Digital commerce now C-Suite critical

The pandemic has changed how we live and interact. Perhaps the most visible changes can be seen as we browse malls or travel around almost any major city. The use of face masks – something previously almost unheard of in most parts of the world. Social distancing. The elbow tap replacing the handshake.

But these changes are unlikely to endure in the long term for most people. As post-peak exhaustion drains our willingness to comply with stringent ‘rules,’ we can already see people returning to more visibly ‘normal’ behaviour.

On the other hand, many less visible changes are proving much more enduring. For example, during the peak of lockdowns, we were forced to become far more digitally reliant. Around half of us bought products online that we had only ever previously bought in physical stores. We were forced to use our computers and iPhones to access new services for the first time.

And we got pretty good at it. Many of us gained new digital skills – skills we are still using, even after restrictions eased. Around a third of people claim that the shifts they made towards digital commerce will endure in the future. And some forecasts have suggested that digital adoption has jumped forward 10 years during the pandemic.

So, what does this mean for business?

Unsurprisingly, digital commerce has gone from ‘important’ to ‘mission critical’ in C-Suites. Performance in these channels has become essential to the immediate success of almost every organisation.

And with this shift, new tensions have arisen. Consumers have changed their behaviour, but in many cases technology hasn’t matched a new – much higher – set of expectations. Many websites are clunky to use, impersonal, and frustrating. Especially in the instance the user wants to do anything outside the rigid rules and linear process flows.

At the same time, the C-Suite is finding a lack of visibility on performance, and the absence of clear roadmaps on technology investments, are frustrating their planning ability.

So, where are the edges to create superior customer experiences and competitive advantage?

Past behaviour no guarantee of future

Traditional technologies are unlikely to create material new performance gains. For example, let’s take customer relationship management (CRM) systems. They have massively changed the sales and marketing landscape over the last decade. They have shifted technology investment beyond core financial systems to embrace customer facing applications. They have provided business leaders unprecedented visibility about their customer asset. They’ve also shifted the focus from transactions to lifetime customer value, as well as supported personalisation in digital communication channels. All massively important steps forward.

But there are now a couple of important limitations to consider. As CRM systems have become nearly ubiquitous, the competitive advantage they once offered has diminished. Businesses are desperately trying to outthink each other on fine edges that can quickly be copied.

At the same time, CRM systems have one material limitation. They are wonderful repositories of past customer behaviour, and this is often a valuable tool in predicting future actions. But it is also – necessarily – presumptive. A webstore, for example, may know my size and that I love black t-shirts. Which, when I’m shopping for myself, this knowledge can allow a digital experience to be better personalised to my needs. But what about when I’m buying a gift for my partner? All of that past knowledge is useless. Worse than that, if it is too hardcoded into predictive and structured sales flows, it can be immensely frustrating.

What CRM lacks is context. What do I want to do now, in this moment? And how can the digital experience be adapted in real-time to best meet my needs?

Intelligence, personalisation, and intelligent personalisation

The next generation leap forward in digital commerce will be based on Intelligent Personalisation. That is, leveraging all of the past knowledge about a customer, the product suite, and business rules. And then adding context. This starts with natural language recognition to make automated conversational commerce possible – be it through an assisted call centre, live chat function, or guided sales or service journey. Then adding Artificial Intelligence – the ability to think, adapt, and support a customer action in a human-like way, constantly learning, recognising tone and sentiment, and resolving points of frustration to create a seamless and slippery journey.

And, just to be clear, this type of assisted journey is nothing like a Chatbot. Chatbots are hardcoded critters that follow linear process flows. They do one thing at a time. And they have no ability to respond in anything other than pre-coded text. So, if a customer’s needs are simple and linear, they can play a role. But if the customer wants to do anything out of the ordinary – and out of the ordinary is actually remarkably ordinary (common) – they fall over.

For example, let’s take a pay TV automated call centre query. A bot may be able to handle a request to pay a bill based on a customer identifier and stored payment data. But let’s say I tell you I want to pay a bill, upgrade my service, and order a pay-per-view event. All in the same interaction. To do this in a delightful manner, AI is a foundational capability. Firstly, to recognise the intent, and then to intelligently guide you through a simple and responsive, human-like journey.

These are capabilities that are rapidly gaining attention in many of the world’s largest and most progressive companies. In some instances, to automate manual process flows to improve productivity. In customer-facing digital experiences, they are also creating unique sources of competitive advantage.
 

MyWave.ai is a global leader in driving hyper-personalised intelligent customer experiences in any channel. We’re partnering with clients to improve digital retail performance, re-invent guided travel experiences, take the complexity out of banking interactions (both front end and in areas like trade financing), onboarding new customers in telcos, adding value to insurance sales, to name just a few.

As a global SAP partner, MyWave.ai solutions are fully integrated with the  SAP Customer Experience  suite of industry-leading cloud solutions. Together, we enable you to build better CX, customer service, and customer relationships – while growing the bottom line.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you create a competitive advantage in your digital channels, we’d love to talk to you or click here to find out more.