The Customer Relationship Management Conference (CRMC) 2023 is upon us again and kicks off the first week of June in Chicago.
This yearly conference features the ‘who’s who’ of customer loyalty and CX in the retail industry and their partners.
CRMC’s agenda is always full of industry-leading and globally recognized brands, and this year tops them all. Brands like Nike, Adidas, Walgreens, and our favorite, NASCAR (no, you can’t have them as a client, so just walk away) – are taking the stage. These sessions will share valuable and real-world takeaways from their customer experience and loyalty initiatives – the good, the bad, and everything in between. We’re sharing the stage with our client NASCAR on Thursday, June 8th at 4:00 to discuss a first in the sporting industry – a pure loyalty engagement program, NASCAR Fan Rewards. Attendees will get an inside look into the strategy behind this engagement program and even have a chance to receive some cool NASCAR swag.
Other brands and keynote speakers will share their insights at CRMC on the ever-changing retail landscape and what trends flourished in 2023 and what hasn’t. With challenges & bankruptcy scares coming from every angle, retailers (Bed, Bath, & Be-Gone anyone?) must remain innovative and forward-thinking while keeping the customer and their experience at the center of all loyalty strategies and initiatives. Customers want to engage with their favorite brands, and they want that engagement to be relevant, personalized, and timely. Experiential retail experiences, automation, Artificial Intelligence, and social and mobile commerce are potential strategies to incorporate into your initiatives to keep your customers engaged and, more importantly, loyal.
These customer loyalty and engagement strategies will all be shared and discussed amongst the industry’s top brands and vendors at CRMC this year. If you’re attending this year, be sure to stop by our booth in the Normandie Lounge to meet the Capillary team, including some of the newly-joined folks from our recent acquisition of Brierley. Our team is serving our infamous Rainbow Cone ice cream on Thursday the 8th, so grab a cone before heading to our session with NASCAR.
With the effects of the pandemic wearing off, consumers are thronging physical stores and outlets again. But there is a difference- consumers want digital to be the first touch. Right from chatting with a brand on social media to knowing the details of a product to an easier checkout process, a digital-first and last touch are preferred. But for most other things, consumers like to step out, touch and feel the products, and have an in-person experience. And this has given rise to Phygital customer experiences.
What is phygital?
Physical + Digital = Phygital.
The term was coined back in 2013 but it has gained popularity only in the last year or so, after the pandemic. An amalgamation of physical and digital customer experience is what is termed Phygital. And it is of utmost importance for brands and retailers to ride this trend and offer phygital experiences.
“73% of shoppers prefer to purchase online after visiting a store,” says a recent ET report. And more than 90% want to chat with a brand to inquire if a product is in stock before visiting the store. This clearly indicates why brands need to have a really good Phygital strategy and deployment to keep up with modern consumer demands.
Different kinds of phygital experiences
The term may be new but Phygital has been around for a while. For instance, ordering via in-store kiosks has been around for about two decades. ChatGPT tells us that “the first in-store kiosk was installed in 1994 in a Blockbuster Video store in Dallas, Texas.” (Capillary launches AskAira, an AI assistant for marketers)
The other example of a phygital experience is the ability for customers to order online or in-store and get delivery through a variety of channels. This may be through the drive-in, doorstep shipping, or curbside delivery.
More modern examples of phygital would also include- immersive virtual reality experiences, augmented reality experiences, interactive voice-based experiences, and interactive video-based experiences. To summarize, phygital use cases include:
Selecting a product online and picking it up in-store
Redeeming a voucher online or offline
Preorder items for pickup (works for F&B and QSR)
Knowing store availability beyond working hours
Dynamic voucher offers to drive customers to newly launched online stores
Scanning a QR code instore to view detailed product information
Acing offline engagement along with online with Capillary
For a phygital experience to work smoothly, engaging a customer while in-store is the key. A platform like Capillary has several powerful features which can help you deliver an end-to-end phygital experience:
Dynamic Vouchering System (Communicate in real-time)
Most conventional campaigns are hardwired to limited offers and do not encourage immersive customer engagement. Such static campaigns often restrict customers from spending more. Real-time offers are inherently better at engaging people and are thus, the need of the hour for every marketer these days.
Capillary’s Dynamic Vouchering System (DVS) enables a marketer to send personalized vouchers to its customers in real time. These vouchers could be shared via SMS/WhatsApp notifications or printed coupons along with the bill receipt to increase the redemption further. This has resulted in:
Higher conversion rate (5% – 10%) than other promotions (1%-3%)
Contributes 1% – 4% to the top line of the brand
Assures instant customer gratification and repeat visits
Increases wallet share by 50% by capitalizing on other campaigns
Power of CDP+ along with strong Integrations
In order to deliver a great phygital experience, it is crucial to collect consumer data from various POS systems. Capillary’s consumer data platform has a vast integration marketplace which allows you to build a 360-degree view of the consumer and deliver the perfect phygital experience.
Phygital- A great opportunity to improve customer service
“More than 50% of consumers feel frustrated when they can’t reply to a promotional message,” according to one of the surveys we conduct at Capillary. Here are a couple of ways in which customer service can be improved:
1) Seamlessly moving a customer from a chatbot to a human contact center agent if they have a complex issue or using human agents to supplement digital solutions.
2) Shoppers simply scan a product in the store to see a video of how it was created, how to use it, and its ingredients. The approach saves on packaging and in-store signage and empowers customers with more information about the products they are buying.
Conclusion Get a 360-degree customer view, target better, and achieve business goals
To deliver a great phygital experience, having a 360-degree customer view is necessary and systems like Capillary have achieved a high level of sophistication to help you target customers better. Depending on zero-party data and first-party data, the system can nudge brand marketers in delivering the perfect experience suited for a particular customer. For instance, in some cases, a digital app notification would work better while in other cases, an SMS might be a better approach. Capillary Nudge Framework helps brands deliver highly effective loyalty programs which improve customer retention and increase overall revenue along with giving a superior customer experience.
Capillary Technologies, a provider of customer engagement and loyalty SaaS platforms, has announced the launch of AskAira, an AI-powered content assistant that leverages OpenAI technology to help brands build emotional connections with their customers. AskAira (Aira stands for Artificially Intelligent Research Assistant) is part of Capillary’s enterprise product and provides brand marketers with the ability to engage with customers more personally and build emotional connections, while also improving productivity by providing relevant prompts regarding messaging tone and generating communication ideas.
According to a survey conducted among brand marketers at over 250 enterprise customers at Capillary, more than 50% of marketers stated that writing, editing, and optimizing content for different channels takes up the majority of their time. AskAira aims to alleviate this problem by using AI to suggest appropriate messaging and personalized content for each customer.
AskAira is designed to understand the nuances of human language and emotions, which helps marketers build stronger relationships with their customers. When building a loyalty program, marketers will be provided with options based on AI for an apt response according to the context. Through the tool, marketers can create content that is tailored for the right industry and audience, has the right tone and messaging to touch the emotional chord, and is multilingual for customers across the globe.
AskAira gives marketers complete control, as it provides several options for a particular message to choose from and approve. Rohan Mahadar, VP of Product Management at Capillary, stated, “We are thrilled to announce the launch of AskAira, a productivity-enhancing tool that will help brands hyper-personalize messaging and create an emotional connect with the customer with more ease. By leveraging the power of OpenAI, we are making the Capillary platform more intelligent and user-friendly as we march forth on the vision of becoming the best loyalty company in the world.”
About Capillary: Founded in 2012, Capillary Technologies has a presence across the United States, India, the Middle East, and Asia, in particular, South East Asia. Capillary is an end-to-end customer loyalty platform that offers a comprehensive view of consumers, and unified, cross-channel strategies that deliver a real-time omnichannel, personalized, and consistent experience for customers. Powering 100+ loyalty programs, across 30+ countries, Capillary works with 250+ brands including the likes of Tata, PUMA, Shell, Al-Futtaim, Petron, Domino’s, Kanmo Group, and Marks & Spencer. With a massive reach of 1Bn+ consumers and processing 5Bn+ annual transactions, the company has the backing of Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital, Avataar Ventures, and Filter Capital. For more information, visit www.capillarytech.com.
