Success in customer experience starts with the right tech investments
Chinese consumers expect dynamic, high-quality experiences from the brands they frequent – and they’re willing to pay a premium for them.
Because of this, brands in China and those servicing the region need to differentiate themselves through those experiences — specifically, by delivering personalised, consistent, and elegant touch points at scale, across every channel, every platform, and every device.
For many of these brands, achieving this means adopting a cross-channel sensibility. With that mindset, brands are better able to move with their customers as they go from online to in-store and back again.
This was the case for one major Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer. With an eye on expanding its international business, the manufacturer tapped Adobe to build out its customer experience management (CXM) foundation. This helped the electronics brand centrally manage more than 100 global websites while maintaining branding consistency across regional markets — and while collecting customer intelligence from in-store and online transactions. With a holistic view of the customer journey, the manufacturer can now provide personalised experiences at scale.
Use data to hear what your customers are telling you
Getting to this level of customer experience delivery, though, requires listening to your audience and reacting to the data, indicators, and other clues they’re giving with every click, consideration, and conversion.
Few brands, though, are sufficiently integrated with their digital ecosystems to receive diverse, disparate customer data from across their enterprises and transform it into dynamic, actionable, customer-first experiences. To keep delivering personalised experiences at scale, though, you need to start by focusing on your digital ecosystems, unified customer profiles, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools, and mobile/social experiences — and keep an eye on delivering superior and delightful customer experiences.
Let’s look at each one.
**1. Integrated digital ecosystems: **Your customers aren’t one-dimensional, and neither is your brand. With a fully integrated digital ecosystem, you can keep pace with customer journeys as those customers move from web to mobile apps to in-store augmented reality experiences, and back again.
By creating consistent and cohesive experiences across platforms, and integrating these diverse touch points to create a holistic journey, you’ll be better positioned to engage and activate, no matter where that customer emerges.
2. Unified customer profiles: With so much data stored across so many platforms and channels, it can be difficult to understand your customers and act on their wants, needs, and goals in real time.
With a unified customer profile, companies can leverage one complete, centrally accessible profile, ensuring every experience is personalized based on diverse, broad-reaching data and insights, and not just what’s in a particular silo.
3. Artificial intelligence and machine learning: Machine learning tools combine data and identify patterns that allow timely, personalised experience creation and delivery. These experiences will attract new customers and build loyalty with your existing customers.
4. Mobile and social experiences: Mobile and social platforms are undeniably influential for Chinese brands. There are nearly 674 million Chinese social media users, making it the world’s largest social media population. Chinese consumers also represent an unparalleled e-commerce force, projected to spend close to $2.1 trillion this year — a 16% increase year-over-year, even after accounting for the COVID-19 outbreak.
A growing number of customers use social platforms to shop and survey options, then visit a brick-and-mortar store to try on or try out products before grabbing their smartphones and completing their purchases. With this in mind, companies are advised to invest in technology that serves customers seamlessly across all digital platforms, including physical interactions.
Winning with customer experience in China
Success in the “Experience Era” demands more than a casual effort from a few individuals or teams within a company. Rather, it requires a top-down focus across the entire company, anchored by solid CXM technology and underscored by a commitment to outstanding cross-channel experiences. It takes AI and machine learning. It takes a mobile- and social-first sensibility. And it takes an unwavering eye on integrating your digital ecosystem.
It’s a lot — but it’s worth it. In this hyper-competitive, customer-centric market, companies that this level of experience-first commitment and action will be well-positioned to truly thrive with this powerhouse audience.