Singapore – Dentsu International’s customer experience management (CXM) company Merkle is expanding its APAC presence with the launch of its services in Taiwan. Merkle’s 30 years of global experience in data, digital transformation, and worldwide talent connections will now be adopted by the new team.
Carrie Tsai, who is iProspect Taiwan’s CEO, has been appointed by dentsu Taiwan to also become Merkle Taiwan’s CEO. Joining Tsai to head the new team is Boice Lin, former SVP of Global partnerships/Global business development at Appier, who has been appointed as general manager of Merkle Taiwan.
The agency said that the new Taiwan team will work closely with martech, adtech, cloud, and tech providers to integrate commerce design consultancy. The CXM transformation offerings that will be provided by Merkle Taiwan include data transformation as in focusing on data science and data engineering, including cloud service consulting, data management consulting, and data analysis, which will also include personalization, commerce consulting, CRM, and loyalty program consulting. Most of all, Merkle will be helping brands in CXM Transformation such as customer experience transformation strategy, planning, and technology consultancy.
Remarking on today’s market, Jennifer Tang, CEO of dentsu Taiwan, said that brands have entered into a new era in which everything is all about data and that to meet the evolving market and technology demand, such as the cookieless future, brands need to consider connecting with customers through consumer experience, finding more value from data, and extending business applications.
“With Merkle joining dentsu Taiwan, we are able to immediately respond to the market and clients’ demands, and also further consolidate our industry leadership in creative, media and CXM, making dentsu the only marcom group in Taiwan that truly provides idea-led, data-driven, and tech-enabled end-to-end solutions,” said Tang.
Meanwhile, President of Merkle Asia Pacific Zhengda “Z” Shen, added, “Asia Pacific is a key global growth driver for Merkle, and we’re very enthused with the rapid growth and maturity of digital commerce, data management and customer experience in Taiwan. Putting together this superstar team has been years in the making. We’re excited to now launch in market and work with the most innovative marketers and technologists.”
New CEO Tsaifurther stated that Merkle is a well-known global brand for its delivery and proofing capability.
“We have built a team of global talents who hold entrepreneur experience. It is the winning strategy to bring the brand’s vision to life through customer experience transformation. Our vision for Merkle Taiwan will be to focus on data transformation, digital transformation and CXM transformation, and it will integrate with dentsu’s other offerings and change the value chain,” said Tsai.
Meanwhile, new GM Lin highlighted that launching Merkle Taiwan indicates dentsu’s dedication to enabling end-to-end marcom solutions, “Only considering both data application and commerce insights can help brands rebuild their model post COVID-19. It is crucial for our clients to take action and work closely with a full-service consultancy. We are confident to be the best transformation partner.”
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.
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.
Toronto, Canada – Despite 92% of respondents agreeing that customer experience (CX) is vital to customers, 52% of the respondents said that CX on their end has less impact or no impact at all to their purchasing decision or long-term loyalty, according to the latest report by total experience management company Alida.
In their global report, they have found that 95% of respondents say they’re willing to spend more for a better customer service experience, placing greater emphasis on their personal experience versus convenience. Respondents note that bad personal experience (79%) and poor brand reputation (65%) were also cited as the biggest influences in making a purchase.
Unfortunately, 75% believe brands are simply not listening to their feedback, and one in ten believe businesses will never use customer feedback to inform business decisions.
According to the report, the biggest ‘offenders’ are banks, in-person retail, and credit card companies.
Nicole Kealey, chief strategy officer at Alida, notes that the past year has seen a fundamental shift in how consumers interact with brands, forcing companies to change the way they engage with and stay close to their customers.
“Being reactive is no longer a viable business strategy. Our study shows that business leaders are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to harness the insight and opinions directly from their customer base to create a better customer experience, drive sales and increase customer loyalty,” Kealey stated.
The report also noted that 4 out of 5 consumers state that they are highly motivated to do business elsewhere after a bad customer experience. The majority of respondents stated that they are also likely to leave a bad review, something that can have a negative long-term impact on a business. According to the report, t negative social reviews influence the purchase decision of six in ten respondents.
Kealey notes that as all industries look to best navigate a post-pandemic world, companies must understand that one of their most important assets to success is a happy customer.
“A customer who has enjoyed your products, services and experiences will come back again and recommend you to their friends and family. But competition will become fierce and optimizing every step of the brand experience will be critical. To do so, brands must integrate CX into their overarching business strategy and employ the tools they need to truly understand their customers and take action,” she concluded.
As digital technologies dramatically reshape industries, customer expectations are also rapidly evolving in a hyper-connected environment. In fact, we see the same technologies which are changing customer behavior also enabling businesses to redefine customer journeys. This has led to customers increasingly seeking differentiated experiences built on convenience, speed, and accessibility.
While putting the customer first is not a new idea, many organizations are still trying to crack the code on how to integrate this effectively into the business model. An easy first place to start is cloud agreements. Businesses often focus on digitizing the upfront customer experience however often overlook the process of agreement and rely on paper-based processes that aren’t aligned to customer expectations. Digitizing the agreement process removes the potential friction introduced by needing to print, send, and sign paper documents.
With modern electronic signature tools available, it’s now up to leaders to leverage technology and reorient the business towards customer needs. Here are three ways cloud agreements help to strengthen business touchpoints.
Make customers part of your solution
Delays and miscommunication are the most common risks every business that is not digital-first is exposed to. This incurs unnecessary time and revenue costs to the company, resulting in decreased productivity. Today, where the expectation for convenience becomes the norm, make yourself as easy to do business with as possible which starts with digitizing contracts.
It’s important to provide full transparency throughout your engagement with each customer from pre- to post-sales. By leveraging cloud agreements, businesses can better accommodate customer needs by tapping into the flexibility and convenience of the system.
This is evident in the financial and banking industry where online contracts and e-signatures have helped global banks bridge the broken customer experience with an end-to-end digitalization of offerings like home loans. As a result, customers now enjoy improved and faster services that are aligned to their expectations.
A frictionless agreement process
A great customer experience starts with a frictionless agreement. We’ve all experienced the pain and frustration of having to print, sign, and mail documents. And it’s not enjoyable, to say the least. So why impose this on your customers? With cloud agreements, you can assimilate your business to the anywhere economy by eliminating manual steps in your processes and focus on service quality.
A robust cloud system that is compliant and reliable is a key part of any business success. The strong technology infrastructure from AI to machine learning that supports cloud services helps to build trust and confidence among customers. Additionally, the greater visibility of agreement processes allows senders to see real-time signing status which removes any customer fears and worries. This makes the customer experience holistic and safe.
A renewed focus on corporate and social responsibility
Providing a superior customer experience doesn’t hinge only on the customer’s benefit—it’s a strategic business decision. Thus, having a modern digital agreement process is also a reflection of your brand and corporate social responsibility. Through automated processes, paper wastage is greatly reduced which minimizes the negative impact on the environment.
As the world is gearing up towards building a green environment, your digital-first mindset of cloud-based agreements will help reduce your carbon footprint. This is critical especially for socially responsible customers, shifting mindsets that the cloud system is purpose- and value-driven instead of focusing on profits.
To be truly customer-centric, technology alone isn’t enough. Organizations must provide customers with a connected and meaningful experience that is supported by cloud agreements. This would make the customer journey easy and memorable for all the right reasons.
This article was written by Andrea Dixon, senior marketing director of DocuSign for APJ.
Singapore – InMoment, the software application provider for customer, employee, and business experiences has announced the launch of its new Singapore data center, strengthening its presence in the APAC region.
InMoment said that the establishment of the new data center is in line with its aim to accelerate growth in the Southeast Asia region and support its expanding client base in the region.
InMoment’s provision of experience clouds dabbles in customer, employee, market, and product experience. Its flagship Experience Intelligence (XI) Platform brings together intelligence from customers, employees, and the market with the objective to drive real and actionable business value.
The XI Platform is cloud-native and helps brands move beyond managing experiences. As a first-of-its-kind in-region, InMoment said that its hyper-modern technology focuses on improving experiences so clients can prove the business value, impact, and ROI of their customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) programs.
The new Singapore data center will be providing commercial and government clients a safe and secure environment, meeting data sovereignty and security requirements in the region. InMoment said that this investment will allow more clients across the region to leverage the XI platform to power their experience improvement strategy.
In the last two years, InMoment has opened four new offices in the APAC region – in Singapore, Shanghai, Melbourne, and Auckland.
In April, experienced Technology Sales Executive Carl Kimball joined the Singapore office to lead sales in the region. The company shared that due to the strong demand for its services, teams in Singapore and China have increased, and therefore sees in the future a movement into a new state-of-the-art office facility in Singapore to cater to the ongoing growth.
“Our Singapore presence has grown exponentially over the last twelve months as we have seen unprecedented demand for the new XI Platform,” said David Blakers, InMoment’s managing director of APAC.
He adds, “We are thrilled to partner with so many of the leading brands across the Southeast Asia region, ultimately helping them to realize the benefits of CX-led business transformations.”
Customer experience is founded on customer expectations. Marketing leaders must understand the evolving expectations that consumers have of their interactions with brands – this includes customer experience and support that, hopefully, meets their needs but ideally delivers above and beyond these expectations.
As the pandemic turns endemic, delivering a consistently excellent customer experience is by no means an easy feat. Safety measures to protect our health and well-being have created a next normal for marketers. In fact, brand and marketing decision-makers need to constantly calibrate and innovate how they deliver on their brand’s promise and keep an engaged audience base.
The silver lining is that this scenario provides a real case for rolling out genuine omnichannel customer delivery and engagement models – something that has, for far too long, been relegated to the back burner for many brands. By setting new goals for customer service standards, relooking operational processes, and investing in technology solutions, strengthening consumer connections is possible even in a time when change abounds and reliability is imperative.
As such, we’ve seen customer experience agents take on multiple and increasingly important roles: from technicians and consultative sellers to today’s need for them to be empathetic community managers.
Not just a touch-feely bonus: The importance of empathy today
A recent McKinsey study reported that businesses that have empathy towards the customer will have a net positive benefit on their bottom line. Among 170 publicly traded companies examined, the top 10 with outstanding empathy ratings outperformed the bottom 10 by two times on the stock market.
Today’s environment has led to general expectations of a certain level of emotional empathy, no matter who we are interacting with. And brands are not spared – digital empathy and human empathy have taken on a new urgency.
Brands now have to understand audience emotions, their feelings, and thoughts, their pressures, their desired digital and real-world experiences, and even anticipate future reactions. Empathetic brands that are using this period to rethink, reinvent, and leapfrog will most certainly be developing evolved blueprints for the entire pre-, during, and post-transaction customer journey as a result. At the frontlines of the customer journey – the shape-shifting customer experience agent, who must now play multiple roles.
Technology as an ironic accelerator for empathy
Some may think empathy and technology don’t go together. In fact, technology can help customer experience agents manage their hybrid roles and fulfill the need to be empathetic community managers. By combining proactive support with increased automation, brands can provide personalized support engagement at scale, without sacrificing empathy.
By centralizing omnichannel communications with customers, organizations can upgrade and reinvent the role of customer experience agents. For example, with the ability to manage communication over Instagram and other social media channels through industry-leading contact-center-as-a-solution services available in the market today, customer experience agents have the ability to become community management extraordinaires. Empowering agents with 360-degree customer profiles and full conversation histories all in one place will allow them to unlock valuable insights and provide fast and personalized customer support.
Unlocking the power of social media messaging for customer support is more important than ever as we consider these stats from data from global cloud communications platform, Infobip: 70% of people globally expect to message businesses for customer service questions, and 64% would rather message than call a business.
As agents and representatives help transform customer interactions from being transactional to becoming more involved, these experiences are likely to be highly engaged, emotionally charged, and mission-critical for loyalty and retention. Consumers will also in turn anticipate that agents demonstrate they understand their problems and provide relevant reassurance.
This points to agents needing to be able to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and build quick rapport. This doesn’t just affect formats that provide visual and verbal cues – it also applies to digital channels such as chat, email, and social media, where agents cannot be certain of the tone of the conversation.
AI is maturing and here to help
While human empathy is natural, artificial empathy must be learned based on the data collected within the rules or framework set up by a human. This is where technology like artificial intelligence (AI) can come into play. AI that analyzes incoming messages and highlights factors like sentiment, helps prepare agents to respond accordingly.
Thanks to natural language processing (NLP), we can communicate with chatbots using human speech. NLP is an area of AI that helps chatbots understand the way your customers communicate.In other words, it means enabling machines, like chatbots, to communicate the way humans would.
An NLP chatbot is an AI chatbot that uses natural language processing, based on deep learning, to better identify a customer’s intent and therefore provide more valuable support.
From the customer’s point of view, NLP helps them feel understood. From a brand’s point of view, these chatbots elevate customer support, create helpful dialogue, and capture insights into your customers’ goals and challenges. This lets you build a brand voice while simultaneously providing a customer-centric approach.
Chatbots provide instant answers. And when boosted by NLP, they’ll quickly understand customer questions to respond faster than humans can. In addition to text, these chatbots can enhance the natural conversation experience by sharing helpful images (product images), videos (how-to videos, product explainers), map locations (store or service center finders), and more. These lightning-quick responses help build customer trust and positively impact customer satisfaction as well as retention rates.
Malaysian Insurance company Gibraltar BSN launched GINA in 2019
Take for example Gibraltar BSN, a Malaysian life insurance company offering life and medical insurance along with saving and investment plans. The insurer had concerns that too many customers in Malaysia had not received important and sensitive documents sent through the post, especially during the pandemic. The company also wanted to optimize its contact center in a way that would allow them to engage customers using modern digital channels but still provide a critical level of empathy during a sensitive time.
By deploying AI-powered NLP chatbots, Gibraltar BSN facilitated the creation of its automated chatbot – GINA. With GINA handling simple customer service inquiries, human agents can help clients with more complex inquiries and offer a more personalized approach. Gibraltar BSN saw a 40% reduction in cost for delivering e-policies after rolling out this transformation.
Harnessing the full potential of the customer experience function
With the right level of support given to customer experience agents, the potential for businesses to exceed consumer expectations in a digital world is limitless. Today, customer experience, service, and support – an oft-neglected function – have the aid of readily available technology to bring another dimension of brand success.
For marketing leaders, working with CX is about quickly adapting to and adopting emerging technologies for their benefit. Be one of the first businesses to leapfrog and handle messaging at scale on social media, connect to new customers, and strengthen relationships with existing ones.
This article is written by Viven Ang, regional manager for APAC at Infobip.
Singapore – Global communications company Infobip has added Instagram messaging as a channel in its Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) offering, broadening the ways businesses are able to provide customer support.
Through its solutions, Infobip empowers consumer-facing businesses by providing a unified and simple workspace for customer support agents to engage and talk with customers on a variety of channels such as email, chat apps, live chat, and video calls, among others in social media.
Instagram messaging is the newest addition to its portfolio of channels. The messenger API for Instagram is now available specifically on ‘Conversations’, Infobip’s contact center-as-a-solution service, which the tech provider said will result in the need for fewer calls to a contact center, thus, a more seamless and improved customer experience.
“We are delighted that Infobip is launching Instagram Messenger in their contact center solution. The Messenger API for Instagram is now available for all developers who make it possible for brands to improve and enhance messaging experiences with customers,” said Vivien Ang, Infobip’s regional manager for APAC.
Infobip said that through the new capability, businesses will be able to handle messaging at scale on Instagram.
Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has seen a meteoric rise in active users making it one of the top social networks worldwide and which in turn has made it a key strategic communications tool for enterprises and institutions.
Ang adds, “It is clear that customers want to use their preferred channel of communication to connect with businesses and service providers. In fact, many customers today primarily choose to interact with brands through social media for everything from ordering food, requesting rides, making retail purchases right through to some elements of banking, and this same fast and simple capability can be brought to the contact center.”
Toronto, Canada – Customer experience (CX) management and customer insights platform Alida has recently announced a new slew of products and services, developed with direct feedback from their customers.
Alida’s initial product release for their Winter 2021 release is the Alida Video, which helps brands harness video to amplify their customers’ voices. Through Alida Video, brands can easily capture customer-recorded video feedback, uncover authentic, deep insights, and inform stakeholders and decision makers at the speed of business, all in a unified platform.
Meanwhile, enhancements to existing features include improvement to the platform’s deep insight feature Alida Sparq and broad feedback feature Alida Surveys.
With the improvements on the Alida CXM & Insights Platform, users can expect the following:
Hub Newsletter Redesign for brands to better engage their Alida Sparq insight community members and stakeholders with more visual and content-rich newsletters
Quotas for administrators to control the number of responses to a survey or a set of questions
Mobile Survey Image Enhancements to improve the respondent experience
Recodes & Rollups as an Early Access Program (EAP) for users to create new custom variables based on a dataset and analyze data from a different view
Included in the CXM & Insights Platform are also updates on Alida Touchpoint, including NPS® via Quick Polls, that enable organizations to keep a pulse check on brand perception. Brands can now place activities in mobile applications to engage customers with on-brand micro-surveys designed to collect contextual feedback.
“In today’s global climate, video has become an integral mode of communication to engage and connect with people. It is imperative that brands use it to humanize their customers’ emotions and glean accurate context, to put insights into action and build a great customer experience,” said Riaz Raihan, president of products and engineering at Alida.
He added, “We are thrilled to provide our clients with the added value of video to deeply understand and analyze their customers by hearing and seeing them talk directly.”
Alida has also launched its FS Industry solution, specifically catered for the benefit of financial services clients. It has enhanced its CXM framework, with features such as ‘Case Management’ for case creation on the platform for customer follow up, ‘Data Lake’ for accumulating various organizational data sources in one platform, ‘Crosstab Analysis’ for checking survey data by various categories like demographic, and ‘Configurable Dashboards for Alida Surveys’ for creating a dashboard for Alida Surveys.
Alida, formerly known as Vision Critical, and headquartered in Toronto, Canada; has recently expanded its presence in the Asia Pacific.
Hong Kong – Canada-headquartered customer experience management (CXM) and insights platform Alida has expanded its Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) team to build on its existing regional presence and propel further growth in the CXM industry.
Formerly named Vision Critical, Alida is a global platform that offers both CXM and extraction of insights and feedback. Its products offer brands a number of use cases such as customer journey, customer satisfaction and advocacy, marketing and advertising, and product and UX design across a broad range of industries.
The firm recently appointed its general manager for APJ, former CEO of IT firm NTT Steven Medeiros, and along with Medeiros’, its several appointments of senior industry leaders in the region support its expansion to drive new growth while making additional investments in its clients’ success and partner ecosystems.
“We are seeing unprecedented demand from clients and partners seeking enterprise technology, industry expertise, and a high touch, localized delivery model. We will continue to invest in great people to better serve our clients and partners across Asia Pacific and Japan.” said Medeiros.
Phillip Walsh, former regional vice president for APJ at Texas-based computer software company Kony, joins the team as general manager for Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific. Walsh brings over 19 years of CRM sales experience, with leadership positions at Atomic Software, BMC Software, Pegasystems, and IBM Australia. In his role at Alida, Walsh will focus on formulating strategy and growing business in ANZ.
Jodarna Meade has been appointed as head of customer success for the APJ region. Meade brings over 20 years of experience and previously led Alida’s sales operations, partner ecosystems, and customer success management in North America recently relocating back to Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Alida, Meade spent a decade leading marketing at Lendlease.
Karen Lo joins the APJ team as head of marketing to further expand client and partner growth in the region. Lo’s decade of experience in leading corporate communications and marketing for Dimension Data and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will strengthen Alida’s pipeline and revenue growth and expand brand presence across APJ.
Wingsan Lun, senior sales executive of APJ, joins the team to lead sales and growth for APJ. With more than 20 years of experience in Temenos, Adobe, and Salesforce.com, he brings deep expertise in digital marketing and customer experience. Lun will support the growth of Alida’s customer base in the region and support its clients to uncover the power of customer truth in their businesses.
Uma Jain, partner manager at APJ, brings over 18 years of experience in business development and execution of global go-to-market strategies for acquiring new clients and partners. Jain previously held senior management positions at Kore.ai, OutSystems, and Kony. She will support the growth of Alida’s global and partner ecosystem.
Jagan Sivanesan, the new principal solution engineer, has joined Alida to lead the regional APJ solution engineering team. Sivanesan brings over 16 years of engineering experience developing state-of-the-art software experiences, high-growth technology companies, such as Kony and Wipro Technologies.
“I’m thrilled to have assembled this powerhouse team of proven technology experts to drive our growth in APJ. Each leader brings unique expertise that is fundamental in propelling our business to the forefront of the CXM industry in Asia Pacific and Japan,” said Medeiros.
He added, “Their collective wealth of experience will drive our next phase of growth in the region. Our priority as a team is to know our customers and put them first.”
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