Singapore – SleekFlow is proud to announce its participation as a Gold Sponsor in MARKETECH APAC’s “What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in Singapore” conference. The company will take the lead in driving the conversation on improving omnichannel customer experiences for enterprises. 

SleekFlow offers an AI-powered Omnichannel Conversation Suite that enables a seamless and personalised customer experience across popular social and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, live chat, and more. With SleekFlow’s customer engagement platform, enterprises can conveniently manage all customer interactions in one centralised hub, automating their business expansion from sales and marketing to customer support. 

Asnawi Jufrie, vice president and general manager for Southeast Asia (SEA) at SleekFlow, will deliver a keynote presentation tackling the challenges and solutions of integrating new messaging channels into existing omnichannel strategies. Jufrie will emphasise the importance of customer-centricity within omni-enterprise models, as well as the role of automation in effectively managing multiple messaging channels while maintaining a consistent brand message. 

SleekFlow 2.0, the latest offering from this global SaaS brand, revolutionises customer communication by delivering AI-driven, personalised conversational experiences at scale. The newly introduced feature Flow Builder seamlessly integrates workflows, enabling smarter and faster operations that ensure a unified customer experience. SleekFlow’s mission is clear: to empower companies to centre all their workflows around meaningful conversations. 

Teddy Cambosa, regional editor at MARKETECH APAC, commented, “In today’s dynamic business landscape, success lies in the seamless integration of diverse channels, for in the symphony of commerce, a harmonised omnichannel strategy not only amplifies reach but orchestrates customer experiences, transforming transactions into relationships and businesses into brands. We look forward to SleekFlow imparting actionable insights on enhancing omnichannel CX strategies across enterprises.”

What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in Singapore is part of the trilogy of conferences from MARKETECH APAC’s “What’s NEXT 2023-2024 Series.” The conference features a diverse lineup of marketing leaders across Singapore, representing local and international brands including DirectAsia, Grab, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Kaspersky, Singapore Management University, Singapore Post, Standard Chartered Bank, StarHub, The LEGO Group, and more.

Head over to the official event site to see the full agenda and roster of speakers of What’s NEXT 2024: Marketing in Singapore. 

Singapore – In the contemporary retail landscape, a customer’s experience with brands and companies has become an identifier of success. 

From being simply a transactional aspect, the customer experience (CX) now encompasses every interaction customers have with brands, from browsing through products to post-purchase support. And whether it be online, in-store, or through various touchpoints, it is undeniable that how brands service their consumers plays a pivotal role in shaping their perception of the brand and their purchasing decisions.

Recognising this, global cloud communications platform, Infobip has launched the marketing guide ‘What Customers Want (A Retailers Guide to Digital Customer Experience)’, to offer businesses a simpler way to understand what shoppers want and what solutions and tools they can utilise in order to successfully answer these needs at any given moment.

This guide is specifically designed for retailers that seek to succeed and set themselves apart in the crowded and competitive marketplace. It is also suitable for brands that look to improve the way they engage and service their customers to ensure retention and loyalty, thus driving long-term success.

Infobip found that some shoppers will not complete their purchases if they don’t feel secure online. Therefore, this guide provides businesses with new solutions they can explore to offer uninterrupted and smoother authentication processes. Additionally, it also contains informative and actionable insights that show retailers how to utilise the right tools to make personalised experiences easier for both customers and retailers.

Teddy Cambosa, deputy regional editor at MARKETECH APAC, stated, “In the ever-evolving landscape of commerce, retailers must recognize that the heartbeat of success is synchronised with the rhythm of impactful digital customer experience (CX) strategies. This guide offers a multitude of strategies which retailers can implement to promote a harmonious intersection of technology and customer-centricity.”

With this guide, businesses can have an idea of what can tick or tickle their customers and how they can effectively address this to deliver a more personalised, seamless, and satisfying experience that drives long-term success.

To access the guide, you may download ‘What Customers Want (A Retailers Guide to Digital Customer Experience)’ here

Singapore – TikTok has rolled out its new ‘Shop’ tab feature for its e-commerce solution, TikTok Shop, to offer users a more convenient way to access its shopping portal.

The ‘Shop’ tab feature, represented by a shopping bag icon, takes users straight into TikTok Shop’s shopping portal in one touch, providing greater convenience and interaction for online shoppers and merchants.

With the new feature, online shoppers will easily have access to the familiar shopping interface where they can browse products, view orders, access their shopping cart, set addresses and payment methods, and chat with merchants.

Furthermore, the products in the Shop tab are also divided into categories to help users quickly and easily find what they are looking for. The feature also highlights products that are based on the users’ habits and interests while using the app. This ensures an even more pleasurable and convenient experience for users while also assisting merchants by having their products matched with a customer’s profile.

Additionally, the top of the page contains prominent flash sale information and countdown timers to remind users of sale discounts and other shop and item promotions.

Doven Yap, seller acquisition lead at TikTok Shop Singapore, said, “TikTok Shop has a rapidly growing community, and our innovation and developments are meant to address the desires of sellers, merchants, and creators to learn, discover, and promote one another on TikTok. The Shop Tab becomes a natural extension of the users’ journey from being entertained to learning something new and getting interested in buying. Consequently, this feature lets businesses grow to be discovered more easily and gain more new customers, leveraging the power of the TikTok community.”

Singapore – Customer service software company Zendesk has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to officially acquire AI-powered quality management platform Klaus as part of its commitment to future-proofing its AI-powered customer experience.

The acquisition is expected to provide the company with new and transformative quality management capabilities that can increase efficiency and customer loyalty.

As QA software, Klaus’ AI scores 100 percent of customer support satisfaction. Its platform can precisely identify positive and negative sentiments, outliers, churn risk, escalations, and follow-ups across all conversations, including those from outsourced teams.

Furthermore, its AI software can also spot knowledge gaps and coaching opportunities that can be utilised to improve agent performance and productivity, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

Klaus will also be the latest addition to Zendesk’s existing workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions.

With Klaus, Zendesk customers will be able to power their everyday customer interaction with a more consistent, high-quality service across every channel and across both humans and digital agents or bots.

Commenting on the acquisition, Martin Kõiva, CEO and founder of Klaus, shared, “Zendesk and Klaus share a vision of AI-led, personalised CX with businesses fully anticipating and acting on their customers’ needs. QA software plays a critical role in this, ensuring consistency, assessing both human and digital agent performance, and providing actionable insights for strategic planning. As part of Zendesk, we will continue to build and deliver these crucial capabilities, but now at an even greater scale.”

Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer at Zendesk, also added, “As AI drives up the speed and frequency of customer engagement, only AI-powered quality assurance (QA) can keep up as companies work to identify and fix gaps in their customer service operations. The combination of Zendesk AI and Klaus’ capabilities will help businesses navigate greater complexity and volume and ensure both digital and human agents deliver highly personal and empathetic service.”

Zendesk’s acquisition of Klaus is expected to be finished by the first quarter of 2024, upon receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Singapore – Almost half, or 44%, of Thai consumers are more trusting of GenAI’s content, and 42% believe it is safe for use, a report from Publicis Sapient revealed.

According to the report, Thai consumers are among the leading in the global market in terms of generative AI use, with more than one in three, or 35%, answering that they have personally or professionally used generative AI tools before. This places Thailand alongside Australia, which scored 38%.

With GenAI’s capabilities, customers are also expecting a lot from it, including enhanced experiences in activities like shopping. In fact, almost half (43%) of GenAI users want brands to utilise the technology to advance their overall customer experience.

In Thailand, especially, more than half, or 55%, of consumers are expecting genAI to improve their overall customer experiences when interacting with brands and their products and services.

The global survey revealed that a huge majority of Thai consumers (97%) are excited about what genAI will bring to their shopping experience. Additionally, 86% of all genAI users in Thailand also reported that its impact on shopping experiences excites them. This is higher than the 63% global average recorded by the survey. 

Among the genAI tools, nearly half of users globally (45%) are very likely to use a conversational application of the technology for travel and hospitality shopping. Meanwhile, in Thailand, the numbers show a whopping contrast, with 63% of users responding that they are very likely to use the technology.

However, despite the global use of GenAI technology, many remain apprehensive of its implications and safety of usage. The report showed that only 21% of consumers globally trust the outputs produced by a GenAI tool. 

On the other hand, the report also revealed that Thai consumers are more trusting of GenAI’s content and outputs (44%), and they consider them safe to use (42%).

According to the results of the report, organisations must continue to develop strategies and ways to harness the power of generative AI while ensuring that the implementation of the technology remains ethical to establish deeper trust with customers.

The report further suggested organisations develop strategies that will help harness GenAI for customers. Firstly, focus on product research and discovery to enable faster and more accurate search results. Next, focus on helping consumers find the best deals amidst rising costs of living and inflation. And lastly, invest in GenAI-powered customer services to enable seamless, automated interactions like product returns and exchanges.

Andrew Male, client partner at ASEAN, said, “We are extremely excited at the potential that generative AI brings when it comes to transforming the customer experience. Thailand has shown itself to be a leader in embracing the use of generative AI tools, and we look forward to collaborating with our partners and customers to harness these innovative technologies and continually develop innovative solutions that transform how we live, work, and play.”

Singapore – Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform, has announced its expanded strategic partnership with multinational advertising company WPP to bring AI-powered customer experience management solutions to global brands. 

In this partnership, WPP will become Sprinklr’s first global agency partner and both will collaborate to launch a new offering, CX Live AI, that connects both companies’ AI tech resources and capabilities.  

The joint offering will leverage Sprinklr’s AI+ platform, including its customised AI models and generative AI capabilities, and WPP’s own AI resources to offer help to WPP teams in creating optimised content that reaches the right audiences. 

Together, WPP and Sprinklr plan to create AI solutions that will help global clients deliver more personalised and consistent experiences to their respective customers using Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform. 

The partnership comes as both companies understand the challenge of creating a seamless customer experience across a variety of channels. With this, Sprinklr can now offer a platform that can provide WPP’s largest client companies with a comprehensive view of data to inform insights and analytics, helping them reach, engage, and listen to customers at scale.

Both companies are expected to work together on shared data, analytics, and solution development for joint clients. Furthermore, WPP teams will receive priority support from Sprinklr, including bespoke enablement programmes and early access to new Sprinklr products and platform features. Meanwhile, WPP will participate in Sprinklr’s Partner Advisory Board to help shape the roadmap for products.

As of now, WPP and Sprinklr are collaborating on solutions with only select clients, such as The Coca-Cola Company, where teams leverage AI insights around customer engagement to inform creative development and channel selection.

Stephan Pretorius, CTO at WPP, said, “Through the seamless integration of WPP’s AI toolset with Sprinklr’s AI+ platform, we are reshaping how brands can connect with their audiences. This partnership enhances our existing AI offerings and enables our clients to create customer experiences across all touch points on a scale like never before, further solidifying our position as a leader amidst the technology revolution that is transforming our industry.”

Ragy Thomas, founder and CEO at Sprinklr, also commented, “Sprinklr and WPP serve many of the world’s most iconic brands. Together, this partnership will enable customers to effectively deploy AI that will result in measurable productivity, cost savings, and the seamless experiences customers have come to expect today. Integrating Sprinklr’s AI-powered Unified-CXM platform with WPP’s AI toolset will help our shared customers quickly adopt the latest AI technologies while ensuring the enterprise-grade privacy, security, and governance that Sprinklr and WPP have built our businesses on.”

Singapore – In collaboration with global customer relationship management (CRM) software company Salesforce, global cloud communications firm Vonage has launched Vonage ‘Conversations for Salesforce’, a configurable omnichannel messaging app powered by the Vonage Communications Platform. 

Vonage’s new app provides a flexible and scalable way of sending SMS, MMS, and WhatsApp messages from within Salesforce, making it easy for businesses to develop custom workflows using standard Salesforce tools.

This feature aims to enable businesses to serve customers directly from the Salesforce platform and deliver exceptional customer engagements, whilst blending bot and Vonage Contact Center (VCC) agent interactions.

With Salesforce as a single source of truth for customer data, users can participate in a conversation and access the entire customer history. Response-handling can also be automated with chatbots or routed automatically to the right agent or organisation to enable fast resolution.

Savinay Berry, EVP, product & engineering at Vonage, said, “Vonage ‘Conversations for Salesforce’ unlocks the power of delivering personalised two-way interactions with customers from Salesforce, enabling engagement at scale with SMS, MMS and WhatsApp channels while blending bot and VCC agent interactions.”

“Based on Salesforce’s best practices and latest tools, the app overcomes the constraints of existing solutions and is enabling conversations across the entire organisation,” he added. 

Vonage Conversations for Salesforce is part of the full Vonage AI Acceleration Suite for Salesforce, a portfolio of AI-capable, low-code/no-code programmable components that aim to help speed business transformation and seamlessly integrate with Salesforce applications to enable personalised conversations across omni-channel communications.

Australia – Clemenger BBDO, an Australian creative company, has announced the appointment of Simon Wassef as chief strategy and experience officer to expand the agency’s existing CX capabilities and offering. 

In his new senior leadership role, Wassef will lead strategy and customer experience across the Clemenger business, and the remit will include growth, new business, elevation of talent, and new practices.

Wassef is back at Clemenger after having first worked at the company 21 years ago as a junior account planner. He joins the agency after more than two and a half years as national chief strategy officer at whiteGREY. Prior to that, he also served as chief strategy officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles. 

He brings with him a wealth of experience, which includes more than 20 years working in Europe, the US, and Australia: three years at R/GA in London, three years at SID LEE in Amsterdam, plus stints at Droga5, AMV BBDO, AKQA, and Host Sydney. 

Furthermore, Wassef has worked across leading international and Australian brands, including IKEA, Qantas, adidas, Absolut, Samsung, HSBC, Red Bull, Electronic Arts, Guinness, Google, Johnnie Walker, Volvo, Panadol, Westfield, Nike, and Beats By Dre.

Aside from his expanded portfolio, Wassef is also multi-awarded, having won the Grand EFFIE, APG UK Gold, Jay Chiat Gold, and David Ogilvy Gold. He serves on the AdCouncil DE&I Committee, judges Creative Strategy for AWARD, and teaches Advanced Strategy for AdSchool.

Dani Bassil, CEO at Clemenger BBDO, shared that she is thrilled to have Wassef on board.

She said, “Simon really is one of the best in the business; if not the best. He’s worked everywhere I’ve ever wanted to work, R/GA London, Sid Lee Amsterdam, and ChiatDay LA. The fact he’s bringing all this experience to Clemenger is a game changer for us. The experience is the brand, and the fact he is so expert in both realms is exactly what we’ve needed in this leadership role. Besides being one of the smartest people I’ve met, he’s funny and kind. And he’s finally coming back to Clems. I’m so excited.”

Of his new appointment, Wassef said, “When Clemenger calls, you have to answer. Let’s go.”

Wassef’s appointment at Clemenger BBDO follows the recent appointments of Anita Zanesco to the newly created role of chief growth officer and two managing partners, Georgie Winton and Anita Deutsch.

Switzerland – CHRONEXT, a luxury watch platform, has enlisted the services of content management system provider Storyblok to help enhance customer experience by developing an iOS mobile app that allows their marketers and developers to construct customised user journeys.

Realising that their content system was purely web-based, CHRONEXT decided to use Storyblok and was able to build their mobile app prototype in just 7 weeks. Since its launch, app session times have tripled from 2 minutes on their website to 5 minutes on their mobile application.

Other aspects that influenced CHRONEXT’s decision to choose StoryBlok included the fact that it is a headless CMS that allows them to provide omni channel user experiences, the ease of use for developers and marketers with comprehensive user management tools, and the ability to serve as a centralised hub for all content.

Speaking on the developments, Emanuel Schleussinger, CTO at CHRONEXT, said, “Storyblok opened possibilities for our marketing team to easily update product pages, create new campaigns and promotions for different markets, and engage with our customers.”

Cameron Crosby, team lead of website & digital innovation at CHRONEXT, also added, “With Storyblok, content teams can simply drag, drop, and update specific component pieces that make up a product detail page in our application within seconds, without having to redeploy the application to the App Store. Changes are reflected on user’s screens instantly without disrupting their purchase session.”

Meanwhile, Dominik Angerer, co-founder and CEO of Storyblok, commented, “CHRONEXT is a great example of a brand that understands the omnichannel benefits and possibilities of a headless CMS and uses that knowledge to build better customer experiences. They now have a centralised content hub that can grow with them as they expand.”

Kuala Lumpur – The shift in customer communication preferences has been found to lean noticeably towards conversational interactions, making more companies expand and invest towards conversational commerce. This was according to the latest data from an InfoBrief provided by global cloud communications platform Infobip, and IT market research and advisory firm IDC. 

The InfoBrief by Infobip and IDC suggested that the potential of conversational commerce is now being employed and recognized, with tools such as CPaaS and SaaS enabling businesses to provide a seamless, customer journey that’s visible across multiple touchpoints.

The increasing popularity of customer-centric business strategies among brands in the Asia Pacific region reflects consumers’ present attitudes and expectations. 70% of organisations in the region plan to increase communication platform spending in 2023–2024, despite the fact that only a few countries use CPaaS on average at 50%–59%, in order to offer distinctive customer experiences to the region’s expanding social media users, who are primarily young, active, and conscious of the power of their own influence.

All nations intend to spend money on CPaaS and SaaS solutions in the near future, but their reasons are claimed to be very different. Businesses in Indonesia and Singapore strive to improve customer experiences and develop new revenue streams, while those in China, Thailand, and the Philippines are driven to expand their domestic and global markets as well as improve and mobilise their business operations. This is probably owing to the latter countries’ booming retail and e-commerce sectors and overall greater adoption rate of CPaaS solutions, which is around 60% and above.

Nikhil Batra, research director of telecommunication for IDC Asia/Pacific, said that CPaaS solutions are increasingly recognized as crucial catalysts for enabling conversational commerce experiences.

“In fact, 27% of businesses in Asia Pacific are actively partnering with CPaaS platform providers to deliver contextualised customer interactions that not only boost profitability but also foster emotionally fulfilling engagements. This trend highlights the increasing importance of leveraging these technologies to meet customer demands and achieve business success,” he added.

Meanwhile, Velid Begovic, vice president of revenue at Infobip, commented, “Businesses position themselves to forge ahead, leveraging AI technology to create connections and unlock new growth opportunities, whilst organisations need an actionable, customer-centric strategy and the ability to invest in the right tools to grow the business and keep customers happy. By aligning their strategies with conversational commerce, businesses can proactively meet customer expectations, enhance engagement, and establish long-lasting relationships.”