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Navigating Hong Kong Retail: Integrated Clienteling To Serve Local And China Customers

Ivan LAI — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:51:52 +0000

Executive Summary
In Q1 2024, the Hong Kong Tourism Board reported a 154% growth in visitors and Mainland China tourist made up almost 80% of the total visitors to the city. The Hong Kong Tourism Board estimates that visitor arrivals from Mainland China are expected to reach 46 million by the end of 2024 and the Hong Kong government has budgeted HK$1.5 billion to promote Hong Kong as a destination for ‘high-value tourists’. This presents a golden opportunity for Hong Kong retailers to regain their competitive edge and drive sustainable growth. To capitalize on this opportunity, Hong Kong retail companies must adapt their strategies to better attract, engage, and drive spend from this invaluable consumer segment.

This whitepaper explores the importance of implementing a comprehensive clienteling solution integrating WhatsApp and WeChat, most used apps in Hong Kong & Mainland, to enhance shopping experience for local and inbound consumers in Hong Kong. By leveraging personalized data-driven insights, purchase history and the clienteling tool, sales associates can cultivate stronger relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive sustainable growth in the post-pandemic era.

The Clienteling Imperative: Delivering Personalized Experiences
To effectively engage and retain Mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong, retailers must shift their focus towards a more personalized, data-driven approach to customer engagement. This is where clienteling – the practice of building deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers – becomes a critical strategy.

Clienteling involves leveraging customer data and insights to deliver tailored experiences, relevant product recommendations, and personalized marketing communications.

A robust CRM and Clienteling app will provide you with a range of powerful functions and capabilities such as:

1. Client Profiles and Insights:

Access comprehensive client profiles with detailed purchase history, preferences, and contact information
Leverage AI-powered analytics to understand each client’s shopping behavior, interests, and life stage
Receive real-time alerts on important client milestones (e.g. birthdays, anniversaries) to facilitate personalized outreach

2. Personalized Recommendations:

Use customer data and insights to provide highly tailored product recommendations for each client
Showcase personalized product suggestions based on the client’s browsing history, purchase patterns, and preferences
Offer exclusive or limited-edition products that cater to the client’s unique style and interests

3. Seamless Communication:

Initiate direct communication with clients through the CRM/clienteling app’s built-in messaging features
Respond to client inquiries, share updates on new arrivals, and discuss personalized styling suggestions
Coordinate appointments, gift wrapping, and other concierge services directly within the app

4. Loyalty and Rewards Management:

Provide clients with a seamless interface to view and manage their loyalty program status and rewards
Offer exclusive promotions, flash sales, and VIP experiences to your most loyal customers
Integrate with mobile payment solutions to enable frictionless transactions

5. Omnichannel Engagement:

Extend the personalized, in-store shopping experience to the client’s digital touchpoints through the CRM/clienteling app
Allow clients to browse products, make purchases, and access their account information on the go
Maintain a consistent, high-touch relationship with clients across both physical and digital channels

6. Sales Productivity Tools:

Access real-time inventory data and product availability information to provide accurate recommendations
Utilize CRM features to log client interactions, set follow-up reminders, and track sales performance
Leverage data-driven insights to optimize your sales strategy and identify high-potential clients

Integrating WeChat Mini-Programs for Seamless Engagement
To effectively deliver a customer centric experience for Mainland consumers, retailers should design an integrated experience comprising three key mini-programs – member centre, ecommerce and retail clienteling.

Member centre typically consists of functions of a member portal where customers can check their profile, transaction history, loyalty tier, points, rewards and link to the online store (ecommerce mini-program). WeChat clienteling is a mini-program used by sales associates to manage opportunities, tasks, recommend products and communicate (SMS, call, WeChat, WhatsApp etc) with customers in a single environment.

Key benefits of retail clienteling include:

1. Increased Visibility and Accessibility: Retail sales have visibility of customer purchase history, profile and insights on clienteling portal to manage sales opportunities effectively; and increase conversion success rate. Meanwhile, customers can access personal loyalty profile, rewards and redemptions in Member Centre. They can also browse products on ecommerce and chat with pre-assigned sales associates directly.

2. Enhanced Engagement and Loyalty: Given the customer data insights and AI product recommendations, sales associates can provide more personalised retail experience to enhance customer loyalty.

3. Integrated Communications: An important function in Clienteling is the integrated communication message centre where retail sales and send WeChat, WhatsApp, SMS or call customers. Communications are logged in a single page to allow sales associates to check back on previous communications.

4. Robust Data Analytics: With all the data from Member Centre, Ecommerce and Clienteling centralised in data management platform, retailer brands can now apply data analytics to obtain business insights to achieve operational efficiency and sales goals. CRM marketers can design targeted campaigns at customer segments without guess-work and measure results accurately to achieve improved ROI.

Conclusion
As the retail landscape in Hong Kong prepares for a resurgence in Mainland Chinese tourism, the implementation of a robust clienteling solution integrated with WeChat mini-programs presents a strategic imperative for success. By leveraging personalized data-driven insights and seamless WeChat-based engagement, Hong Kong retailers can cultivate stronger relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive sustainable growth in the post-pandemic era.

Click here to contact our Marketing experts about clienteling.

The post Navigating Hong Kong Retail: Integrated Clienteling To Serve Local And China Customers appeared first on XGATE.

Captivate a new wave of consumers through our enhanced WeChat layout

Ivan LAI — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:39:55 +0000

With the rising popularity of WeChat in Hong Kong, an increasing number of brands are harnessing this platform as a marketing channel with their consumers. In today’s era of information overload, an engaging WeChat layout can set your content apart, elevate your brand’s visibility and foster meaningful interactions.

To empower your brand in this competitive landscape, we continually refine our services to offer an unparalleled user experience. Following the resounding success of the Xiaohongshu live-stream shopping experience showcased at the recent MarketingPulse event, we are thrilled to unveil a comprehensive upgrade to our WeChat layout services.

Our latest upgrade introduces a myriad of diverse components and innovative elements, enriching your WeChat posts with vibrancy and interactivity, thereby deepening engagement with your audience. Whether your brand already boasts an official WeChat account or is contemplating joining the platform, we cordially invite you to immerse yourself in the transformative capabilities of our upgraded services.

Experience our new WeChat layout firsthand by clicking here. We eagerly anticipate the opportunity to collaborate with you in sculpting a prosperous future for your brand. Should you have any inquiries or require further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Our team remains steadfast in our commitment to helping you craft compelling WeChat posts that resonate with your audience. Click here to contact us today.

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Three important strategies to transform and future proof your e-commerce business

Ivan LAI — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 07:05:29 +0000

Social distancing measures and lockdowns have resulted in a serious impact on businesses and consumer lifestyle. The pandemic has shifted consumer spending towards online e-commerce and this shift is not going away even after things get back to normal. Indeed, the crisis has led many bold companies to invest ambitiously into online channels and those with the right transformation strategy are likely to emerge as market leaders.

In this Master Report, XGATE proposes looking into three strategies to build a “headless commerce” architecture that will future-proof businesses as they dive into the new e-commerce reality.

As retail brands explore new online store strategies, it is imperative to understand the potential hurdles that e-commerce players may encounter when facing enhancing customer expectations.

Consumers are spoilt for choices, making the competition in digital online business fiercer than ever. Consumers can afford to be choosy in which brands receive their attention and then their business. Even companies with mature e-commerce capabilities today are facing challenging hurdles – capturing the right leads for conversions, retaining customers and rising customer acquisition cost. Hence, if the future of e-commerce is now, then companies must create a frictionless digital journey that comprises the following attributes:

1. A headless commerce architecture for rapid deployment
With paid media costs rising along with market competition, having a robust content strategy to attract organic traffic becomes vital. This strategy of content and commerce has been adopted by brands across social platforms such as Facebook Shops, Instagram Shopping, Taobao Live and Little Red Book, to name a few.
However, many retailers are adopting headless commerce architecture by decoupling the storefront from the backend e-commerce functionality. This approach allows brands to choose the best breed of architectural performance by integrating different systems such as content management, customer profile management, loyalty management, order management, warehouse management or even aPOS with an e-commerce platform. Here’s an overview diagram of how API-first headless commerce architecture is connected to support content distribution, loyalty marketing and commerce operations.

With headless commerce architecture, brands can launch e-commerce rapidly. A new online shop can be set up in days instead of months. In a competitive global market, timeto-market is always a key winning formula. Marketers’ ability to launch a campaign from weeks to days can determine the success or failure of a business. Additionally, brands can also share digital content rapidly and effectively. This truly opens up new possibilities to further distribute products, product videos, social blogs to different touchpoints – progressive web app, native app, member portal, social apps and any smart devices.

2. An omni-channel retail experience
Mobile technologies and social media adoption have changed the way consumers engage with brands. With the online and offline experience converging, brands need to adopt an omni-channel retail strategy as consumers will connect with a brand across multiple touchpoints throughout their buying journey. This means the product has to be everywhere when your customers browse, research or even buy.

Managing a multitude of selling channels online and offline is already a massive task requiring lots of resource planning, not to mention managing inventory across those channels. The implications for an out-of-stock situation or overstock position are costly from customer experience and operational expense perspectives. Hence, deploying commerce architecture with a well-integrated modular order management system (OMS) and warehouse management system (WMS) is essential in supporting e-commerce, ERPs and POS.

The omni-channel solution needs to ensure dataflow consistency across all platforms, consolidate data from all channels, reach customers at every possible touchpoint, and help manage inventory effectively. In fact, future approaches to commerce should incorporate user experience at every touchpoint as a critical solution design. Conversely, in comparison to traditional retail and online stores, the lack of a customer-first system architecture is the result of building solutions where individual channels were optimised continuously without considering the whole customer experience.

3. A loyalty strategy with personalised lifecycle marketing
The fierce competition for e-commerce has led to rising average acquisition cost for brands. From aggressive price-slashing during the Singles’ Day or Black Friday to the rising cost of influencer marketing campaigns, marketers are progressively changing their business strategies to invest more in building customer loyalty.

As brands implement loyalty marketing, one simple tactic is personalised communication. At various stages of a customer lifecycle, customers could be receiving welcome messages, birthday greetings, a reminder for points or membership expiry, pre-order invitations, private sales and even a small gift in shipped packages.

Creating a personalised shopping experience is more than the usual “people who bought X also purchased Y”. The backend systems have data on what a consumer has bought. Hence, it is important to use those data to power the personalisation engines on CMS, mobile apps and social channels. At different touchpoints, brands can reward loyal customers with small benefits. They can also highlight those extra benefits on the e-commerce page, such as free delivery after a certain spending amount or a personalised customer service contact for VIPs where they can reach out via telephone, SMS or where they can reach out via telephone, SMS or chat. Ultimately, the idea is to delight customers by delivering a consistent experience across touchpoints at critical moments in their journey.

The new e-commerce is here
One of the most compelling reasons for companies to embark into e-commerce is to avoid being caught up in a paradigm shift when retail business changes rapidly (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic). Today, different companies are in various stages of e-commerce maturity and some early adopters are already becoming mainstream online businesses in their industries – like Sephora in cosmetics, Suning.com in electronics or The Home Depot in home improvement products.

The future of commerce is already here as more people engage in new ways to explore product information, read reviews and place orders through various touchpoints. Today, new and mature online brands are meeting at across junction to evaluate a sustainable business strategy and choice of e-commerce platforms that offer true business agility. Therefore brands must make the switch to headless commerce architecture to support omni-channel (online and offline) retail marketing, create personalised experiences, retain customers with loyalty and remain competitive beyond the present.

Retail digital transformation from in-store to omnichannel
Omnichannel retail doesn’t require brands to Omnichannel retail doesn’t require brands to be present everywhere, just everywhere your customers are. Ultimately, the business goal is to create an integrated approach to commerce by providing a unified shopping experience across all channels or touchpoints.

Key business challenges:
• Weak retail sales – COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have impacted retail sales, particularly luxury goods.
• The consumer behaviour shift – The slow economy has caused consumers to go for lower-priced premium brands that offer comparable quality without the high price tag. To address the challenges, D&G adopted an e-commerce strategy to bring the store experience to the consumers across touchpoints, while enhancing retail sales competence to provide customer service for online shoppers.

To deliver a unique seamless in-store and online shopping experience, they adopted headless commerce architecture as the foundation and developed mini-programmes around WeChat core functions. Three mini programmes were developed to serve different purposes:
1. E-commerce – for online sales activities
2. Member centre – for customers to check their transaction history, membership status and link to e-commerce
3. Clientelling – for retail sales to manage sales opportunities, connect customers toe-commerce and track sales performance. Additionally, D&G also developed a 360 degree virtual store with links to the online store.

The digital strategy has transformed retail operations to deliver omnichannel customer experience with high retention and sales conversion. At the retail stores, sales associates using clientelling were able to drive sales traffic into e-commerce and generated over 95%of new leads in a few months. The leads to sales conversions in the e-commerce mini programme have increased by over 13% and the brand was able to keep a healthy customer retention rate well above 40%. Indeed, D&G has successfully leveraged technology innovations to create a seamless customer experience and drive business profitability.

This post has been written by Xen Chia from XGATE under the Master Report series of Marketing Magazine, published in the January 2021 issue.

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Develop successful CRM loyalty programmes with marketing automation

Ivan LAI — Wed, 06 May 2020 10:50:07 +0000

Fuelled by the growth of the urban population, and rising household disposal income, the food and beverages (F&B) market are expected to grow exponentially. While driving the demand for new and innovative F&B concepts, discerning diners are also looking for more customisations and personalised dining experiences.

In recent years, marketing automation has emerged as an efficient software tool to create and manage marketing campaigns, and to track campaign performance. Indeed, marketing automation platforms enable business owners to attract new leads, convert leads to customers, and build brand loyalty with better business results. Alignment with corporate strategies and other organisational functions such as customer service, the on-ground operations team, marketing and sales, will improve the effectiveness of marketing programmes.

To build stronger customer relationships, here are four key points to keep in mind when building a successful CRM programme with reference to a case study in the F&B market.

1. Real-time data integration across systems

Many brands are still struggling to connect data seamlessly across different systems. Siloed data prevents marketers from stringing together useful information to build a consistent understanding of their customers’ preferences, spending patterns and behaviour, for personalisation and future communications. The fundamental step in building a meaningful database is to integrate the data generated by different systems at various customer touch-points to allow the unambiguous identification of each customer.

For example, joining CRM (Customer Relationship Management) data, transactional data, social data and behavioural data into a single environment will be required to create valuable customer insights. In these times where brands are always fighting for attention, knowledge and understanding of customer behaviours would be the first step to building more meaningful and loyal brand advocates.

Many current systems support real-time data transfer through an application programming interface (API), though legacy systems may require additional technical expertise to customise and script data connectors/interfaces. Real-time data processing enables instant gratification such as crediting/redemption of rewards, upgrade/downgrade of tiers, and ultimately, a better customer experience.

2. Customer lifecycle

Customers are not homogeneous. Applying customer lifecycle marketing to different customer segments allows marketers to clearly design the right CRM marketing campaigns to target different segments effectively. The lifecycle process also allows brand owners to better identify and focus on the critical marketing efforts required currently, and hence, be more effective in budget and resource planning.

At XGATE, we adopt a 5As customer lifecycle approach – aware, attempt, adopt, advocate, and abandon.

At each stage of the lifecycle, we design different marketing programmes aimed at evolving the target segment – from leads to first-time buyers, and then to brand advocates. At the aware stage, the main marketing activity is to create awareness for the brand by targeting marketing messages at selected audiences on various channels. The aim is to motivate visitors to interact with the brand and then convert them into leads – attempt.

Encouraging product adoption by nurturing leads to become paying customers is the key in the adopt stage. For new brands, most of the marketing efforts will likely be focused around activities within the first three“As”, for example, sampling programmes, and the offering of free trials. For more established brands, the focus may also include building strong brand advocates and loyalty within the active member base.

When members exhibit inactivity over a period of time, they are at risk of abandoning exhibit inactivity over a period of time, they are at risk of abandoning the brand. Re-engagement programmes can be put in place to reduce members leaving the brand when they become inactive.

3. Multi-channel marketing automation

With different marketing programmes to run at the different lifecycle stages, multi-channel marketing automation platforms have gained popularity in recent years. Such platforms enable marketers to design and program campaigns triggered by time, rules or events.

By targeting digital campaigns at the right customer/lead, at the right time, and with the appropriate messages on the suitable channel, brands can look forward to better campaign response rates, thereby leading to better customer experiences and business profitability. Most marketing automation platforms enable real-time tracking of campaign results, for example, SMS deliverability, new members’ sign-up rates, click through rates for offers, etc.

When integrated with transactional data from Point-Of-Sales (POS), sales conversion data from different campaigns can be measured effectively as well, thus giving brand owners and marketers up-to-date information on the revenue generated from marketing campaigns. With the aid of automation, mastering the art of CRM marketing will further propel more interesting and engaging marketing programmes, and grow brand loyalty through value-added services and experiences.

4. Customer analytics and business intelligence

Customers generate lots of data at various touch-points that reveal a lot about themselves.

It is imperative that brands capture such data to understand their customers and capitalise on the insights and opportunities presented. For example, customers may click on certain items of interest when browsing EDMs or interacting with a brand’s website. The data point may reveal the aspiration or desire of the customer.

With the aid of sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms, different data sets can be meshed together to generate more accurate predictive models of customer segments, behaviour patterns and tendency to purchase. The continuous stream of data further helps to optimise the models and predictions.

Ultimately, brand owners will be able to predict even during the early stages of the lifecycle, the customer lifetime value generated by a customer if he/she exhibits certain purchasing patterns or propensity towards certain services or offers.

Equipped with such business intelligence, marketers can plan appropriate campaigns and respective budgets more effectively to optimise customer acquisition costs or forecast potential revenue.

This post has been written by Dr Tang Pak Kay, XGATE Singapore, under the Master Report series of Marketing Magazine, published in the March 2020 issue.

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Clienteling: Redefining the future of the in-store customer brand experience

Ivan LAI — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:48:50 +0000

The customer journey is often looked at in rather stiff terms, as a chart moving from point to point in a sterile manner. But in reality, each individual customer journey actually tells an interesting story with stakes, goals, and ups and downs, hopefully resulting in a happy ever after for the loyal customer.

This is especially apparent when jumping in medias res to the most exciting central part of the story, the in-store experience with clienteling strategies.

Functioning as a tale of its own, the shopper’s quest to find what they’re seeking, and to walk out of a store with a smile, hangs in the balance. And, the hook this plot’s result largely hangs on, is the quality of the in-store customer experience.

In this Master Report, XGATE provides us with such a narrative of a shopper in a retail store and their hunt for an outfit. The twist being that the store staff have a clienteling portal on hand to facilitate the shopper’s experience, radically changing the story path at each step.

XGATE’s walkthrough demonstrates why it’s important to understand the implementation of new retail technology at the human level, and how it works in practice, rather than listing out a variety of functions. Only then can customer journeys be crafted in such a manner as to leave the shopper feeling like the brand is their hero.

Enabling the experience

Technology today is changing the very nature of relationships between brands and consumers. Marketers are constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency through automation and technology. Ultimately, every brand will develop its digital competency, which raises the question: “What sets you apart from your competitors?”

The answer lies in the connection between the customer experience and business profitability. Research from Temkin Group reports that a moderate improvement in the customer experience will impact the revenue of a typical US$1 billion company to an average of $775 million over three years.

Instead of discussing the customer experience in general, this article aims to provide an in-depth understanding of using clienteling as a retailing tool to recreate an exceptional in-store brand experience. Specifically, clienteling will enable your sales associates to deliver the kind of personalised customer experiences that consumers still crave.

To understand the concept of clienteling, imagine having a clienteling portal on an iPad and putting it in the hands of a sales associate to empower them with customer data to create a personalised in-store shopping experience.

Life of Patrick

Meet Patrick Lee, a store manager for an apparel brand.

Patrick starts his day accessing his clienteling portal to search for a list of VIP customers whom he had not been in contact for a while. He called and invited them to a special VIP promotion.

Michael Wong, a VIP on the list, was contacted and was interested to drop by for the VIP promotion.

At the store, Michael was greeted by Patrick with a friendly: “Welcome sir, you’re here for our VIP promotion? Do you have our member e-card?” Michael showed the e-card from his Apple Wallet. Patrick scanned the QR code using the clienteling portal and pulled out his profile details.

Instantaneously, on the clienteling portal, Patrick obtained a 360-view of Michael across channels, including order history, profile, and wish list.

Patrick said: “Mr Wong, we have several new arrivals and we do have them in your sizes for most of the pieces. Let me show you at the men’s section.”

Michael delightedly browsed the items and began trying them on. Eventually, he picked two jackets, three white shirts, and two pairs of jeans before asking Patrick to confirm the sizes again.

Patrick answered: “Mr Wong, you’re size 48 jacket, size 15 for the shirt and 33-inch waist for your jeans. Let me see what we have in stock.”

Minutes later, Patrick returned with the grey and black jackets, and the shirts: two in white and one in blue. But there was an issue.

Patrick explained: “Mr Wong, we have your size for the jackets and the two white shirts. However, for the third white shirt, I am sorry, but we actually only have that style of cut in your size, 15, in a baby blue.”

Patrick displayed an image on the clienteling portal of a co-ordinated brown jacket with the baby blue shirt.

Patrick said: “Mr Wong, I recommend the blue shirt because it matches well with the brown jacket you bought previously.”

Michael liked the matching outfit. Then he asked for one size larger for the denim jeans. Patrick checked the stocks on the portal and informed Michael that they had no stock for the 34-inch waist.

“Our new stocks arrive next week. I can see you’ve marked those jeans on your wish list on our online store. You must love denim,” Patrick said, adding: “Mr Wong, should I wrap up the jackets and shirts for you? Would you also want the blue shirt as well? You look charming in that.”

Michael replied yes to the baby blue shirt. He then signed on the iPad to pay for the items and informed Patrick to contact him when the jeans arrived.

An email receipt was sent to Michael for his records, and Patrick used the clienteling portal to set a reminder to contact Michael when the stock was in.

A week later, Patrick got an alert from the clienteling portal that the size 34-inch jeans were in-store and called Michael to arrange an appointment time to pick them up.

Michael arrived at the store and showed his VIP member e-card. Patrick used the clienteling portal to scan the QR code and pull out the order’s details.

Patrick said: “Welcome back Mr Wong. Do you want to try on the jeans once more?”

Michael tried them on and proceeded to pay by signing on the iPad. Patrick bid Michael farewell as he left the store: a satisfied customer with two new pairs of jeans.

Later that week, Michael used his social messaging app to text Patrick and thank him for the great customer service.

Patrick received the message on his clienteling portal and set a reminder to send a personalised birthday message to Michael in December.

Moral of the story

Clienteling strategies have ignited the magic of personalised retailing to enhance the in-store brand experience and customer loyalty. At XGATE, we believe such capabilities are possible with advances in CRM and loyalty marketing, integrating data across multiple systems, including CRM, loyalty,

POS, order management, eCommerce, and communication channels – mobile technology, and omni-channel services.

Ultimately, three essential factors – customer insights, personalisation and fulfilment – will drive the success for clienteling by offering a unique brand experience at different touch-points of a customer’s shopping journey.

Businesses looking to develop their own clienteling portal should consider the different functions (as illustrated in the graphic diagram) required by sales associates to deliver customer experiences distinctly crafted for a brand.

Empowering our sales associates with well-developed clienteling tools to target segments, create personalised services, and offer seamless fulfilment for shoppers will soon be the norm for retail marketing. This necessity allows brands to make technology feel more human and blend it with the most meaningful aspects of the customer experience. That’s the new future.

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The Four Building Blocks to Marketing Automation

Ivan LAI — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 10:35:34 +0000

While CRM and marketing automation have a lot to offer on their own, integrating the two systems provide companies with a powerful suite of tools that are essential for sales and marketing to gain competitive edge dramatically.

With so many news in the last two years talking about how marketing automation will change the world drastically (in a digital marketing aspect), it is probably no longer news today since the phenomenon has already taken effect with automation software generating US$3.64 billion worldwide in 2014 according to MarketsandMarkets research; and projected to reach US$5.5 billion by 2019. It’s easy to see why CRM marketing automation is popular. Essentially, it enables brand managers to attract new leads, convert leads to customers, and build loyalty with better business results. Technically, this implies a tight integration of CRM system with marketing automation platform to allow transfer of lead information seamlessly between marketing and sales, and ensuring the right messages are delivered at the right time based on data insights. Ultimately, better alignment across organizational functions (such as customer care, marketing and sales) will improve the effectiveness of CRM marketing.

However, like any marketing tool, you need to know how to use it effectively. To build stronger customer relationship with personalized messages, targeting customers at the right time and place using the right communication channel is not a simple task. You’ll need a step approach starting with Unified Customer Data, Segmentation Filter, Customer Lifecycle and Marketing Automation to deliver digital marketing precision.

1. Unified Customer Data

Building a centralized customer database is a foundational element of the marketing technology stack. Many brands still struggle to connect the data-dots between systems. Only when the data are integrated to provide meaningful information, then can CRM managers build a consistent understanding of customers’ past events, behavior or preference for better targeting and personalization of future interactions. Essentially, joining CRM, transactional, behavioral and social data in a single environment would require strong technical capabilities and integration of systems to support marketing needs for customer insights.

2. Segmentation Filter

Having a powerful filter to connect the unified customer data and create smart customer segments based on cross-data analysis is essential for brands to deal with the constantly changing digital consumers. By applying different filtering criteria based on specific rules, you can create dynamic segments that can align with the right marketing actions.

3. Customer Lifecycle

Mapping the customer segments to a lifecycle process allows you to clearly design the right CRM marketing campaigns to target your customer segments effectively. The following diagram shows how different segments are mapped to a customer lifecycle approach. At each stage of the lifecycle, different marketing programs or plays will then be implemented with the aim to evolve the target segment from one phase to the next.

4. Marketing Automation

Seemingly simple task like uploading CRM data into email marketing platform, personalized the message before launching a campaign can be challenging in many ways. Many marketers still do this manually today. Increasingly, they also need better ways to qualify leads / customers for selling / up-selling opportunities, run programs across multiple channels, personalizing communication messages based on behavior and tracking campaign performances real-time. To tackle these complex challenges, companies turn to marketing automation to simplify their workflows and make their teams more effective. With marketing automation, you can easily design multichannel campaigns with time, rules and events based trigger. By targeting your digital campaigns at the right person, at the right time, you improve campaign response rate, thereby leading to better customer experience and business profitability.

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CRM Metrics For Continuous Business Improvement

Ivan LAI — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 09:35:36 +0000

The industry has come a long way since social media started making waves in the marketing world, and while many maintain – with good reason – that social media is a valuable tool in the box, many have come to realise it’s not the be-all and end-all of modern marketing.

Instead, marketers are starting to look beyond what insiders are calling “vanity metrics” – metrics that make you feel great about your work, but that don’t actually contribute meaningful data about the success (or lack thereof) of a campaign.

Additionally, with the proliferation of e-commerce, an online presence and omnichannel marketing, marketers are swimming in data.

So much data, in fact, that many marketers have no clue where to even begin dissecting and analysing the wealth of information they have hoarded from different touch-points, nor any clue how to consolidate and unify the data.

Ninety two per cent of marketers agree that data management is an integral part of their business, but a staggering 40% of marketers admit to not having the right expertise or knowhow to make sense of the data they have, let alone how to automate it, according to the 2017 data-driven marketing report by Jaywing, and only one in five are using advanced attribution models to measure marketing effectiveness.

It’s a classic case of being unable to see the forest through the trees.

This Master Report will dig into how to turn your information into insights; how to turn your data swamp into a gold mine; and how to make your CRM work for you, rather than the other way around.

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South China Securities Limited

Ivan LAI — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 07:05:12 +0000

South China Securities Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of South China Brokerage Company Limited (619), a publicly listed company in Hong Kong, and is registered with the SFC as a securities dealer and investment adviser.

Through SCtrade.com, one of Hong Kong’s most comprehensive financial online securities trading platform, South China Securities Limited provides all-rounded and comprehensive financial services.

Solution:

Understanding the importance of providing a convenient way for customers to monitor their online trading accounts, XGATE worked with South China to provide the following SMS notification and alert services:

Balance movement alerts: deposits / withdrawals / transfers
Trade Order confirmations: Executed or partially executed order confirmation

Customers opt-in for this SMS notification value added service via their online account and is provided free of charge.

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Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CTCB)

Ivan LAI — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 06:52:09 +0000

Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CTCB) is one of Taiwan’s foremost leading retail banks, having over 111 domestic outlets and 66 overseas outlets, and 3,493 domestic ATMs. CTCB rolled out Teradata’s CRM system for event-based marketing campaigns.

Marketing and product teams at CTCB wanted to make use of the mobile channel as a direct communications and marketing method for its clients residing in countries outside of Taiwan.

Solution:

XGATE worked with CTCB to provide the following corporate SMS banking alerts and SMS notifications services:

Stock price movement
Personalized Stock Recommendations
Currency exchange rates
Market News and Information Updates

With easy web & API integration to existing enterprise software and online website, XGATE ‘s corporate sms solution provided reliable mobile connectivity for CTCB’s international marketing and customer management efforts.

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