How to survive in the fiercely competitive online marketplace

The pathway for consumer journeys is steadily becoming more digitised and brands may be required to ump through new digital hoops to understand the audience of 2020.

May 12, 2016

2 minutes read

The online marketplace is a fiercely competitive one. Brands have to compete in what has been labelled “an era of digital Darwinism”.

Organisations will soon find themselves greatly challenged to meet the changing demands of a younger, digitally oriented consumer, says Mr Peter Wilson of strategic consultant customer analytics at Verint.

The pathway for consumer journeys is steadily becoming more digitised. The number of digital touchpoints is increasing by 20 per cent every year.

Wilson says it may be hard to picture how the world around us might evolve, but adapting to digital trends, innovation and changing consumer behaviour will be critical for brands to survive and thrive in the second half of this decade.

What hoops do organisations need to jump through in order to meet the changing demands?

“Given the pace of innovation and the competitive pressure to implement digital strategies, executives need to get to grips with management approaches for the digital world as exemplified by Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra: ‘Move fast and break things.’

“The particular challenge leaders of longstanding brands face through is one of legacy they have to balance the likely demands of tomorrow’s consumers with the needs and interests of the customers of today,” says Wilson.

The Connected World and Millennial Mind-set

The proliferation of digital has caused a rise in mobile technology with officially more devices now in the world than people.

Making sense of customers’ interactions through these connected devices and extracting key insights from their behaviour and preferences will help organisations deliver the right support at the right time.

Yet, many businesses still can’t get to grips with aggregating and analysing this kind of data.

Consumers can contact and interact with service providers whenever and however they want.

This is particularly true of millennials who reportedly engage more extensively with brands and account for $13 trillion in direct annual spending, according to a study carried out recently in the United States.

In a recent survey by Vermint, millennials attached far greater importance to speedy service than consumers in other age groups.

Their instant interactive dialogue and willingness to share, separates millennials from other generations of customers.

This is the kind of approach organisations that are serious about engaging millennials need to follow:

Wilson says regardless of age group, Verint’s research found a significant 81 per cent of respondents simply want their questions answered and almost a third prefer it when the person they speak to is able to make decisions without checking with their manager.

This shows consumers are still demanding service providers to get the basics right irrespective of the way in which they choose to contact them.

This requires equipping employees with the right data analytics tools and technologies to get the information they need quickly – such as a customer’s past purchases, while upskilling them where necessary, so consumers never need to wait for their questions to be answered.

“It is very important that brands do not lose sight of the universal truth of customer engagement when it comes to providing good customer service through both digital and traditional means.

“Convenience and speed are fundamental to achieve this in an increasingly digital world. Businesses must draw on a wide range of insights, from app usage patterns to voice of the customer analytics, using this to inform both customer engagement and business development.

“Armed with the right insights organisations can face the future prepared, keeping engagement high and their competitive edge constant up to 2020 and beyond,” he concluded.