React, Angular, and Web Components connectors make it even easier for organizations to provide total experiences on any channel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company that crushes business complexity, today announced a series of new and updated Pega Platform™ features that help make it even easier for organizations to embed self-service workflows into any front-end channel. Building on Pega’s open architecture, these features help businesses accelerate the development of self-service experiences that are increasingly in demand from customers and employees while requiring less time and effort from IT.

According to the 2022 Gartner® Customer Service and Support Priorities Poll (1), 74% of business respondents say creating a seamless customer journey across assisted and self-service channels is ‘important’ or ‘very important.’ But most companies rely on a mix of siloed technologies that make executing on that priority extremely complex. For example, while a self-service ‘change of address’ sounds simple to build, any developer who’s tried to integrate their maze of back-end systems with their web or mobile channels knows the harsh reality of how complex it can be. The all-too-frequent result: clunky and frustrating experiences for customers and major development and maintenance headaches for developers.

Pega extends its ability to provide total experiences for customers and employees with a series of new and enhanced connectors that help simplify the deployment of self-service capabilities with less required development work. New front-to-back-end integration options help enable enterprises to adapt quickly to customer demands using the same unified low-code platform to manage multiple types of front-end interfaces. And when any workflow element changes on the back end, Pega then updates those changes across all relevant front-end channels, further reducing IT workloads while ensuring consistent experiences for all users.

Available now for Pega Platform clients, these new features give developers the flexibility to embed self-service processes into front-end interfaces delivering benefits that include:

• Faster UX performance with enhanced Pega DX APIs – Pega DX APIs are the core components that make it possible for organizations to provide elegant and powerful experiences when plugging Pega-developed workflows into front-end customer-facing channels. Now available as part of Pega Platform 8.7, the newest version of Pega DX APIs allows for faster performing user interfaces with less data transfer and easier authoring capabilities to speed configuration and streamline the experience for everyone.
• More freedom to use front-end frameworks of choice with new SDKs – Developers using their favorite front-end frameworks typically need to build their own components to connect them into back-end systems and maintain the website’s distinct look and feel. Pega provides an orchestration layer with pre-built components to accelerate the integration of user experiences developed on popular front-end frameworks – including new and updated software development kits (SDKs) for Angular, React, and Web Components available via Pega Marketplace.
• Easier embedding of workflows into apps and websites with less code using the new Pega Web Embed – The new Pega Web Embed capability gives developers a low-code way to quickly infuse Pega Platform workflows into apps or sites. Pega Web Embed auto-generates web components which can seamlessly be dropped into existing webpages. This saves valuable development time with simple drag-and-drop capabilities and eliminates most coding work for self-service use cases.

To learn more about these features, attend Pega’s flagship event, PegaWorld® iNspire online on Tuesday, May 24 at 9 a.m. EDT for the Americas and Europe or Wednesday, May 25 at 10 a.m. AEST for Asia Pacific. After the keynotes, join the Low Code, High-Impact User Experiences session for more context on how Pega helps simplify even the most complex user interface integrations.

Quotes & Commentary:
“Today’s leading organizations are all pursuing digital transformation, but with IT resources stretched thin, many are struggling to keep up with market demand,” said John Huehn, general manager, customer service and sales automation, Pega. “Pega has long understood this struggle and has focused its efforts to easily embed back-end processes with front-end channels. These new features further extend these integration capabilities to provide a better experience for customers and employees alike.”

Supporting Resources:

About Pegasystems
Pega delivers innovative software that crushes business complexity so our clients can make better decisions and get work done. We help the world’s leading brands solve their biggest business challenges: maximizing customer lifetime value, streamlining customer service, and boosting operational efficiency. Pega technology is powered by real-time AI and intelligent automation, while our scalable architecture and low-code platform help enterprises adapt to rapid change and transform for tomorrow. For more information, please visit www.pega.com.

1. Gartner, Inc., “2022 Customer Service Trends and Priorities,” May 6, 2022
2. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Press Contact:
Sean Audet
Pegasystems Inc.
[email protected] 
(617) 528-5230
Twitter: @pega

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE Pegasystems Inc.

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WALNUT, Calif., June 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — ZERO BREEZE, the inventor of the first real portable air conditioner, is leading a trend by offering the cooling experience to outdoor lovers. As the latest portable air conditioner of the company, ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 is sold to thousands of users in over 40 countries and regions. The company recently upgraded its product solutions, and is going to launch its 1st Fans Day in July.

With a better understanding of its consumers through its Direct-to-Customer strategy, ZERO BREEZE commits to improve its user experiences and product solutions. From this May, customers can order customized adapters from its fans community or official website, which enables more users with different power systems to adapt the products.

“Our mission is to offer innovative solutions that suit the needs of passionate campers, RVers, boat owners, and outdoor lovers, bringing them an extra mile closer to adventure,” said Max Ma, the founder of ZERO BREEZE, “with a strategic focus on R&D and supply chain capabilities, we are committed to easing outdoor living with innovations. Thanks to the latest technology adopted by ZERO BREEZE Mark 2, users are able to enjoy outdoor activities as long as they wish.”

No More Sweating at Camping Nights

Portability is at the heart of product design. ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 only weighs 16.5 pounds and features 1/3 size of traditional air conditioners. Its micro twin-cylinder compressor is as small as a cola can, reaching the perfect balance of lightness and performance. ZERO BREEZE, as the industry-first to adopt the compressor, also brings a unique air duct system to the small-sized unit.

Powered by a 24V battery, ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 is available for up to 5 hours of normal use. The solar panels and in-car plugs also give users more flexibility under off-grid conditions.

Introducing the “spot cooling” concept to the outdoor living industry, ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 is designed to cool down the temperature only around users. This technology provides a comfortable environment for a limited area with less power consumption.

Performance Beyond the Value

Summer has arrived. Imagine being in a tent, in a recreational vehicle, or on a sailboat under the temperature of 100 °F with high humidity, the ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 will blow cold air up to 30 °F lower than the ambient temperature. Enjoy a cool and refreshing outdoor summer in 10 minutes.

ZERO BREEZE Mark 2 is available for purchase at $999 on their website.

About ZERO BREEZE

ZERO BREEZE, established in 2016, is a tech-driven outdoor living brand. Since the launch of the first portable air conditioner ZERO BREEZE Mark 1 in 2016, ZERO BREEZE has been in relentless pursuit of the perfect synergy of innovative technology and user experience. With its footprint in more than 40 countries and regions, ZERO BREEZE is dedicated to creating an easy-to-use and unmatched experience for outdoor lovers around the world.

For more information, please visit ZERO BREEZE official site: www.zerobreeze.com.

SOURCE ZERO BREEZE Tech Inc.

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SINGAPORE, June 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Global payments platform 2C2P announced today that they had been appointed by IKEA franchisee Ikano Retail as its official payments partner to create a seamless and localised online payment experience for IKEA customers in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

As the demand for accessible and secure digital payment options grows in Southeast Asia, 2C2P will enable IKEA’s online shoppers to pay for their favourite homeware and delivery via their preferred online payment method in each market.

2C2P’s payment platform provides IKEA’s shoppers with a secure, versatile, and integrated checkout experience covering the region’s myriad payment methods. This includes credit cards and alternative payment methods such as online bank transfers, e-wallets and zero interest instalment payment plans, with over-the-counter solutions launching soon.

For example, in Singapore, customers can pay using online bank transfer from their DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered or UOB accounts via eNETS. In Malaysia, customers can use online bank transfer network FPX to complete their payments. In Thailand, customers can pay using the PromptPay mobile QR solution. In the Philippines, customers can pay using mobile app Gcash.

Aside from its comprehensive payment offering, 2C2P’s payment platform can meet the complex business and operational needs of Ikano Retail by offering customised features that automatically reconcile multiple business streams and ensure accurate data reporting.

“Creating a better everyday life for the many in the communities IKEA serves around Southeast Asia means meeting our customers’ expectations and preferences in the way they shop and pay,” said Corrina Holman, Ikano Retail’s IKEA Customer Journey Manager. “Our customers expect a great user experience online and on-site at our stores, and we’re always looking for ways to improve that. We want to unite them with their choice of home and office furnishing solutions in an efficient, simple and seamless way with shorter turnaround times that are safe and secure.”

Agnes Chua, Executive Director of 2C2P, added, “Today, customers want many payment options, operating at the same speed and ease as the rest of their digital experience. By offering a full-suite solution that integrates Southeast Asia’s differing payment methods, we hope to provide IKEA with a competitive advantage and help them keep pace with their customers’ changing payment preferences and needs. We have been working closely with Ikano Retail in Thailand since 2018 and are thrilled to expand our longstanding partnership and offer IKEA customers a safe, seamless and convenient online shopping experience consistently across the region”.

Southeast Asia is seeing rapid growth in e-commerce spending, with digital payments boosting its growth. According to an IDC InfoBrief commissioned by 2C2P, ecommerce spending is expected to rise by 162% to reach US$179.8 billion by 2025 across the region, with digital payments accounting for 91% of total ecommerce payments. Mobile banking and mobile wallet users are expected to grow 97% and 162% respectively between 2020 and 2025.

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With the easing of COVID restrictions in most APAC countries, our lives are slowly returning to normal. But the old ‘normal’ is not the new ‘normal’ – especially in business.

The last couple of years has transformed retail. In Southeast Asia (SEA), 78% of consumers, 350 million people, are now digital consumers with the rate of digital consumption increasing faster than in other APAC regions. Retailers are seeing lost sales, with 49% of shoppers now hesitant to shop in-store.

With retailers facing the biggest challenge of their existence – how to make the most of their brick-and-mortar assets – here are four ways that can help them adapt to the new consumer shopping behaviors.

Upgrade your tech to 2022 trends

Most of us welcome technology, and the convenience it brings. Retailers who have adopted artificial intelligence are seeing improvements of 16% to 19% in customer engagement, business intelligence, profit margins, competitiveness, and innovation. But what are the biggest tech trends for high-end retail stores?

One is ‘cashier-less’ shopping, for example in Decathlon, which uses RFID scanning technology to automatically detect and charge shoppers as they drop products into their baskets. Another is chatbots, which shoppers can use to get quick, simple answers to service requests. However, technology can fall short if it doesn’t live up to the expectations of customers.

Customer expectations of brands are shifting and trends that combine the benefits of physical and digital shopping or ‘phygital’ are set to dominate over the coming year. For example, live commerce is a platform via which shoppers can video call an in-store expert who gives them a personalized overview of a product, a range, or even walks them through an entire store, giving them an ‘in store’ experience from the comfort of their home. These ‘phygital’ tools not only make life easier for the customer, but they also help improve a customer’s journey and let the brand collect crucial consumer insights, too.

Harness data to enhance your CX

We all know that e-commerce websites are specialists in collecting customer data to improve the shopping experience. Just look at Amazon, which tweaks its entire homepage to each visitor, depending on their past searches and purchases, to offer more accurate product recommendations. However, brick-and-mortar businesses can leverage data gleaned from their own technologies to improve the buyer’s journey, too.

Take video-powered retail, for instance.

First, the video software can use data to connect callers to the most suitable in-store advisor based on their inquiry. For instance, Marks & Spencer has a ‘Call the Expert’ video button, pairing customers with their furniture experts for a stronger chance of a sale. Once the call is complete, the software can collect invaluable after-sales feedback and ratings to improve future transactions.

With customer data, brick-and-mortar retailers can give shoppers exactly what they are looking for, boosting their sales potential and cutting costs, too.

Use new insights to become extra efficient

Data analysis helps retail leaders make stronger, more insightful decisions on how their business should spend its resources. One basic example is stock investment. Tracking product conversion rates to see what is selling well, and what is not, makes it easier to decide what to stock up on. However, data analytics does not stop there.

‘Dark stores’ offer customers more control over how and when they buy their products, plus a VIP, in-store shopping experience from their living rooms.

Instore and online data platforms can monitor the shifts or products that staff perform best on, and help managers optimize working schedules. It can even inform a store’s opening hours to match modern hybrid working routines. The analytics can identify if there is a rise in commuter footfall on particular evenings, and recommend which days they should stay open late. Or, if it detects a spike in relevant internet searches, visits to shop websites, or video call requests from home workers, it can suggest when stores should stay open exclusively for video retail.

This does not mean retailers need to keep their premium high-street locations open. Instead, they can convert them into cost-saving ‘dark stores’.

Open dark stores for optimized ‘phygital’ retail

A dark store is usually an existing shop, or out-of-town distribution center, that is partly or fully dedicated to fulfilling online orders. While they are filled with aisles of products and shop assistants, they are often closed to regular walk-in customers to create more space for stock storage, order processing, and one-to-one video calls.

These dark stores offer customers more control over how and when they buy their products, plus a VIP, in-store shopping experience from their living rooms. The proof is in the pudding, with retailers like the online grocery platform HappyFresh, which saw a 300% month-on-month growth in users since the launch of its dark store.

One is ‘cashier-less’ shopping, for example in Decathlon, which uses RFID scanning technology to automatically detect and charge shoppers as they drop products into their baskets.

This is just one example of a data-powered retail transformation that helps brick-and-mortar stores become an asset once again to multichannel retailers, by integrating the ‘phygital’ concept as consumers turn into hybrid shoppers.

While in-store shopping continues to have a place in APAC, recent years have taught retailers that true success comes from investing in digital and pivoting business models to whatever the world throws at us next.

After all, we are now living in the new ‘normal’ and this is the chance for retailers to engage with customers in a smarter, more personalized way.

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The e-commerce advertising space continues to grow as companies look to leverage it for brand-building purposes, especially post the growth driven by the pandemic. According to industry experts, creativity will play a big role in strengthening the brand in the space. About a third of transactions of sponsored products happen within three minutes of a click, Patrick Miller, co-president and co-founder, Flywheel Digital, said at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, 2022. “What we see now is that platforms want to drive discoverability and increase dwell time. Some of the reasons for the increase in dwell time are that they can better monetise it via advertising on the sites and also build bigger baskets as well as allow customers to find new items. Creativity, as expressed by integration within social things such as brand stores, will allow customers to interact with the brands, discover new products and ultimately drive revenue for both brands and the retailers,” he added further. 

For Kara Rousseau, vice president and head of marketing, Walmart Connect, creativity involves leveraging every single customer touchpoint in order to enhance a customer’s journey. As per her, digital touchpoints still matter more than ever despite the fact that 80% of purchases still happen in stores. This is because digital is essential both from a conversion and discovery perspective. “As part of our research, we found out that people were more willing to buy and try different things as certain products were not available because of shortages during the pandemic. We had 90% of the Walmart customers who were more open-minded to trying new brands. And then 50% of those were more likely to purchase them. That’s an opportunity and search becomes part of that,” she stated. 

Furthermore, Kaleeta McDade, global executive creative director, Ogilvy Experience, highlighted that creativity is not the asset that we make, 90% of it is the thought. For instance, what problem are we solving for and for whom? Why does someone choose that brand? Why did someone shop? “We can optimise so many things around channels and technology but if we really understand the why and the human condition, that is what makes the difference. People want to associate with brands who have purpose as an agenda and are able to display that,” she explained. 

Read Also: Cannes Lions 2022: Why brands will play a pivotal role in bringing the #MeToo movement’s actual narrative out in light

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By Michalis Michael, CEO of DMR

Text analytics is a powerful discipline, capable of finding and annotating every example of customer opinion – irrespective of the customer’s language.

To British executives who are waking up to the enormous quantities of unstructured data (UD) that surround their businesses, the language-agnostic possibilities of AI for text analytics are a vital (but easily overlooked) piece of the puzzle.

After all, UD – data which isn’t structured in a format like a spreadsheet, and which is found across all kinds of social media, blogs, website comments, call centre calls, private chats, and so on – represents a huge resource for companies interested in improving customer experience (CX).

The fact that most data is unstructured – MIT estimates that 80-90 per cent of data is UD, though the reality is probably higher and certainly growing – means that all customer opinions are available to those businesses who invest in the tech and expertise to collate and analyse that data.

This is the defining quality of AI for text analytics: it is universal. This leads to unprecedented access to the thoughts, views, and minds of every customer who’s ever made a comment about a brand on any platform. It leads to an accurate and quick discovery of the customer pain points that are priority to solve, thus reducing customer churn.

Given this universality – this source-agnostic approach to analytics – it’s all the more essential to recognise the value of language agnosticism. To limit analysis and annotation solely to English-speaking opinions – when others exist – is to undermine UD’s enormity and the universal nature of this kind of text analytics.

Consequently, it’s worth understanding how multilingual AI analytics works – and its potential for gathering a comprehensive overview of customer opinion.

The power of natural language processing

The basis for AI-powered text analytics is a combination of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP).

ML is the way to produce AI designed to mimic human learning. While conventional programming requires the implementation of rules created by humans, ML uses data analysis to learn hugely complex patterns that can be used to infer – making ML powerfully adept at solving problems and performing complex tasks.

NLP, meanwhile, pertains to processing language – in fact, it can be understood as one of the complex tasks that ML supports.

The uses for NLP in this context are many and varied. It can be used for simpler goals, like working out how often a given term or word appears in a text. Alternatively, it can take on the tougher challenge of determining the sentiment – or even emotion – of a given piece of text.

Obviously, both the former and the latter have great utility for businesses who want a detailed understanding of all available customer opinion.

These uses of NLP allow companies to assess enormous quantities of data to discover how often their brand is being talked about online or offline – and whether it’s being perceived positively, negatively, or in relation to a range of more nuanced sentiments.

Multilingual methods

Crucially, as mentioned above, the power of this approach rests in its capacity to encompass all customer opinion – text analytics work with every opinion, rather than a sample or selection.

In order to realise this goal, however, you can’t limit the language in which a given opinion is expressed – you need your AI to be entirely language agnostic, especially if you are a multinational organisation.

We achieve this by using both unsupervised and supervised ML. Supervised ML means that the algorithms involved are ‘trained’ by human beings who annotate training data, allowing the AI to do a much better job than humans when it comes to narrow tasks involving large quantities of data – also known as Big Data.

To ensure that all languages are catered for, we make use of a network of some 300 native speakers of various languages who read, understand, and manually annotate unstructured data – establishing, for example, whether a given Tweet is positive or negative, its topic, the presence of sarcasm, or even the customer journey stage implied by the content of an email or chat message thread.

Once an AI has been trained in the native language (without translating into English and using an ML model for English) to very accurately achieve its goals – whether to establish sentiment or identify the presence of a topic – the results can be easily visualised in English, unlocking the accumulated opinions of all customers for CX professionals, retention managers, and so on in a language they can understand.

On top of this, AI precision can continuously increase. Precision can be measured when a small sample of tweets, for example, are annotated by a human with a certain sentiment. We’re seeing 80-90 per cent or more match the algorithm, irrespective of the language in which the tweets were written.

Bearing in mind the subjective nature of expressing sentiment, this demonstrates just how formidable these AI techniques have become.

Finding needles in an unstructured data haystack

I began this piece by pointing out that UD is everywhere, and that it represents an opportunity to get a sense of all customer opinion – as opposed to polls and surveys which, by definition, can only provide customer opinion based on a sample.

In order to truly achieve this unlimited degree of access into consumer opinion, however, multinational companies don’t just need to engage AI experts and their tech for the English language – they also need to make sure their AI is trained on data across all pertinent languages with the same high precision as for English.

In so doing, text analytics become not only source agnostic, but language agnostic too – allowing business leaders to confidently assert that their understanding of their customers’ views, pain points, and gain points is detailed, precise, and unprecedentedly comprehensive.

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The COVID-19 has pandemic flipped retail on its head.

While “Buy Online, Pick-up in Store” (BOPIS) proved invaluable among social distancing guidelines, it was never seen as the long-term roadmap for most retailers.

Now, with consumers relishing its flexibility, BOPIS is no longer considered a convenient differentiator but a necessary survival strategy for retailers large and small. Research suggests almost two-thirds of shoppers are now interested in click-and-collect services.

However, executing a BOPIS strategy at scale touches nearly every aspect of a retailer’s operations. What’s more, these orders can be fulfilled in many different ways: from store inventory, from a store’s distribution center or directly from a supplier to the store. Because of its complexity, delivering a successful BOPIS requires both speed and synchronization.

So, how can managers across supply chains navigate these challenges and reap the rewards of BOPIS?

Understanding the benefits
A BOPIS strategy connects online and in-person experiences, supporting a stronger omnichannel customer journey

It allows retailers to level the playing field with competitors, empowering them to meet customer demands. A BOPIS strategy can help retailers grow their sales through an expanded product offering. Further, BOPIS can reduce shipping costs by grouping deliveries to a single store instead of homes.

By driving traffic to stores, retailers can often cross-sell products and services. One study showed 75 percent of shoppers who use BOPIS are more likely to purchase additional products.

BOPIS also speeds up order fulfilment, allowing shoppers to pick up their purchases much quicker than if they opt for home delivery.

Supply and demand
Today’s consumers value convenience. They want their orders fulfilled quickly and to complete their purchases or make returns efficiently.

This requires retailers to offer the latest inventory data available to the consumer, updated in real-time. Implementing the right technology is key to providing this synchronous service.

A successful approach involves connecting all components of the retailer’s business systems and their suppliers’ business systems to share real-time data on inventory, order statuses and more.

Systems must be in place so staff can easily access an accurate record of all orders and updated stock levels across warehouses and stores. This ensures optimum customer experience and satisfaction while avoiding errors and delays.

Boosting customer experience
Allowing customers to purchase items online and pick them up either curbside or in-store accommodates prevailing customer demands for safety, efficiency and convenience.

Recent research found 83 percent of consumersfind shopping convenience to be more important than it was five years ago.

BOPIS pairs the convenience of online ordering with the speed of picking items up from a local store. Customers can choose a time that works best for them, but retailers must play their role in this convenient service with a quick collection process, including designated parking and pick-up locations that allow customers to avoid in-store queues.

However, to implement BOPIS successfully, retailers will need to align supply chain data across their systems and with their supplier community. This is key in providing accurate stock data and real-time order processing and fulfilment updates that allow consumers to achieve a quick and convenient BOPIS experience.

Retailers must also communicate clearly with customers across multiple channels on how to best use click and collect services in stores to ensure an efficient and seamless pick-up experience while minimizing wait times.

An accurate, reliable inventory also prevents customers from getting out-of-stock notifications after they’ve ordered and allows customers to track their order from purchase to collection.

Agile inventory
Retailers must have a clear view of their inventory regardless of how an order is fulfilled. Implementing relevant underlying technology is key to successful BOPIS execution, particularly in ensuring each product is in the right place at the right time to satisfy a customer’s fulfilment preference.

This way, goods can be tracked and managed to ensure they arrive in-store in time for collection without accumulating excess inventory on-site. The result is a seamless overview of stock availability and location data that facilitates quick and convenient shopping.

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The experience economy has infiltrated every industry—from online shopping to healthcare, consumers expect a highly interactive, personalized experience in nearly every interaction. And when your business doesn’t deliver, consumers flock to the competition.

Shutterstock

Join us in this free webinar as we discuss actionable tips and best practices to deliver a better customer experience from discovery to post-purchase. In this webinar you’ll learn:

1. What customers expect from customer experience today
2. How to deliver a better customer experience at every stage of the customer journey
3. What best practices for customer experience you can implement now (and what you should make a plan to implement in the future)

Meet your panel

• Chance Olson, EVP of Customer Experience & Strategy, Podium
• Julie Inouye, Head of Communications, Podium
• Jay Baer, Marketing & Customer Experience Expert, Convince & Convert
• David Meltzer, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Author, and Business Coach

The How to Drive a Better Customer Experience in Today’s Overcrowded, Experience-Driven World webinar will take place live on Thursday, June 30, 2022 at 1PM EST/ 10AM PST.

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In this guest post, LiveRamp COO Melanie Hoptman, says with the end of third-party cookies, retailers and brands collaborating around data will become more important than ever…

Brands and retailers have long known the importance of data with many players committing enormous resources to capture it. But for all the progress that has been made, companies often squander these resources, investing as if only to improve data capabilities within the four walls of their own marketing department.

The impending end of third-party cookies combined with the increased desire for both privacy and personalisation from consumers is creating a perfect storm, reducing the amount of data companies have access to as well as their ability to utilise this data effectively.

Data collaboration can resolve this while also unlocking concealed value. It ensures improved data access, better understanding of consumers, and more effective campaigns while meeting privacy concerns. Further, with the breakout success of cloud-based data collaboration tools and retail media networks, companies are more empowered and energised than ever to build, share and leverage their data with partners.

Expanding Data Access

While brands have begun to boost their first-party data strategies, many brands – especially those new to the scene – will struggle to replace third-party cookies effectively. For many brands, the central issue is time, and racing to replace decades of insights with brands’ own data. Furthermore, brands have typically not owned relationships all the way into consumers’ hands – many are missing key links in their data, which makes it harder for them to generate the necessary insights in order to drive successful campaigns.

Enhanced data collaboration between retailers and brands unlocks the best of both parties’ insights. Brands can better measure their impact by leveraging retailers’ insights into actual purchases, and understanding their omnichannel customer journey; brands can even collaborate with other brands to understand their customers’ profiles across multiple different channels. From retailers’ ends, the engaging new experiences brands can now power using data drive better relationships with consumers, driving more loyalty and eventually, revenue.

Even beyond the brand-retailer relationship, right now, brands can turn to any corner of the ecosystem and find experiences being enhanced with data collaboration. In television, for example, brands leveraging data collaboration can unlock new levels of insight into their campaigns and how they activate across the range of broadcast mediums available to advertisers. Furthermore, in the ever-intensifying battle around understanding TV measurement, data collaboration can help to deliver better insights than ever around real outcomes like conversions and purchases.

Understanding Customers

Data collaboration brings retailers and brands real customer journey analytics, enabling their marketers to better understand their audiences and their preferences. By securely connecting customer data with partners, marketers can map out the customer experience more effectively so they can improve on it. Collaborating with unexpected partners can further enhance knowledge of customer behaviour in other settings to unlock additional insights and allow for enhanced communications.

Additionally, many customers want these partnerships. They trust their favoured brands and are willing to share their data anonymously and securely in order to gain better experiences. In an era where personalisation rules, brands and retailers can’t risk being out of step with customer needs and desire for customisation.

Collaboration is King

Retailers and brands have come a long way since the digital transformation first swept the retail industry. Now, data collaboration is poised to give retailers and brands the kind of intelligence previously reserved for tech giants. Those that don’t embrace data collaboration are set to be left behind.

A new era of retail has arrived in Australia.

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For years, technology and big data collection have enabled marketers to focus on customer behaviors. When we know exactly where customers navigate, what they open and what they click in a digital marketplace, those become the default metrics to chase. But are they the best ones?

In a landscape where access to user data is everchanging, marketing metrics are becoming more challenging to measure all the time, which will inevitably leave us with a knowledge gap. This presents organizations with a unique opportunity to look beyond the simple ‘what’ customers are doing, to truly understand ‘why’ customers do what they do and furthermore, get strategic about why specific marketing tactics drive certain behaviors. 

See More: How to Make Culture a First-Class Citizen as a B2B SaaS CMO

The Rise of the Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

In recent years, customers’ needs and expectations have risen significantly, paving a new path for the rise of the CCO role. CCOs are champions of what success looks like and means through the lens of the customer and, as such, have the power to pivot tactics and metrics to rally around that cause. With respect to metrics, while traditional marketing data will always hold value, it generally paints a very narrow view of the full picture. It is essential for brands to look beyond the numbers to ask the right questions and actively listen to develop a strong qualitative insight surrounding what customers really care about and how that translates to business KPIs. In fact, many of the world’s largest brands, including McDonald’s and Hostess, to name a few, have added the CCO title to their leadership ladder. 

How the CCO Puts Customer Centricity Into Practice

Many companies understand customers are a key component of growth and stability. The challenge lies with how to put into action a plan to understand and deliver on customer goals. That is where the CCO role takes hold. A CCO’s core obligation is to prepare, educate and streamline organizations toward best practices in establishing customer-centricity.

Some organizations take Outback Steakhouse’s recent decision to assign responsibility for customer strategy to their CMO, for example. It will disperse the responsibility for customer outcomes to the team at large. While teamwork is nice in theory, the bystander effect takes hold, and customer experience becomes a priority for none. Establishing best-in-class customer-centricity requires dedicated leadership to advocate for the customer. 

Defining the CCO’s Role

It is up to the chief customer officer to lead the charge on customer experience, which involves four immediate priorities:

1. Enabling KPIs through CPIs:

Customer performance indicators (CPIs) are new metrics that track the goals that customers desire to achieve when they do business with a brand. For example, a goal such as “saves me time” would be something that universally can be achieved across most industries, from retail coffee chains to insurance companies, to the shared economy and ecommerce venues. Not to mention, they focus on if and how brands can help customers better achieve their more human-centered goals as they interact with and use a brand’s product or service.

2. Navigating cultural shifts:

Setting a CCO up for success in a company’s leadership team requires careful navigation of existing relationships and organizational structures. The CCO will connect cross-functional teams, empower frontline employees to interact with customers, and translate the vision of leadership to all, harmonizing decision-making with customers at the heart of it.

3. Balancing the internal and external:

Customer-centric initiatives can often stall out because of organizational barriers. The CCO takes stock of internal employee engagement to determine gaps in the employee experience that may affect the ultimate customer experience. At the end of the day, investing in internal systems, like employee engagement, is a clear indicator of success with external customers.

4. Prioritizing long-term growth:

Accurately assessing gains requires both the articulation of the long-term plan and the implementation of short-term metrics to demonstrate wins along the way. An effective CCO is a champion in the face of skepticism, doubt, and short-term thinking from stakeholders. This can take shape in the form of utilizing a robust set of customer performance indicators to gauge company performance with respect to meeting customers’ goals and educating employees to align with and act on that customer-centric vision.  

The Characteristics of a Successful CCO

CCOs are research-driven conductors of a brand’s customer-centricity orchestra. They must establish a vision for the music, write the composition, set the tempo, and hold the team members accountable for their part in the production of the customer strategy.

While intuitive team members like frontline employees and the CMO do play an important role, establishing harmony within a business’s customer-centricity ecosystem goes far beyond the obvious team members and into other less obvious functional areas like finance, human resources, and product development, to name a few. CCOs are builders who can empower and activate an organization’s employee base around the common goal of cultivating reciprocal, mutually valuable relationships between customers and the organization. Effective CCOs are educators and connectors, giving brands and employees alike a feeling of higher purpose. 

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The Takeaway

Though the chief marketing officer will never be obsolete, the chief customer officer will only rise in importance as customer experience continues to shape the market. In our changing data environment, the more we are able to connect with customers on a human level, the more likely we are to establish the critical basis of trust to move toward zero-party data. 

Truly understanding customers’ goals and motivations is the only way to answer these questions and create value for both organizations and customers alike. As the master of such an effort, the CCO plays a critical role at the executive table. 

Does your company have a CCO? How have they benefited your organization? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

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