#MakingCXSeamless: Customer-first across touchpoints

In his opening comments at one of the sessions at the Internet Commerce Summit (ICS) MENA 2024, session moderator Navin Joshua, Founder/Director, GreenHonchos stated, “Many a times when we think about customer experience (CX), we tend to focus on the front end. However, unification of the back end and the front end is what delivers great CX.”

Starting with a back-end perspective to enable a great CX, Niels Floors, Vice President, Channel Engine said, “We look at external, third-party sales channels such as marketplaces, social commerce and more, which are part of the CX as brands are expected to be on all these channels. With as much automation we support businesses to manage these channels without much modification of their existing systems.”

The whole idea is to help businesses adapt to evolving channels as quickly as possible.

Today brands face a dilemma that’s rooted in the key question around how to operate in a world where digital, social and brick-and-mortar channels must operate seamlessly, added Gaurav Mahajan, Chief Executive Officer – Lifestyle, Landmark Group. “How to maintain a single brand identity and integrity across channels is the dilemma as the playbook on how commerce happens on online channels is slightly different from the brick-and-mortar. For instance, while going on to a marketplace, a brand must account for a discounting dynamic and range width that’s different for brick-and-mortar. And many brands are bridging that chasm successfully.”

Certain categories are more adept at creating an omnichannel experience driven by multiple factors, Joshua observed bringing in interesting perspectives from the beverage industry.

“Although I’m a big proponent of omnichannel, unfortunately in our line of business it doesn’t exist due to regulations in this part of the world. So, the e-commerce platform is totally different from the brick-and-mortar platform in our case,” said Santhosh John Thomas, CIO, African+Eastern. “We are seeing exponential growth in brick-and-mortar unlike e-commerce. The reason being when the customer comes to an alcoholic beverages store, they are keen to understand tasting notes and so on wherein face-to-face conversations is key. But once that choice is made, it’s all about convenience of getting the items delivered and therein online plays a crucial role.”

At this point, Piyush Chowhan, CIO, Panda Retail Company – Savola Group shared his thoughts from the food and grocery category. “Brands from specialty retail, wellness, lifestyle and even categories such as pharma tend to have a focused view based on customer needs. Experimenting within that focused parameter is easier compared to food & grocery, a category where online penetration is lowest versus several other categories. The reason why it’s difficult is because in food & grocery we have to handle 10 transactions with 10 times more complexity in terms of items to serve the basic needs of the customer. The challenge is to offer the same level of CX at scale to our customers as they are used to across other categories. That is where the challenge lies. The space is evolving, convergence of channels is happening and eventually we will reach a middle ground between one-two-day and 10-minute delivery timelines.”

“But doing things at scale requires a very different perspective from a CX design perspective, Chowhan continued. Brands have to start with omnichannel as the core principle. Marrying the online and offline channels with integrations trying to mix and match doesn’t really work and that’s where the whole CX piece might fall flat. The right approach is to work ground up to create delightful CX following an omnichannel concept.”

In creating a great CX, having 360° customer persona has been a gamechanger for African+Eastern, Thomas shared.

Balancing customer need with feasibility for a business is crucial to create a great CX, Joshua agreed, and sometimes technology spoils the game. So, is tech a limitation or an enabler when it comes to omnichannel experiences?

It’s an enabler and a limitation at the same time because is tech is evolving very rapidly with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation whereas traditional organisations that still have legacy systems at the back end aren’t able to adapt quickly to keep up, Floors observed.

“The CX element, irrespective of technology, is very fundamental and it’s kind of very visceral. But a harmonious coexistence is being created. For instance, there is a brand born in the digital space targeted towards a largely digital customer who also move very quickly to the physical space, I think it’s a bit of a phenomenon,” Mahajan shared while talking about Lifestyle’s unique partnership with SheGlam in the GCC becoming the latter’s first brick-and-mortar touchpoint globally.