Technology, Data & People: The holy trinity of the digital age

As the head of international e-commerce & global digital center of excellence at Marico, I have been fortunate to witness and actively participate in the digital transformation of businesses over the past 13 years. Driven by the allure of accountability, consolidated customer views, and seamless experiences, we set forth on a mission to make customer-centricity our North Star. Nevertheless, this journey was not without obstacles, especially in mastering the intricacies of diverse digital channels.

This article unveils the insights gained from my experiences, revealing the strategies that empowered our house of brands to surmount these challenges and deliver exceptional customer experiences in the digital world.

Creating a Unified Customer View

In my professional journey, I discovered the significance of creating a unified customer view. At Myntra in my past role as Deputy Director Marketing, I built data driven cohorts that created one view of fashion customer segments which gave a differentiated approach not just for Myntra but also to Jabong, and Flipkart fashion. We built a one-customer view by looking at multi-channel & multi touch points data. This helped in personalizing the customer journeys end to end: from acquisition, to category landing & home pages, to customer care approach to a consumer (depending upon their segments), to our delivery & even returns policies for each consumer cohort. This approach allowed us to cater to individual preferences, needs, and behaviors, ensuring that customers felt seen and understood, resulting in higher engagement and loyalty and the tone of the communication made them feel at home as it was personalized to their own cohorts preferences. This led to me to creating various digital efforts at Marico to attempt and create one consumer view for the DTC consumer base, call center and other engagement bases that we have, to start with.

Traversing the Digital Maze: Online and Offline Integration

In our pursuit of a seamless omnichannel experience, we had to bridge the gap between online and offline interactions. This task is especially complex, given the vast array of digital touchpoints and products. However, the evolution of technology, along with the unwavering support of the Indian tech ecosystem, empowered us to find innovative solutions. We leveraged data science models and multi-channel attribution to measure the efficiency of our digital strategies and justify our marketing investments. Having said that, the journey to true online and offline integration is on and with evolving technologies, its enhancing further.

Tailoring with Precision: The Art of Responsible Personalization

Our efforts also extended to respecting customer boundaries in hyper-personalization. Hyper-personalization is a double-edged sword; while it can enhance engagement, overdoing it may lead to fatigue and distrust. We developed a responsible personalization approach, reaching out to customers with relevant messages at the right frequency but also following it up with a personal touch. For example our ORM strategies include some customized templates of responses to certain kind of queries, these queries would like a humanized response and in a tone that our TG understands but we love to build a personal connect so we follow up with calls by taking their contact details too which helps build a deeper connect & helps them to convert as a loyalist . We monitor customer responses very closely by monitoring net sentiments & SLAs but also ensure that we respect consumer privacy.

Breaking Barriers: Combining Organizational Efforts

The main uphill task was breaking organizational silos and consolidating data from diverse sources. However, the benefits of providing consistent and personalized experiences outweighed the complexities, leading us to develop a robust analytical framework. An integral part of our framework was a robust analytics and insights system. We utilized advanced analytical tools to study customer data, identify trends early on, and derive actionable insights to make data-driven decisions. We extensively mapped customer journeys to identify potential gaps enabling cross-departmental collaboration to unify strategies, break barriers, and share insights. In today’s age, offline business models cannot stay in a silos, and integration and unification of data is key to unlocking correct decision-making at an organizational level.

Balancing Act: Predicting and Preventing Customer Fatigue

Once the data is stitched together, we also need to leverage it optimally. In that regard providing real-time engagement has proven to be a game-changer, particularly for our millennial and Gen Z customers who crave instant gratification and personalized experiences. Leveraging cutting-edge personalization tools, we gained the ability to predict customer fatigue accurately and fine-tune our customer interactions. This strategic approach allowed us to strike a delicate balance between reaching out to customers at the right moment with the right message at the right time, as opposed to overwhelming them with excessive communication. This significantly boosted our customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics, setting new industry benchmarks for delivering seamless and gratifying experiences in the digital age.

Conclusion

The pursuit of a seamless customer experience in the digital world demands a delicate interplay of technology, data, and empathy. Our vision for the future is one that goes beyond mere personalization; we aspire to create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact on our customers. Striking the perfect harmony between cutting-edge technologies, insightful data analysis, and an unwavering focus on customer preferences.

Author Biography

Juhi Singh is the Head of International E-commerce & Global Digital COE at Marico Limited. She is a distinguished professional known for spearheading impactful strategies and leading Marico's global digital Mavericks program. Specializing in e-commerce and performance marketing, she's credited with expanding businesses 5-8 times and elevating digital efficiencies by 40-50 index points, boosting customer acquisition and retention rates significantly. Recognized with prestigious awards like the ET Women Leader Award, Juhi demonstrates expertise in leading diverse digital platforms, ensuring global business success.

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