By Deesean Wilson, DXC Technology
Digital technology has had a profound effect on the retail
industry, an effect demonstrated by the importance and utility of data.
Cracking open this treasure of new insight on consumers, distribution, margins
and trends — both emerging and fading — has created new ways retailers can
expand and serve their customer bases.
Cloud, social media, online shopping, advanced analytics and data
management are enabling retailers to glean new insights and capabilities to
reach further into existing markets and cultivate new ones. To harness and
serve this powerful new consumer reality, forward-looking retailers are
creating more responsive, value- and customer-driven business models, supported
by increasingly agile and collaborative supply chains.
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This new digital customer engagement creates and supports the digital-savvy
consumer’s immersive retail experience, while allowing retailers to refine all
aspects of that experience. They’re redefining engagement as an ongoing process
that doesn’t end with a purchase, but actually inspires the next one.
How Retailers Can Enhance The Digital Shopping Experience
A successful data-driven strategy depends on implementing a single
digital platform that supports five entry points to digital customer
engagement: customer experience, customer behavior, customer service, customer
relationship and customer fulfillment. The journey can begin and end at any of
these points, allowing retailers to optimize the experience for each consumer.
Curating Digital Experience And Services: The Five Points Of Digital Customer Engagement
- Customer experience. Combine a shopper’s
in-store experience with apps and interactive devices to make the overall
experience more intriguing and personal. Such interactions create new pathways
to vital data about contextual shopping behavior and preferences that can be
applied effectively at the individual level. - Customer behavior. Monitor customer
satisfaction and patterns to predict behavior and purchase propensity. By
engaging customers regularly in a way that is relevant to them, retailers can
earn their trust, collect more data and develop merchandising and promotional
strategies around customers’ needs. - Customer service. Keeping data current
helps retailers know their customers, what they want and how they prefer to get
it. By refocusing on and continually capturing data from all customer contact
points, retailers can confidently create a positive shopping experience from
introduction to delivery. Such a commitment to service will build databases as
well as loyalty. - Customer relationship. Because today’s
digital-savvy consumers are accustomed to multiple ways to order, purchase,
save on and receive merchandise, retailers can implement technologies to gain
further insights at every stage of the customer engagement cycle. Doing so can
help build new, custom touch points that show an understanding of each
customer’s preferences and ensure that they feel valued and unique. - Customer fulfillment. With the right
data-driven enterprise resource planning and optimization tools, retailers can
use analytics-driven insights to predict shopping behavior and improve
inventory planning, assortment management and product placement. Online, these
insights can help a retailer rework their page displays, collections and search
functions.
The Optimum Platform For Consumer Data Strategies
The digital experience can be mastered by aggregating and
analyzing data to develop effective and actionable strategies that keep up with
the digital-savvy consumer. Retailers must adopt a more agile,
technology-driven model for innovation that builds on current resources but
also accepts proven bolt-on technology as soon as it’s available. To analyze
data in meaningful ways, these tools need to be accessible at any time, from
any location, and in a context that makes sense to the user and the business.
The cloud has emerged as the platform of choice for organizations
that want to turn their data into cost-effective business insights that can be
acted upon in the short term to deliver measurable improvements.
Next-generation cloud-based platforms are the superior choice, as they are
faster to implement and easier to change, allow for collaboration anywhere and
anytime, cost less because no hardware is required and are always up to date.
Retailers are recognizing the value of unified digital platforms
that combine channel management, marketing, procurement and financials as an
ideal end-to-end retail solution. Innovative data management resources are
becoming essential for understanding customer behavior and responding with
compelling and satisfying shopping experiences. By acting on these data
insights and evolving their business practices, retailers can keep pace with
rapid change and optimize their operations in new ways.
In challenging economic and competitive environments, early
recognition and implementation of beneficial digital technology puts businesses
in the ideal position to outperform and outmaneuver the competition, and to
produce better business outcomes overall.
As Global Product
Manager for Retail Solutions at DXC
Technology, Deesean Wilson is responsible for the overall product
vision and strategy for retail offerings developed by DXC Eclipse, a practice
within DXC Technology. With more than two decades of experience in software
development and consulting, Wilson is an expert in omnichannel retail system
integration, particularly in the area of store systems and point-of-sale
technology. He has managed complex projects for retailers in various verticals,
integrating solutions that connect business functional requirements and
technical architecture needs. Wilson is committed to developing solutions that
enhance customer engagement and innovation to drive revenue opportunities for
retail clients across the globe.
