Sydney, Australia – Creative and technology agency CX Lavender has announced new appointments; firstly, Kirsty Angus as client services director to elevate the agency’s strategic services across the disciplines of technology, creative, data, and brand, while Jamie Parfitt has been elevated to the role of head of strategy, coming from his previous position as senior strategy director.
Angus’ responsibilities at CX Lavender will include overseeing the company’s business management unit, managing strategic revenue, and driving new business. She has previously held senior strategy and management roles at Wunderman Thompson, Dare Digital, Leo Burnett, and AMV BBDO.
“I am looking forward to applying my strategic approach to business management and relationship skills to the CX Lavender’s suite of clients across financial services, retail and automotive,” she said regarding her appointment.
Meanwhile, Parfitt has been with CX Lavender for four years. He had previously worked with Westpac Group, AMEX and NBN as well as RAA and Ausgrid.
“Strategy at CX Lavender is going from strength-to-strength. We’re fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to take the lead on an ever-more diverse breadth of projects with clients – from consulting on customer strategy, to creating connected digital experiences, to helping clients get more from their marketing automation,” Parfitt said.
He added, “At the heart of everything is our dedication to putting the customer’s self-interest first to help our clients fuel their continued growth.”
Singapore – Between consumers and businesses across APAC, the biggest disconnect is the need for a customer issue to be solved at first response and companies’ current shortcomings by bumping it down in their priorities.
According to a report by the global cloud leader in customer experience orchestration, Genesys, more than half of consumers in APAC place a premium on a company’s ability to respond quickly (58%) and solve their issues at first interaction (52%). Yet, only 41% of businesses in the region prioritized being quick to respond to requests and only 30% for first-contact resolution (FCR).
Despite this, companies are expressing confidence. About 66% of APAC businesses believe in their ability to respond quickly to customers, while 36% were confident that they excelled at FCR. On a more positive note as well, increasingly, CX is currently a board-level priority for more than half with 63% of regional companies in the study.
Moreover, the report revealed that 92% of repeat customers in APAC scored a business’ ability to listen as their most important attribute. Voice also remains the most-used channel with 76% among APAC consumers, but digital channels are surging.
Assaf Tarnopolsky, Genesys’ senior vice president and general manager for APAC, believes that long-term brand loyalty will rely on the ability to orchestrate and deliver impactful CX that make the customer feel understood and valued throughout that exchange.
“Consumers today expect a company to know what they want or need, and to engage with the best course of action at speed. Moving beyond mere efficiency, and focusing on delivering the right data, and orchestrating the next-best action in the ideal moment and channel, are paths to success,” said Tarnopolsky.
The report surveyed 2,629 consumers and 690 CX executives from global markets inclusive of APAC, including Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, as well as China, and India.
Tokyo, Japan – Global professional services Accenture has announced that it will be acquiring Tambourine, a Japanese-based commerce customer experience (CX) agency. Said terms of the transaction were not disclosed as of this moment.
The company, founded in 2015, provides integrated commerce services on the Salesforce platform. It delivers customer experience design and engineering, develops web services and applications, and offers consultancy services to optimize customer touchpoints.
Tambourine already has a proven track record in using Salesforce Commerce Cloud to deliver seamless commerce experiences for consumer goods and entertainment companies in Japan.
Through the acquisition, Tambourine will enhance the world-class suite of sales and commerce transformation services, from product and platform engineering, to omnichannel delivery of commerce experiences.
Speaking about the acquisition, Flaviano Faleiro, president for growth markets at Accenture Interactive, said, “Brands understand that when they respond to new consumer behaviors with a seamless commerce experience, it makes them more relevant and valuable. The combination of Tambourine and Accenture Interactive will further enhance our ability to leverage creativity, technology and deep human insights to accelerate growth of our clients.”
Tambourine is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Accenture has made to rapidly scale commerce expertise and excellence, including Experity in Brazil, Glamit in Argentina and Openmind in Italy. In Asia, the company had also acquired Malaysia-based marketing consulting/agency Entropia.
Atsushi Egawa, Accenture’s market unit lead for Japan, said, “Digital customer experience and brand reputation is so closely intertwined that it can impact a company’s growth. In considering ways to deliver the best of commerce experiences, brands are turning to data and the cloud for leverage. By weaving in Tambourine’s unique offerings into Accenture’s, we will continue to help accelerate our clients’ growth.”
Meanwhile, Tatsuya Nakao, CEO of Tambourine, commented, “Tambourine is founded on the premise of achieving excellent outcomes as a team. Now, as part of Accenture, we look forward to extending our digital commerce expertise across the entire customer experience and work closely together to create [a] deep impact for our clients.”
The retail landscape in APAC is very diverse and distinct from the rest of the world and has evolved considerably since the onset of Covid-19. The global pandemic has led to an explosive growth in the e-commerce industry, with consumers across the APAC region having shifted their shopping habits online to cater for life under pandemic related-lockdowns and restrictions. These new behaviors are here to stay.
Malaysia is the digital pulse
At the current rate of e-commerce growth, Malaysia is set to become the ASEAN digital pulse. With strong government support, the country has paved its way into e-commerce acceleration. A young population and social media growth have also aided the development of e-commerce in Malaysia.
Reprise in collaboration with Google, recently released a consumer study into online shoppers buying behavior and preferences across the APAC region, interviewing 13,000 shoppers. The study uncovered that 66% of online shoppers in Malaysia are willing to try new brands and may not be loyal to any one brand, while perceived value for money and promotions are the second reason Malaysians prefer to shop online.
Infographic from Reprise
Meanwhile, the most common reason, apart from shipping fee/time, for not buying products online across all product categories is the ‘inability to touch and feel before buying.’ This was also the reason cited by more than half of online shoppers for buying clothing, shoes, and accessories.
Promos, browsing offline & what we see is what we want
Malaysians are hungrier than the rest of their Southeast Asian counterparts, and the growth statistics demonstrate it. The frequency of buying is much higher in Malaysia compared to the APAC average, and rather than impulse, Malaysian online purchases are promo-driven. Two key things that are seen happening are that women are more experimental, and men are more loyal; and Malaysians prefer to browse offline before coming home to buy online.
Infographic from Reprise
The study looks at some categories of interest. With grocery, it is observed that Malaysians are most concerned about the look and feel of final products compared to what is shown. This is an indicator that the category needs to evolve more as Malaysians are disappointed when they do not receive what they perceived to see.
The study also indicates that categories like pet food, toys, health & beauty, and automotive do not require store trials as much as categories like furniture, appliances, and fashion, which shows there are numerous opportunities for brands to grow the commerce route for themselves, now more than ever. This indicates that while some categories have evolved to not require store trials, more categories will likely follow suit with greater usage of augmented reality and other technologies which will improve and enhance the virtual shopping experience.
The customer journey is the holy grail
What all of this shows is that consumers expect the same level of experience across platforms, regardless of whether they are online or offline. It boils down to how the experience is crafted online and requires thought to go into it, much more than just listing and selling, for the brand to create an overall online shopping experience. This experience is what brands need to focus on heavily, beyond media.
With this growth in e-commerce, brands need to now look at replicating the physical store experience for consumers, to ensure customers don’t drop off in the time it takes them to move from in-store to home. While growth in e-commerce means there is a need to create new channels for brands, with or without minimal cannibalization of existing channels, there is a bigger need for brands to look at their entire journey.
Auditing the complexities of e-retail
In today’s world, the e-retail space has tangled into one another, making the customer journey more complicated – e.g. mobile searches when in a retail outlet prior to making an offline purchase for price comparison. However, navigating through these complexities is possible when brands dig deep to evaluate their media and non-media assets. By starting with the website and marketplace brand stores which are their flagship stores online, brands can ensure that potential customers have a smooth e-retail experience overall.
A priority for brands should be in minimizing and eliminating points of friction to create an ideal shopping experience. Malaysian consumers have indicated that the shipping and returns process are top pain points.
Build trust, reviews matter
With 46% of online shoppers emphasizing product information for making purchase decisions, optimizing product content on marketplaces has become critical for brands to stand out in the cluttered environment. Every 1 in 2 Malaysians do their product research online using social media platforms, and almost 40% of the online shoppers also refer to online search portal for the same. Which brings the question – how can brands capture the imagination of people online, and how can they maintain trust?
Media channels have evolved to cater to e-commerce with every major digital advertising platform having commerce suites, hence brand engagement, creativity, and innovation continue to be key differentiators. Brands can further build trust by tackling information asymmetry, and consistently displaying content that is true and accurate.
Part of the onus also lies with consumers, as people constantly seek reviews as a key parameter for purchase. The survey indicates that reviews on the website are just as important as those on marketplaces. This is an area of opportunity for brands as good brand reviews will improve customer satisfaction scores and sales.
Brands can empower customers to leave reviews, respond to these reviews, and ensure an ideal brand health score online. In the survey, it is seen especially across the toys and consumer electronics categories, with social media and the online retailer website being the top two sources for research across the category.
The right people & the right strategy
The biggest challenge for brands when it comes to e-commerce is in crafting the e-retail experience, customer engagement, and omnichannel marketing strategy. Additional investments are needed, in terms of resources and talents, however, there is often a lack of proper structure around how each related department works together. While there is an intent to craft the e-commerce strategy, a lack of knowledge is often one of the biggest hurdles.
To overcome this, brands need to focus on a holistic platform strategy to drive a smooth, frictionless e-commerce experience. The role of media will of course remain crucial to driving consumers to brand stores whether D2C or e-retail, but the experience of shopping online will decide the level of success brands can expect to see in e-commerce.
Consumer behavior as we know it from offline retail may change when it comes to e-commerce. The digital e-commerce consumer is likely to behave very differently across existing channels, and there is a need for marketeers to study these digital behaviors to craft the experience. Brands also need to cater to the right information at the right place by having a strong content strategy in place. For agencies working with brands, the objective is to understand e-commerce in the context of each business and share an assessment of requirements with brands to form a journey forward.
Remember… experience, experience, experience
Ultimately an e-commerce offering is about providing an experience. How that offline experience is translated online is what distinguishes one agency from another.
This article was written by Sujith Rao, managing director of Reprise for performance & tech.
Hong Kong – Growth company GrowthOps has partnered with total experience management (TXM) company Alida through its Alida Partner Network to deliver elevated customer experience (CX) and insights to organizations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia.
Together, GrowthOps and Alida will provide organizations the tools necessary to uncover customer insights to inform business growth and innovation development opportunities.
The Alida Partner Network enables growth for organizations of all sizes by providing the software, enablement and expert support needed to put customers’ truth into action. As the global company engaged with online communities for ongoing customer feedback, partners entrust Alida’s software to help them deliver insights and a competitive advantage for their clients.
“We strongly believe leveraging Alida’s TXM platform will further extend GrowthOps’ customer experience (CX) offering, as part of our holistic consulting and technology solutions to our clients across APAC countries. As a growth partner in this digital transformation world, we look forward to bringing in more value-added services and solutions to accelerate the path to success, and this partnership is a win-win-win to Alida, GrowthOps, as well as our clients,” said Eric Yu, general manager at GrowthOps.
Meanwhile, Ian Lee, head of sales for APAC at GrowthOps, commented that they are excited to partner with Alida, noting that it is important to connect customer experience management (CXM) and the improvement of business performance to justify the ROI.
“With the power of Alida’s TXM platform together with GrowthOps CX strategy, business consulting and digital technology services, we are very confident that under this partnership we will become the true Growth Experience Advisor for our APAC customers, exceeding their expectations,” Lee stated.
GrowthOps currently uses an approach of combining marketing, technology and people disciplines for its customers across a variety of industries, including insurance, banking, healthcare, telco, retail, and manufacturing. Furthermore, the company holds an extensive range of tech consultancy services that supports its customers to grow their business and capitalize on avenues for innovation.
“Alida is thrilled to welcome GrowthOps to our Partner Network and we look forward to collaboratively providing clients across Asia Pacific an elevated CX experience. The GrowthOps team is reputed for helping organizations find creative and innovative ways to grow their business. Alida is eager to work together to help clients optimize the power of TXM and propel their CX initiatives,” said Steven Medeiros, SVP and general manager for APAC at Alida.
Meanwhile, Gary Smith, SVP for channel and partner alliances at Alida, commented, “GrowthOps is an excellent addition to the Alida Partner Network. Their extensive expertise in innovative consultancy services empowered by Alida’s TXM platform will add immense value to customers across Asia-Pacific.”
Sydney, Australia – The National Australia Bank (NAB) has ranked first among five known banks in Australia regarding its implementation of customer experience to its services, the latest index from research and advisory firm Forrester shows.
NAB has improved its CX quality the most with a 6-point increase over last year, propelling the bank from third to first place in Forrester’s ranking, compared to last year. The bank has also had the highest percentage of customers reporting excellent experiences (47%) and the best performance across all three dimensions of CX quality: effectiveness, ease, and emotion.
The research also noted that among customers of Australian banks who felt valued, 62% plan to stay with the bank, 77% plan to spend more with it, and 84% will advocate for the bank. In contrast, of customers who feel frustrated, only 21% plan to stay with the bank and to spend more with it, and a mere 13% will advocate for the bank.
Riccardo Pasto, principal analyst at Forrester, noted that while banks are racing to elevate the digital experience of their websites and mobile apps, oftenly they neglect the importance of human interactions.
“At a time of strict social distancing and lockdown orders that make in-person interaction not feasible, video chat and other digitally enabled human interactions allow banks to get closer to customers and connect with them on a deeper emotional level. Our research shows that CX leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and retain more customers, who are more inclined to forgive stumbles made by brands with good CX,” Pasto said.
He also added that brands with the best customer experiences during the pandemic shutdown will benefit the most from pent-up demand on the other side.
The index also added that communicating in plain language is one of the top three drivers of CX quality; just 58% of customers say that banks are successful at this. Having transparent interest rates and fees is one of the top four drivers for retaining customers, but just over one-third of banking customers report that banks do a good job with prices and fees (36%), indicating room for improvement.
“Even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can add revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet. Additionally, superior CX leads to reduced service costs and lowers the cost of customer acquisition through word of mouth,” Forrester said in a press statement.
The index benchmarks the CX quality of brands and is based on a survey of more than 5,000 Australian adult customers, including more than 1,400 customers of five banks, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, NAB, Suncorp, and Westpac.
Singapore – Global customer and employee experience company Medallia has appointed Denise Miura as its vice president for Asia-Pacific and Japan, where she will spearhead the company’s growth in the region.
Miura has deep experience working in the region for clients in the big data and analytics industry, having worked with MarkLogic for 17 years, where she set up and grew the Japan operations for the American-based enterprise software and data integration company.
“I am excited to be part of this high-growth company. Medallia has a great product that enables enterprises to build strong customer advocacy and an engaged workforce. Its focus on consultative selling and building long-term partnerships [resonate] with me,” she said regarding her appointment.
She added, “Amid the pandemic, we will step up our support for enterprises in APAC to accelerate their digital transformation by enabling them to seamlessly integrate both online and offline experiences, so as to connect better with their employees and customers. We believe these efforts will help enterprises effectively navigate the pandemic environment, make smarter decisions, and augment sales.”
The company’s operations in APAC have grown significantly from a single market presence in Australia to five markets, including New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. With its SaaS platform, Medallia Experience Cloud, the firm has built a track record in APAC in key industries such as automotive, telecommunications, retail and financial services.
Meanwhile, Greg Philiotis, senior vice president and head of international at Medallia, commented, “Her on-the-ground experience particularly in Japan, as well as strong knowledge of channel marketing and familiarity with the enterprise-grade software space are extremely valuable. Under her leadership, I am confident that Medallia APAC will continue to scale in this very important market – especially in the area of partnering companies to deliver real business impact.”
Singapore – Financial services company Aviva Singlife has partnered with global experience management (XM) provider Qualtrics to improve capabilities and insights for better customer experience (CX).
With Qualtrics’ CustomerXMTM, the company’s listening engine, predictive intelligence and analytics, and full closed-loop actioning capabilities, Aviva Singlife will be able to deliver premium financial services support and products aligned to the customers’ changing needs.
It will also standardize its CX and create a new, continuous listening platform, which will allow to make regular, targeted, and meaningful improvements to the customer journey, and interact with its 1.5 million customers at key moments across a number of different engagements and channels – such as when buying insurance products or making a claim.
Moreover, Qualtrics will be helping Aviva Singlife to rapidly resolve issues and close the loop with every customer. Intelligent, automated workflows will immediately alert the customer service team of engagements requiring their attention. Qualtrics will also help in conducting deeper analysis to help guide Aviva Singlife’s growth.
Lara Truelove, Aviva Singlife’s head of customer experience, shared Qualtrics will equip them with intelligent capabilities to continually develop and deliver products, services, and support, aligned to the customers’ changing needs.
“Importantly, the rich insights will also help us remove the complexity and confusion often associated with insurance, empowering our customers to make confident decisions,” said Truelove.
Mao Gen Foo, Qualtrics’ head of SEA, said that by standardizing and taking full control of its customer experience with Qualtrics, Aviva Singlife will be able to get to know and service customers better at every touchpoint.
“This is a significant ability, helping the company create a world-class customer experience helping it attract and retain customers in the financial services industry,” said Foo.
Qualtrics said that Aviva Singlife, partnered with Qualtrics Research Services, has also conducted a large market research study into changing consumer needs and expectations in the industry, to further strengthen the propositions being brought to market. The findings from the study have been made available throughout the organization, equipping every department with valuable insights to guide and inform future decisions – from product innovation to the type of advice provided.
Sydney, Australia – Housing Industry Association (HIA), the largest residential building organization in Australia, has partnered with digital customer experience agency Switch which is also an implementation partner of DXP Sitecore, to overhaul its suite of web-based content platforms and provide a connected digital experience to its member businesses across the country.
HIA is Australia’s only national industry association representing the interests of the residential building industry. It acts as the industry’s voice and promotes policies and provides services that enhance members’ business practices, products, and profitability.
According to a press release by Sitecore, the association said it wanted to change its traditionally face-to-face membership model by expanding the digital experience and services it offers online.
Together with both Switch and Sitecore, the transformation project sought to improve the association’s digital strategy, customer engagement, and website design, and deliver a cloud-based platform that would provide hyper-personalized experiences, e-commerce services, data-decisioning systems, and marketing automation capabilities.
Ben Brooker, HIA’s general manager for digital, describes the project as a “huge step.”
“Our goal is to be the trusted, ever-present voice of the residential building industry in Australia, and provide a central digital experience that unites all customer segments under a proactive, personalized, and connected experience,” said Brooker.
Meanwhile, Switch’s CEO, Steve Nelson, remarks on the growing importance of digitization, “As digital natives become the norm, companies are looking at new service offerings to match expectations and create seamless digital experiences.”
Switch said it formulated a digital strategy centered around four key transformation goals: Raise and capitalize on awareness, increase sense of belonging, grow revenue, and build an efficient digital operating model.
The association’s digital transformation journey included an evolution of its onboarding and membership model, an overhaul of its e-commerce platform, and CPD (Continuous Professional Development) structure, and the creation of an engaging and informative digital resource library to assert HIA’s position as an industry expert.
In addition, an integrated e-commerce solution was created across all of HIA’s digital to support the opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell content online. The solution enables access to a number of resources that were previously only delivered in-store or through a customer service phone query. The digital transformation project also included a simplified user management UX that supports HIA’s membership structure, and the creation of a service prompting users to explore the website and learn about the features available.
The strategy resulted in a multi-phased roadmap, allowing HIA to commence its digital transformation journey, starting with a new ‘Foundation Site’.
In accomplishing the project, the association deployed a suite of Sitecore technology platform services, including Sitecore XP (Integrated Digital Experience), Sitecore XC (Digital Commerce), and Personalisation technology.
Singapore – Businesses in the Asia-Pacific region who have invested in solutions to improve their own customer experience (CX) strategy are more likely to be more resilient 10.3x than their other counterparts amid the global pandemic, according to the latest insights from customer experience company Zendesk and research/strategy firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG).
The report noted that CX investment has made APAC businesses 4.7x more likely to grow their online customer base for the last six months.
Furthermore, the rate of high-maturity CX organizations has also increased from 6% to 8% since 2020, with India (16%), Australia (12%) and Singapore (9%) having the highest proportion of these organizations.. The greatest gains in the region were tied among India, Australia and Singapore, which all saw a 6% point increase from 2020. However, Singapore experienced the fastest growth, increasing the percentage of such organizations by three times in the past year, up from just 3% in the past year.
The report noted, however, that only 21% of midsize and enterprise companies in Singapore feel they have made the right CX investments to increase business resiliency, trailing behind other markets such as Australia (28%), South Korea (28%) and India (64%).
“Organizations across industries, sizes and life cycles are realizing that the customer service function is no longer a cost center, but a revenue driver, and our research with ESG confirms this. In fact, it also found that the connection between CX maturity and greater business growth and revenue remains most pronounced in APAC a year on,” said Wendy Johnstone, chief operating officer for APAC at Zendesk.
She added, “Today’s digital-first economy has made the customer service function the hub of all customer relationships, which is why continuous innovation and investment in CX must be a business imperative for long term success and growth.”
There continues to be a clear correlation between improved CX maturity and the benefits of increased customer satisfaction (CSAT), faster response times, and effective customer service. Notably, the study calls out as well the connection between CX maturity and greater business growth and revenue.
APAC high-maturity CX organizations are better positioned to adapt and thrive in the face of change, taking roughly half the time to grow their team by 50% and onboard new hires (22 days versus 43 days for beginner CX organizations) and add a new channel (21 days versus 45 days for beginner CX organizations).
“The findings indicate that the shift to digital and remote work during the pandemic served as a trigger for companies to accelerate their adoption of new technologies, policies, and processes to benefit from a higher CX maturity,” said Adam DeMattia, director of custom research at ESG.
He added, “Across APAC, high maturity CX organizations recognize that service excellence can be a differentiator, and are actually accelerating investment in CX projects.”
The report further noted that organizations in APAC have increased the number of service channels year-over-year from an average of 7 to an average of 7.8. In addition, many anticipate that preferences and changes will continue to shift as well: 73% of APAC organizations predict that chat and social channels will be most used by customers in the future, up from 54% who say this is the case today.
Lastly, 57% of Singapore companies agree that chat and social channels are heavily used by customers today. This number is projected to increase to 72% in the next three years.
We use cookies to improve your experience and to analyse our traffic. To find out more, please click here. By continuing to use our website, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
