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Pega combines customer journeys with AI-driven next-best-actions
Pega this week announced the launch of Next-Best-Action Customer Journeys, a portfolio of capabilities aimed at unifying the marketing team’s understanding of customer journeys with automated, AI-driven next-best-actions, prompted by the customer’s real-time context — the stage of the journey he or she has reached. The solution is part of Pega’s Customer Decision Hub.No compromise on next-best-action. “We’re recognizing that marketers have really put a lot of work into analyzing distinct stages in the journeys,” said Shoel Perelman, Pega’s VP or product, 1:1 Customer Engagement. “We’re letting them list the actions the AI should consider in each of those journeys. But we’re not compromising the principles of next-best-action; we’re still going to let the customer’s propensity at that moment drive what should actually be said to them in that moment.”This makes use of the marketing organizations understanding of what messages would actually make sense at different stages on the journey, while unleashing the AI to make a real-time selection from them based on propensity scoring, the scoring generated in turn by aggregated customer’s behavior.“From my own experience, marketers are very proud of a ten-foot print-out, with all of these intricate lines that they’ve put together,” said Perelman. “But in the past, they saw next-best-action as competing with the work they did to script out those journeys. I don’t believe it needs to be competitive.” The AI, in effect, applies predictive capabilities to choosing the next step in the journey — and since this is working 1:1 with individual customers, AI is needed because of scale.Visualising the journey. At the same time, Pega is not denying marketers visibility into the journey spontaneously created by the AI. Journey visualization capabilities create graphic representations of the end-to-end customer experiences, updating in real-time as the journey takes place. This should help marketers understand optimal journeys and also see where customers are getting stuck or bailing on the experience.Why we care. This attempt to unify the traditional customer journey crafted by marketers with Pega’s AI capabilities is a reflection of the reality of today’s customer journey, which is radically non-linear and jumps between different channels. “It’s also this recognition that there isn’t just this one journey,” said Perelman. “It’s not like you’re taking someone out of one journey and putting them on another. They really are on all these journeys at the same time.”It also surely reflects the hesitancy of marketing organizations to relinquish any form of control over the customer journey and let the AI drive it from beginning to end, teaching itself along the way. It’s part of a long-standing attempt by Pega to ensure that AI is safe (and ethical) as well as effective. About The Author Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.
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How live clienteling is helping Lucchese sell more cowboy boots
“Lucchese got its start by making boots for the U.S. Cavalry based out of San Antonio,” said David Berger, Lucchese’s Head of Marketing. “We’re a premier Western lifestyle brand and we still follow the same handcrafted principles we had in 1883. Our customers love that we’ve upheld the quality and reputation that has existed for almost 140 years.”Lucchese is the most successful maker of cowboy boots in America. The company was founded in San Antonio, Texas in 1883 by Italian immigrant Salvatore Lucchese and his brothers. A Lucchese sales associate helps an online shopper — all images provided by LuccheseAlthough Lucchese’s customers are deeply loyal to the brand, the boots are a significant investment, ranging in price from $500 to $13,000. The nature of Luccese’s products combined with the higher cost of the boots meant that ecommerce sales were flat compared with in-store purchases.“People’s preference to buy cowboy boots probably will always be in person,” said Berger. “It’s a very sensory driven experience. Most people want to see, feel, and even smell the leather. We know that one of the best shopping experiences you can have — and one that we can control — is in our own stores.”Lucchese needed a way to virtually emulate the in-person buying experience customers received when shopping in their physical stores. They were already using Immerss, a live commerce platform that enabled them to present their products in a one-to-many virtual environment (e.g., QVC style). With this approach, a host goes live and presents a list of products to an audience of multiple shoppers. But Lucchese wanted something more personal, a way to virtually reproduce a similar shopping experience that customers got when buying in a bricks and mortar showroom. That’s how two years ago, during a routine client meeting, Lucchese’s President and Immerss’s CEO came up with the concept of digital clienteling.See a need, fill a needIn 2019, Doug Kindy, Lucchese’s President, met with Arthur Veytsman, Immerss’s Co-Founder and CEO. The meeting was about Lucchese’s existing live shopping solution (e.g., the one-to-many QVC approach). During their discussion, Kindy mentioned a common pain point that DTC brands have—namely, there’s no good way to service digital shoppers.Kindy wanted to connect shoppers with live sales associates using a digital clienteling approach, enabling one-on-one conversations in real time as the customer was shopping. “When I met with Doug Kindy, Lucchese only had one point of human contact for their online shoppers and that was their call center,” explained Veytsman. “A customer request was initiated through chat and routed to the call center. People who were shopping for a product on Lucchese’s website had no way of reaching a live salesperson. That was the point when Immerss’s digital clienteling arm was born.”Lucchese was the first client to use Immerss’s MVP clienteling solution, signing on in the summer of 2019 and going live January 2020. After successfully piloting the solution with Lucchese, Immerss rolled it out nationally in March, then began scaling the platform for Shopify. Said Veytsman, “Our role is to facilitate that connection between the shopper and a live salesperson and make sure it’s as close to a physical store visit as possible. The idea is that we’re connecting online shoppers with a retail associate who is on the floor either in the showroom or digital store.”What live clienteling looks like from the customer’s perspectiveRolling out a new solutionWhen they first began using the digital clienteling solution, Lucchese trained all their in-store sales associates how to use it which, as it turns out, didn’t take long. “There wasn’t much training required to use the platform,” said Berger. “Even in its early days, it was pretty intuitive and straightforward.”Berger noted that most of the time spent on training was focused on the product side. “Each boot has its own story,” said Berger. “From its construction to the materials where it’s sourced, there’s only so much you can communicate on a product page on your website. Immerss’s platform is enhancing our online shopping experience and helping to bridge that gap for customers who may be hesitant to purchase cowboy boots online.”Sky high conversion rates and a growing digital showroomLucchese currently has 14 brick and mortar stores, all of which are in Texas, but their boots are in demand across the entire US. With Immerrs, they can replicate the in-store environment for their digital customers, providing one-to-one assistance to shoppers in real time. This is boosting online conversion rates and has motivated Lucchese to create a thriving digital showroom with five dedicated salespeople.A salesperson speaks with an online customer in the digital showroom“Having the ability to speak with customers via Immerss is helping our digital business quite a bit,” said Berger. “We’re building a team around it and repurposing an existing showroom to use with the Immerss platform where we can show the products to our digital customers.”Customers who use Immerss on Lucchese’s website convert at a 20-25X higher rate than those who don’t. Said Berger, “The challenge is to figure out how can we drive more traffic through Immerss because the conversion rate is so much higher. It’s obviously a better experience for customers.”A Lucchese salesperson shows off some boots to a customerSaid Berger, “We’re seeing the retail landscape shifting to more of a direct-to-consumer model. I believe the reason for that is because customers want to interact directly with the brands they’re buying. That’s usually because the brands can offer a better experience themselves. The advice I would give to anyone considering a technology like Immerss is to be open to testing different business models as it relates to leveraging the technology. The tool itself is very powerful. Anything that can give you a closer, more personal, and more personalized interaction with your customer is a good thing.”Read next: Other case studies by Jacqueline Dooley About The Author Jacqueline Dooley is a freelance B2B content writer and journalist covering martech industry news and trends. Since 2018, she’s worked with B2B-focused agencies, publications, and direct clients to create articles, blog posts, whitepapers, and eBooks. Prior to that, Dooley founded Twelve Thousand, LLC where she worked with clients to create, manage, and optimize paid search and social campaigns.
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Supply chain crisis impacts holiday shopping
Problems with the supply chain were always going to have an effect on 2021’s holiday shopping season. New data from Adobe gives some idea of what the scale of the effect is likely to be as consumers look to kick off their holiday shopping early.In October, shoppers saw two billion out-of-stock messages, a rise of 250% over a comparable pre-pandemic period (January 2020) and a staggering rise of 325% compared with October 2019. The electronics category is hardest hit, followed by jewelry, apparel, home and garden, and pet products.An 8% growth in consumer spending YoY is evidence that consumers are shopping earlier, and brands have been reaching out with earlier deals and discounts. Curbside pick-up stayed steady with last October, while there has been a small increase in expedited shipping requests.Why we care. First, this is real transaction data rather than data about consumer intentions gathered from surveys. Adobe has access to over one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.Second, as we’ve been saying for at least a year, the supply chain crisis has the capacity to wreck the customer experience. Late fulfilment on orders is to be expected, but the early surge in out-of-stock inventory means customer journeys ending before a purchase is made. The challenge to marketers? Be empathetic, be transparent and be honest. You can’t fix the supply chain; you can try to ameliorate how bad your customers feel. About The Author Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.
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Take the lead in 2022 by building value and trust, one consumer at a time
Consumers want to share more about themselves, so brands get it right. But not at the expense of their personal data.As we look ahead to 2022, what brands will stand out in the eyes of the consumer? How will personalization and customer experience drive how organizations build and maintain their brand equity? Who will consumers trust with the protection of their first-party data? Join experts for a live webinar and learn how you can deliver the experiences your customers want.Register today for “Strategies to Take the Lead in 2022: Build Value and Trust, One Consumer at a Time,” presented by Redpoint.Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.About The Author Cynthia Ramsaran is director of custom content at Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land and MarTech. A multi-channel storyteller with over two decades of editorial/content marketing experience, Cynthia’s expertise spans the marketing, technology, finance, manufacturing and gaming industries.
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How brands can create omnichannel customer experiences
Brands know customers interact with them across multiple touchpoints, yet many fail to provide cohesive experiences. It’s not enough for marketers to engage with them in each channel — every interaction needs to be connected.“Connecting all of your channels — delivering an omnichannel, consistent experience — is very important because we are talking about a 30% higher lifetime value among omnichannel shoppers,” said Vijay Chittoor, co-founder and CEO of CDP company Blueshift, in his recent MarTech presentation. “We are talking with the brands who do it right, getting 89% retention compared to other companies only retaining 33% of their customers.”He added, “Well-intentioned brands end up delivering poor experiences to customers by not connecting all of their omnichannel touchpoints.”Multichannel vs. ominchannel engagementIs your engagement marketing multichannel or omnichannel focused? Though they may sound similar, a multichannel approach actually puts brands at a much higher risk of losing consumers due to poor experiences.“The mindset for multichannel is very similar to the mindset for single-channel customer engagement,” said Chittoor, “which is all about focusing on the channel of marketing but less on the consumer.”Marketers should invert the multichannel model and begin thinking of customer engagement as an extension of customer experience. Placing the customer at the center of these efforts is the goal.Image: BlueshiftEnact centralized experience orchestrationIdeal customer journeys occur seamlessly across many touchpoints. But these only happen when consumer experiences are effectively orchestrated. It’s marketers’ responsibility to meet their needs in each interaction, using the most applicable content and methods.There are many useful tools out there to assist marketing teams in collecting and organizing experience data, such as CDPs and customer journey analytics software. These platforms help unify customer data from multiple points of contact.Align processes and teams“I think the best brands are doing it right when instead of thinking about people and organizations in silos, they are able to connect them,” said Chittoor.He added, “But more importantly, I think that the brands who are doing it really well are connecting marketing with customers.”Siloing your marketing efforts can be devasting to customer experiences. Your paid media, email marketing, and other teams should be on the same page so customers aren’t confused as they journey across touchpoints.Craft a unified customer experience strategy“When you have aligned people and processes, you have to layer in a unified CX strategy where all of this is seen as extending the customers experience and it goes much more beyond marketing,”He added, “Brands everywhere are realizing that marketing and customer experience have to be integrated in order to truly deliver omnichannel customer experience to the customer.”Customer experience is the most important metric in an effective omnichannel strategy. It’s not about how many channels you optimize for — it’s about how well you’ve engaged with the customer.Watch the full presentation from our MarTech conference here (free registration required). About The Author Corey Patterson is the Content and SEO Manager for MarTech and Search Engine Land. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and journalism, he analyzes and optimizes Third Door Media content to help marketers find the information they need.
