Seamless Customer Experience – Modernizing Retail

The Path to Unified Commerce

Emerging technologies paved the way for omni-channel retail, but expectations from increasingly tech-savvy consumers grew faster than retailers could effectively manage. Retailers attempted to keep pace, but newly implemented systems were not well-integrated. Shoppers were left frustrated by the gaps and retailers lost customers, sales, and profits.

As rapid pace of change continues, retailers need an effective strategy to deliver a unified customer experience. A Unified Commerce strategy is comprehensive and customer-centric, connecting people, processes, systems, and data. It is designed to effectively deliver the company’s brand with a seamless customer experience.

Achieving true Unified Commerce requires a multi-step, often multi-year strategy to transform an organization and set priorities around a common vision and roadmap.

We Broke the Customer Journey

Many customer facing solutions were deployed over time with unrealized benefits. When not fully integrated, visible gaps diminish the customer experience.

Customer Journey

• Companies have not identified the most relevant customer journeys and touchpoints that align business functions around gaps in disparate solutions
• Customer-facing solutions fell short of delivering a consistent brand to customers across platforms (e.g., loyalty, digital marketing, forecourt / instore POS, self-checkout / frictionless commerce, mobile ordering, curbside/instore pick-up, ecommerce websites, kiosks)
• Unrealized capabilities along with visible gaps between systems create a disconnected brand experience between points of contact (e.g., single user interfaces, shared shopping cards, combined loyalty and mobile ordering apps)
• With an urgency for mobile /online ordering and curbside pickup capabilities during the pandemic, many retailers brought these solutions to market with unintentional

The End Game: A Unified Customer Experience

• The end-result is an organization that is universally customer-focused when prioritizing strategies and roadmaps.
• The company is transformed around a vision to modernize the customer experience
• Leadership proves its commitment to the vision by setting priorities to deliver on it
• The business is aligned cross-functionally to work in harmony around a common roadmap
• Retailers offer a consistent and seamless brand experience at each point of contact
• Key stakeholders gain a 360° view of the customer across all brand touchpoints