Defining the customer journey for an omnichannel experience
E-commerce customer journeys can vary by industry, type of customer and geography. What will that journey look like for your B2B or B2C customers? The journey often begins with an internet search or a social media touchpoint. A well-placed ad or redirect can begin the customer engagement process, linking that person to an online store to start browsing.
For B2B, a buyer needs to know quickly how to create new orders from their standard order template and more importantly how to recommend products that would complement each other and increase sales conversions to their end customers. The key is understanding the customer or business buyer, their preferences, history, and most importantly their level of satisfaction.
Increasingly, the customer journey may take place through an omnichannel model spanning multiple online and in-store interactions. Tools that retailers can employ include:
- Beacons and location services – serving prospective customers contextual ads and mobile notifications.
- Opt-in video – a retailer can automatically detect a customer using facial recognition as well as determine key triggers such as sentiment and age. Collecting key data points also helps to ultimately deliver insights to the retail associate’s POS.
- In-store integrations can also support omnichannel scenarios such as in-store kiosks, customer VIP profiles, coupons, as well as order online pickup notifications.
A carefully planned and integrated e-commerce system is critical to offering insights into the customer buying behavior. Using Microsoft Dynamic 365 Commerce’s Audience and Engagement Insights retailers can enable advanced AI to deliver targeted analytics that will increase customer satisfaction levels and sales while reducing churn. At the same time empowering their associates to raise the bar on their ability to elevate the customer experience and engagement.
How Mazars supports e-commerce investment
Mazars engaged with Microsoft on Dynamics Commerce-retail solutions early in the technical evolution of the product line. Our goals is to continually provide direct customer feedback that helps fuel the ongoing enhancements in Dynamics 365 Commerce.
“We can engage end-users in the implementation process so that they feel a sense of ownership. All too often, team end users can end up resistant to change if they are not empowered to become system advocates.” – Ivan Cole
To develop ideas with clients, Mazars applies design thinking techniques, aligning ideas across different business units and teams to articulate the e-commerce “end game” and how to achieve it. Commonly, investments include integrated systems and empowering a broader range of personnel as stakeholders in the e-commerce initiative.
Together with e-commerce planning, Mazars emphasizes the need for training, implementation support, consulting services, and managed Client Care services. Mazars teams support customer care needs around Dynamics 365, Office 365, Azure, and other Microsoft offerings. At the same time, a cybersecurity team helps to secure customers against cyber threats in coordination with Microsoft.
Strategic plans, best practices, support, and continual Dynamics 365 updates are the key ingredients of today’s enterprise software journey—and the true definition of digital transformation. Mazars is committed to helping our customers enable emerging technologies that will fuel the growth and efficiency of their organizations.
Innovation is the key to keeping the customer journey on a strategic path. We invite you to explore your journey to the Dynamics cloud and let us show you the art of the possible. Contact Mazars for an innovation whiteboarding session at the Mazars US Innovation Center and to see how you can maximize your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce application.
Download our latest white paper, Roadmaps to Customer Excellence: e-Commerce Innovation with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce.
