Seamless Customer Experience – Modernizing Retail

With ever-evolving consumer expectations, Unified Commercepositions retailers to deliver a consistent brand experience at every touchpoint of the customer’s journey.

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 rapidpace of change continues, retailers need an effective strategyto delivera 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 strategyto 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.

• Companies have not identifiedthe most relevant customer journeys andtouchpoints thatalign business functions around gaps in disparate solutions
• Customer–facing solutions fellshort of delivering a consistent brand to customersacross platforms(e.g.,loyalty,digital marketing, forecourt /instorePOS, self–checkout/frictionless commerce, mobile ordering, curbside/instore pick–up, ecommerce websites, kiosks)
• Unrealized capabilities along with visible gaps betweensystems create a disconnectedbrand experiencebetween points of contact(e.g.,single user interfaces, shared shopping cards, combined loyaltyand mobile ordering apps)
• With anurgency for mobile/online ordering and curbside pickupcapabilitiesduring the pandemic, many retailers brought these solutions to market with unintentionalgaps

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
• Retailersoffer a consistent and seamless brand experience at each point of contact
• Key stakeholders gain a 360° view of the customer across all brand touchpoints