What does it take to turn a store visitor into a loyal customer? Any retailer that can answer this question is surely a leader in its respective niche but it is not a simple question.
George Skaff, TouchCommerce CMO
There are a multitude of factors at play and we thought we might ask the experts. We’ve reached out to George Skaff, CMO of TouchCommerce, the leading company in omnichannel engagement. George has over 25 years of marketing leadership experience in the computer industry. Prior to joining TouchCommerce, he has held marketing leadership positions with SGI, DigitalPersona, Wyse Technology and NEC Computers.
You can reach out to George Skaff on his LinkedIn profile or follow his tweets but before you do that, let’s have a look at his view on omnichannel engagement, below:
Netonomy.NET: Please give me some background on TouchCommerce – how has the company evolved to meet today’s omnichannel needs?
George Skaff: TouchCommerce is the innovative leader in omni-channel engagement solutions. We have been in business since 1999. Our company was built with a results-driven retail perspective to replicate and enhance the in-store customer experience online, with chat technology. We have award-winning technology platform and mobile solution with an emphasis on data, self-service and automation. We are focused on Enterprise Global F1000 eCommerce companies. TouchCommerce real-time customer targeting engine leverages “BIG DATA” to target and engage customers in a personalized digital assistance experience on desktops, tablets and smart phones across the omni-channel environment. TouchCommerce operates in 16 countries across North America, EMEA, and Japan.
With mobile revolution happening right now, the way customers want to interact with retailers is changing fundamentally. There is a shift in customer behavior underway. You can no longer rely on them dialing your number when they have a problem and talking to a customer service agent. There are hundreds of ways they could contact you and they may well try several different ways to get the information they want. However, make no mistake: your customers are not aware that by clicking out of a webchat session and picking up the phone that they are ‘changing contact channel’. They do not care. All they are concerned with is getting their query answered in the easiest, quickest way possible. And they want their experience to be consistent across all these channels.
Combined or stand-alone, the fully-integrated custom solutions we create for customer acquisition and customer care and retention contribute to an enhanced online, mobile or in-store customer experience and increase self-service in the omni-channel environment.
Netonomy.NET: What do you think are the products best suited for retailers implementing omnichannel marketing programs?
George Skaff: To maintain consistent consumer experience, it’s vital that retailers start thinking in terms of the customer journey and the conversation you are having with them, rather than the platform for that conversation. In order to have a cohesive, joined-up omni-channel offering, it’s essential that the different channels are integrated at the back-end. There should be one view of each individual customer, no matter which channel they have chosen to contact you. Ideally, this view should be presented to the agent in one, single desktop application too, so when a customer calls, the agent has a clear idea of their previous interactions and account details, and can quickly access information to help solve their query.
When choosing a software provider, retailers should consider if the solution:
- Is flexible enough to allow you to add or take away channels as required.
- Retains customer information and history of prior interactions
- Collects Voice of the Customer data, and allows retailer extract actionable insights from this data
- Is not dependent on certain hardware – it should be able to integrate into any environment.
- Is web-based or SaaS, allowing you to present desktop information to agents in a familiar way.
- Has analytics component and continuous improvement
Netonomy.NET: Cart abandonment is a huge problem for retailers. How can your technology solve this problem?
George Skaff: The Dynamic Targeting Engine is the core of the entire RightTouch platform and underlying technology. It tracks all user behavior and website variables to identify optimal engagement opportunities. This highly flexible tool can be configured in limitless ways to identify any group of users and target their specific needs. All direct consumer engagement activities are managed via this robust engine.
By using Our Dynamic Targeting Engine, you can focus your energy and resources on the customers by presenting them with the products they want most. This targeting tool allows us to identify consumer behavioral attributes in order to launch any one of our products with the right context, including chat, guides, offers, survey invitations or any other rich content offering a targeted engagement experience online.
The Targeting Engine enables:
- Proactive and reactive chat – TouchChat
- Proactive, reactive and embedded guides – TouchGuides
- Proactive content – TouchContent
Netonomy.NET: What do you think are the most important metrics in measuring omnichannel marketing performance and why?
George Skaff: The retailers should be very specific in selecting the metrics to measure their omni-channel marketing performance, and not to focus on metrics for each individual channel. Engagement metrics should include consumer visits, consumer interactions, conversion ratios, LTV, incrementality in all of the above measurements, as well as customer satisfaction.
Netonomy.NET:Is there any recent innovation you think has transformed commerce, both online and offline?
TouchCommerce released TouchStore, a solution that personalizes the brand experience through smartphones.
George Skaff: Several innovations are happening as we speak, among them ability for the consumer to effortlessly move across the channels, as well as the ability for the retailer to follow consumer journey across the channels. Retailers are starting to pay close attention to consumer’s shopping journey online and offline (in-store.) Products like TouchStore from TouchCommerce are a good indication of the future entails.
Netonomy.NET: How do you think upcoming mobile payment technologies such as Apple Pay will impact commerce?
George Skaff: Apple Pay improves the ability of the consumer to effortlessly complete the purchase, but it does not change the purchase paradigm in principle. While there has been other payments method (Google, Amazon, etc.), Apple massive outreach in promoting this is helping the fast adoption.
Netonomy.NET:Please share your vision on the store of the future. How do you think technology will change the way we purchase products online and offline?
George Skaff: The store of the future will be like a country without borders, where consumer moves effortlessly across different channels executing their intent to purchase. The thing to remember is that customers do not generally have a preferred channel. They will just pick whichever one they think will get them the result they need most quickly with least effort.
Consumers want choice – they will want to use different channels depending on their needs – and the ease with which they can contact a company increasingly forms part of the criteria for choosing one brand over another.
For example, a customer might call their mobile provider to find out if they were on the best price plan, but they will go online to see their current balance – and then turn to Twitter to chat with an agent about data limits abroad.
Another example is when a customer is doing their research online on their laptop looking to purchase a new TV, they check with their friends on social media regarding their friends recommendations on their tablet while sitting on the couch at home, then search for best prices using Amazon mobile app, and still will end up in a physical store to touch the product before they buy, and they might get engaged with the brand chat agent while in the store, ending up purchasing the TV of their choice in the store but using the coupon pushed by the chat agent to their mobile device.
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