Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 24, 2022 - January 30, 2022

If we have learnt one thing in the past year, it is that things can change and be disrupted in an instant. This is true of the way in which we now live, work, play and shop.

Over the past two years, there has been a great paradigm shift in consumer behaviour all over the world — from visiting bricks-and-mortar stores to scouring the internet for all types of products, essentials and services.

And nowhere has there been such unprecedented growth as the e-commerce sector. In fact, a study shows that there was a 30% rise in e-commerce transactions across Malaysia early last year, heralding a boom for the local economy.

To further support the growth of Malaysia’s e-commerce market, the government even allocated RM250 million for the Shop Malaysia Online and Go-eCommerce Onboarding campaigns. Both programmes aim to help entrepreneurs digitalise their operations and bolster their businesses through the ever-growing consumer base online.

Needless to say, the fundamental change in consumer habits had accelerated and reinforced e-commerce as the top enabler for all industry verticals. It has become necessary for e-commerce retailers of all sizes to adopt digital and touchless engagement services to better engage with the heart and soul of their businesses — customers.

Reimagining the e-commerce experience with strategic customer engagement

In an increasingly competitive e-commerce space, where the entire customer journey is virtual, a robust and strong cloud-based customer communications capability is now a must-have. This is to create a more connected customer journey and, thereby, stand out from the crowd.

“Every consumer wants a different experience when shopping, and this ‘experience’ has become the differentiating factor for many successful business models,” says the Deloitte Consumer Review.

Having no physical medium to interact with customers on the e-commerce platform, the only way to ensure that every touchpoint will create lifetime value for customers is by deploying an effective omnichannel approach.

Studies have pinpointed a close relationship between the “2Cs” — customer engagement and conversion. According to the 2020 Digital Trends in Asia Pacific  report by Adobe and Econsultancy, customer experience (CX) will be the single-most important factor for businesses that want to boost conversion and gain market share. In other words, a well-planned formula to deliver the best possible CX will create huge potential for revenue generation and springboard operations to the next level.

Brands in the region that thrive on strong customer engagement system

Shopee

At the 11.11 event, Shopee reported that more than two billion goods were sold in a single day — a 5.5-fold increase in the first two hours compared with an average day. This massive success can be attributed to its creative and targeted customer engagement methods, such as Shopee Live. The platform, which connected users with Shopee vendors and popular celebrities via live streaming, saw Malaysians spend a whopping 4.8 million hours viewing live sessions.

Lazada

Lazada’s average daily transactions increased by nearly 80% during the pandemic. The company ascribed this enormous growth to its effort to elevate the customer engagement experience through relevant well-thought-out investments and strategies.

The winning formula for sales conversions

As brands continue to scramble and rethink their digital-first customer experience, they are now looking at an omnichannel framework. This includes multiple conversation streams with customers and how they are synonymous with tangible results.

One question comes to mind: how exactly can e-commerce retailers capitalise on customer engagement across various channels to maximise their success? The answer boils down to removing friction and delighting customers on their communication channel of choice.

Let’s learn more about how retailers can fulfil the growing need for a seamless customer experience:

The ‘serve, not sell’ approach

Customers nowadays value brands they can engage with on a human level. The adage, “People buy people first, products and services come second” could not be truer. Once retailers shift their focus to humanising the customer engagement experience and prioritise building deeper relationships with consumers, sales and conversions will follow in no time.

For instance, keeping customers updated on the delivery status of their orders via AI chatbots and automated omnichannel messaging strategies are among the many ways to engage customers with better touchpoints.

Hyper-personalise your content

To stay ahead of the e-commerce competition, it is no longer enough for brands to just rely on generic email or text blasts to grow their businesses sustainably.

With the ever-evolving digital tapestry of customers, there is a surging demand for hyper-engagement via personalised, immersive and hyper-connected experiences. Without such capabilities, key messages may fail to get through to audiences and this will likely impede customer retention as well as conversion.

This means having the capacity to produce engagements that are tailor-made for consumers. As such, sending and receiving customised messages on their preferred channels is a good case in point.

Another viable option would be to create brand ambassadors. When customers feel closely engaged with a brand via the right omnichannel customer engagement approach, they tend to share their positive experiences across social media channels and recommend the brands they like to their friends and family.

Dig into data-driven insights about your customers

Data-driven strategies are a huge key factor in building customer relationships that last. This includes creating customer profiles based on their current behaviours. It helps businesses stay relevant with the latest customers’ needs and wants across various touchpoints. This will ultimately help them figure out how to efficiently avail themselves of the strategies that are most effective at driving sales.

Apart from that, diving deep into data provides retailers with exclusive access to valuable customer feedback and insights. It also gives them a holistic view of their customers, thus enhancing their capability to deploy effective engagements that increase customer loyalty as well.

As a matter of fact, it is 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. Therefore, listening to your existing customers’ feedback over the right channel plays a crucial role in setting them on the right path. Unfortunately, this has often been overlooked by many retailers.

Smart segmentation to be a focus in 2022

As the world continues to grapple with ongoing global economic disruptions, there has been an influx of first-time online customers, new visitors to e-stores and explosive demand for logistics. To reach out to this varied database in a personalised manner, it is important to create lookalike segments, such as first-time visitors, new customers and retention. This will help save time and allow companies to reach out to each group according to context.

In this post-pandemic phase, applying smart segmentation in your customer engagement strategy would redefine the whole customer engagement experience.

Full-stack, integrated customer experience is the way to go

Today, customers expect well-customised interactions and want to be treated as unique individuals by businesses and retailers. So, it is not surprising to see them flocking to e-commerce websites that have invested heavily in an integrated hybrid customer engagement infrastructure.

In essence, if businesses would like to get a head start in the current e-commerce world, then it is time to consider engaging the right tools and ecosystem of partners to create meaningful, personalised and favourable customer relationships that can potentially drive businesses’ bottom line.

Guray Ozturk is director of business development at Infobip Malaysia, a global leader in omnichannel communication

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