Omnichannel
By José Manuel Maseda · Published on Sep 16, 2019
Would you like to set your brand apart and always be a preferred option in your customer's mind, without having to run complex, lengthy projects that wear down your whole organization?
Yes, it is possible. You only need to take one more step in your relationship with your customers. You need to adapt your business to the new buying habits and lifestyle of today's consumer.
If you do, you will keep sailing, conquering new seas. If you don't, the waves will sweep you away; it is only a matter of time before you find out how long you can hold out.
But you are one of those who don't want to wait for the wave to arrive; you want to control your business and steer it safely into port.
And you know that to bring it safely into port, doing what you used to do is no longer enough, nor is doing what most people do. You have to go ahead, differentiate yourself and stand out from the rest.
Your products make you different, but you also need to reach your audience, increasingly saturated with options and more demanding in their choices.
Having a good, distinctive product is necessary but not sufficient. It used to be, in a local market with fewer options.
Today it is no longer enough: you also need to convey it, to connect on an emotional level, because you don't want to be a flash in the pan. You are not looking for occasional sales, you are looking for customers who identify with your essence, loyal and recurring customers.
Ambassadors of your brand who share their satisfaction with others and attract them to your business. You want to be a benchmark for your customer.
You need to move your customer and reach their heart.
And that means conveying value at every contact with your customer, in every communication. One-size-fits-all no longer works.
Consumers are saturated with hundreds of impacts that convey the soul of the brand but are impersonal in the customer's eyes, because they don't take the customer into account.
And customers only connect with those who have bothered to find out who they are, to learn what they are looking for and what they want, and who address them in a personalized way. There are too many suitors to notice just anyone when you can choose the one who took the trouble to find out who you are.
We all like to feel treated personally, and every business aiming for excellence seeks that personalized treatment with its customers.
It is exactly what you want.
All that is left is for you to get to work and implement a solution that lets you make it happen. A solution to get to know your customers, analyze their behavior and connect with them through personalized services and offers.
You have several alternatives for this.
The first is to develop your own project in-house: do it yourself. It has the advantage that you can define your own tool, tailored to you. And perhaps bring some differentiating or novel element. On the other hand, it will require planning and carrying out a long and costly project.
If you do it with your own staff, you will have to create a technical team to develop the solution. Another option is to work with an external technology consultancy. In any case, the assigned development team will have to define, in collaboration with marketing and ecommerce, the scope and the services you will offer your customer.
From there you will move on to a development phase that, depending on the scope, the number of resources assigned and their expertise, will last between two and four years.
You will also need to deploy a systems infrastructure with its corresponding ongoing maintenance to guarantee the availability of the platform.
Once the development is finished, you will move on to an integration phase with the business systems, which, again depending on factors such as availability, the architecture of the solution, etc., will take a few weeks or several months.
Finally, it will require a limited pilot in which to iron out all the errors and problems found, before launching into production.
If your aim is to keep differentiating yourself over time, the project will have to be considered a living project. Therefore, besides maintaining the technology platform, you will have to assign a permanent team for innovation and the continued development of new features.
The main problem with this route is not just that the project is long and costly, but above all the uncertainties about aspects such as the result, the total outlay you will have to commit to and the ability to keep enriching the solution with new services.
The second alternative is to select a loyalty and customer experience personalization platform and enjoy it as a service (SaaS). It has the advantage that it is proven and available immediately (or at least much sooner than an in-house development). On the other hand, if the business wanted some particular service, it might not be available, although it is also true that the tool is continuously enriched through the demands and needs of a broader set of customers.
The choice of a loyalty and user experience personalization platform should take into account factors such as:
If you want a guaranteed solution, this second alternative is the fastest and the one with the least risk. It is your best choice.
So, after reading these key ideas I have just shown you, all that is left is to get moving and make decisions so that your business keeps growing.
It is within your reach.
If you want more information, in our guide “6 steps to successfully create your loyalty and customer experience personalization program” you will find the aspects you need to take into account when selecting and implementing a solution of this kind in your business.
I hope I have helped you.
José Manuel Maseda
Sales & Marketing Manager