition.

Creating Composable Journeys to escalate CX

You all must have heard about LEGO brick toys. In this game, we have multiple blocks that are used to build a structure by arranging them in a certain order. Here, we can easily create an entirely new structure by just changing the position and alignment of a few blocks. Similar to this in the business world, companies have an opportunity to adjust and modify their various complex business models and create a one that is easier to be implemented.

Moreover, when strategically executed, e-commerce brands can leverage composable journeys to deliver outstanding Customer Experiences (CX). This process starts by first being empathetic to the customers and recognizing their real-time demands. Additionally, companies must orchestrate and combine various business activities such as product, development, marketplace, and supply chain rather than execute them in silos. As a result, composable journeys ensure consistent and productive growth in the organization.

“Throughout history, great leaders have faced turmoil and turned it into inspiration. Composing: being flexible, fluid, continuous, even improvisational — is how we will move forward.” - Don Scheibenreif, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner.

Why does DXP matters for e-commerce CX?

While discussing the importance of Digital Experience Platform (DXP) in the e-commerce industry, it is imperative to understand how DXP helps create a better Customer Experience (CX). Millions of products listed on online shopping sites might sometimes overwhelm the customers. Therefore strategies to streamline the customer's journey are essential - this is where DXP comes into the picture. Right from managing business operations and supply chain activities to gaining consumer insights and delivering seamless content across all the touchpoints, DXPs are a boon for e-commerce brands in revolutionizing consumer experience.

Today's customers are omnipresent, and creating content for various touchpoints and different audiences can be a big challenge. A DXP can help create content quickly and effortlessly for personalizing each customer's journey to enable an integrated CX. A report reveals that 86% of buyers are happy to pay more if served with a better experience. The study emphasizes how important it is for businesses to invest in technologies and tools, such as DXPs. Therefore, customer experience is an important factor because outdated and undifferentiated CX architectures can make a business seem unremarkable and dull. Below we have mentioned two well-known DXP tools that help in delivering great customer experiences.

1. DAM

E-commerce businesses might need to manage billions of web pages for millions of customers. For each product page, content alone isn't enough, but delivering the "RIGHT" content is the key to success. Customer insights and data must be incorporated into content delivery strategies for this to occur.

Marketers, developers, and content managers can leverage Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions to handle the content process efficiently and personalize the customer journey. It also facilitates the real-time delivery of the appropriate content to the audience. Content research, image editing, file conversion, and creating meta content for optimizing SEO are some of the functionalities embedded in a DAM that help escalate the CX. Moreover, e-commerce brands can easily create assets that are updated and synchronized with their brand guidelines.

2. PIM

The Product Information Management (PIM) system is a tool that has comprehensive data and information on all the products being listed online. It assists in managing the entire product description and catalog in a seamless fashion.

Customers need detailed information about any product before the purchase. With a PIM-based tool, brands can optimize the product pages with comprehensive and exact specifications of the items, how-to manuals, images, videos, 360-degree views, and many other attributes. The tools offered by PIM can be beneficial for companies looking to launch products rapidly on digital platforms. A pre-made skeleton of a product page will allow you to fill in all the relevant information about a product and display it on the appropriate channel. Moreover, PIM tools are integrated with security and safety features, ensuring no data is lost or reaches the wrong hands. A PIM -

• Ensures faster go-to-market of products • Creates a consistent and end-to-end product information • Provides more time to focus on product sales • Streamlines product and catalog management • Enhances user experience.

Benefits of Composable Journey

The best way to engage with the customers at different times and across multiple touchpoints is to understand and implement the strategies of a Composable Journey. Consequently, enterprises will have the opportunity to optimize their customers' journeys and deliver them the experiences that matter.

A consistent and seamless customer experience is critical regardless of how consumers interact with brands - online or offline - allowing companies to synchronize with the customers’ expectations. With a composable approach, businesses can harness the power of customer intelligence and technology to serve their audience in the best possible way.

Building personalized content and leveraging data and insights will help the team to compose appropriate experiences. Moreover, a composable journey will allow to automate marketing activities and create interactive websites that are engaging for the consumers. Other benefits include:

1. Personalization

2. Centralized marketing

3. Enhanced Customer Engagement

4. Building Engaging Websites

5. Third-party integrations

Tips on Crafting Composable Journey

Here are five tips businesses can use to ensure that they provide their customers with excellent composable journeys.

1. Building Personalized Content Customers feel connected to a brand when they interact with content that seems personal and appropriate. Businesses can understand what kind of content is relevant to the audience by creating a detailed customer journey map. A content creator or strategist must be all ears to the audience to develop excellent content.
   

2. Leveraging Data and Insights Now, knowing about customers’ needs, interests, and buying preferences is no longer guesswork. E-commerce brands today have access to numerous data points. They can even use AI and ML technology to analyze these data and gain deep insight into consumer behaviors.
   

3. Crafting Detailed Buyer Persona Understanding the audience and noting their persona in detail is crucial as it will assist in creating hyper-targeted content and marketing strategies. This allows brands to retain the present customers and connect with prospect audiences.
   

4. Harmonized Customer Interaction It is important to engage with consumers regularly without spamming them. Selection of the right channel, proper communication, and appropriate timing is a must while interacting with the customers.

Examples of Brands Using DXPs to Deliver Better CX

1. BMW

BMW is a global automobile brand known for its outstanding products and services. However, when their customer satisfaction program did not deliver the expected output, they decided to re-engineer their strategies to better engage with their loyal customers. They developed a comprehensive digital tool for their brand so that their dealerships can receive real-time feedback from their customers. As a result, customers' queries were addressed within 24 hours and resolved within 5 working days, which increased repurchases and returns of services. Consequently, they strategized better and invested more time in improving their customer experience architecture.

2. Visit Orlando

Visit Orlando, a famous name in the tourism industry, used its old e-commerce system that was inefficient in handling high user traffic, which resulted in slow and low ticket sales. However, with the help of a significant revamp of their website and dedicated platform to connect with their audience, the company drove more online and in-person ticket sales and dramatically cut down on manual processes. Consequently, they achieved increased customer engagement and satisfaction and even acquired a 20% surge in their revenue.

Closing Thoughts

In addition to the digital revolution, the e-commerce industry is witnessing rapid consumer behavior changes. Brands need to catch up with the pace and capitalize on their business by adapting strategies that will harness the power of the latest advancements in the e-commerce industry.

A great customer experience is the core of the entire digital journey, and with DXPs, enterprises can undoubtedly give an extraordinary push in scaling the customer journey. With the correct utilization of DXPs, brands can better manage their large customer base, multiple touchpoints, and millions of data.

We at QED42 believe in providing the services that companies need to achieve their desired results. We have served numerous e-commerce brands by delivering intuitive and comprehensive DXPs that have helped them offer exceptional experiences to their customers.

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