LTM helps leading UK retailer transform in-store and online customer experience with omnichannel

Introduction

In 2020, one of UK's leading retailers of technology products and services embarked on a mission to transform into a digital-first omnichannel retailer by improving its shopping experience across both digital and physical platforms. Despite the complexities that came with such an undertaking — hundreds of products, multiple retail outlets and partners, and millions of customers — with LTM’s support the organization was able to reach over 600 milestones and conquer complex legacy systems. All the while, navigating the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Vision

• Easy to shop – It’s a fact that 80% of customers who shop in-store research on the website first. The tech retailer wanted to make their website easy to navigate and offer an intuitive and frictionless customer journey and a range of products and prices. The mission was to become a digital-first company and combine online and instore experiences for the best-in-class shopping experience across all channels and promote cross-selling, upselling, and services.
•  Empowered workforce – Eight out of 10 of their clients laud their instore customer representaives for a great experience. Their expert advice helps people choose the right technology for their needs. Customer representatives with access to technology, data, and tools can engage customers better by meaningful recommendations and introducing them to related services or products. 
• Building customers for life – The aim is to become valuable to the customers by helping them choose and afford the right tech. Customer data gives insights into customers’ behavior, preferences, and needs. Leveraging this data to provide service and support will make their experiences memorable and help build customers for life.

The Challenge

Confusing navigation, disconnected experiences

Three out of five customers preferred shopping both online and in store. With legacy mainframe systems, the customer journey was spread across numerous websites, brands, and over 600 applications. There was difficulty and confusion in navigation, which adversely affected online sales - barely one, out of 10 sales, was made online.

Unavailability of accurate inventory

Updated stock information was unavailable across channels, because of which customers couldn’t make the right choices as per their needs.

Lack of sufficient customer data

A consolidated view of the customers’ data, like their online behavior, decision moments, preferences, etc. was not available. This was impeded offering a personalized shopping experience.

Limitations of the legacy systems

There were more than 600 applications and complex digital journeys across multiple websites and brands. Its legacy systems meant manual monitoring was needed and peak seasons and product launches were stressful times, as the number of transactions was high. This also hampered the ability to maintain critical client data.

Limitation of store colleagues to do contextual selling

The client’s internal system didn’t offer its sales representative at the store a 360-degree view of the customer. They didn’t have information on customer and order look up, recommendations to upsell, product information, reviews and ratings and information on abandoned carts. 

Lack of cross-channel fulfilment and returns

The internal teams had a limited view stock online and in stores from any channel. There was also no way to link online and store orders of customers. They had a disconnected buy, collect and return experience across channels.

"8 years of digital acceleration in a space of less than two years"

The Solution

LTM collaborated with Salesforce in discovery and technical design to help implement an omnichannel solution to unify data and ensure a swift and smooth customer journey.

Commerce Cloud

This “all in one stack” scalable platform helped bring flexibility and scalability, and eliminate performance issues and pressure during peak seasons.

Rolling out Einstein Artificial Intelligence enhanced the experience with quick and easy searches, and a personalized experience for returning customers. With Commerce Cloud, it was possible to test the success of personalization at scale and prove that it resulted in higher engagement, conversion, and increased basket spend. MuleSoft, a one-stop shop to integrate various disparate systems, was used to integrate backend systems.

Service Cloud

The customized software solutions provided their employees with a centralized, real-time view of customer history, products in their cart, knowledge articles, and task lists and made guided selling possible. While conversing with customers, colleagues could explore inventory and apply filters to suggest appropriate products and finalize the purchase. They could then schedule next-day delivery to the store and then contactless collection.

Experience Cloud

Combining Experience Cloud with Commerce Cloud helped synchronize customer data for a uniform and scalable cross-geo experience improving personalization.

Omnichannel Inventory

This gave the employees tools to manage real-time inventory availability and customers a view of inventory across all channels allowing a truly connected experience. 

Salesforce OMS

One of the main challenges was to create a seamless order experience for its customers. This streamlined OMS helped create the perfect end-to-end commerce experience for customers — from shopping to shipping.

Headless Content Management System (CMS) and brand site integrated with Amplience

This CMS facilitated the creation of volume and variety of content. This allowed the retailer to visualize content and see exactly what its customers will see.

Benefits

"Reimagining the face of retail "

• Unified channels and touchpoints – Customers can choose what they want and move between various channels smoothly
• Streamlined, frictionless shopping journey – Streamlining legacy systems and disjointed platforms by switching to scalable and flexible technology stack based on a cloud platform made it easy to manage customer data, inventory, and order data across channels
• Deliver insights led customer experience It is possible to check a customer’s online journeys when they switch channels and make key decisions. This helps in making highly personalized recommendations and providing cross-channel visibility
• Empowered colleagues – The newly launched portal with knowledge articles and task lists empowers frontline employees by providing online customer history, a log of all their interactions, and any items they’ve put in their online shopping cart, all displayed in real time
• Inventory visibility across channels – Accurate information about stock availability across channels enables the customer to choose the option that works for them
• Unified branding across channels and geographies leading to increased brand association and improved brand identity

Key highlights 

      "Digital first customer omnichannel experience"                

• Migration to cloud and website launched in less than 12 months
• 11 million customer records transferred
• Over 600 milestones delivered in 16 months
• 8.5 million customers engaged online and instore per week