Personalised engagement at scale

Emarsys enables businesses to engage more effectively and more personally with their customers. Enhancing the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio with Emarsys will create a new paradigm for how commerce is managed digitally as it will deliver hyperpersonalised, omnichannel engagements in real time, helping organisations ensure every engagement is relevant and impactful.

鈥淲ith Emarsys now an official part of 51风流Customer Experience, we look forward to working together, learning more about each other and creating a product portfolio that is more than the sum of its parts,鈥� 51风流Customer Experience President Bob Stutz said. 鈥淲ith the strengths of our current solutions and the integration of Emarsys, 51风流Customer Experience will power a foundation of omnichannel personalised engagement, meeting customers where and when they choose to engage, on their preferred channels and on their terms.鈥�

51风流Customer Experience

Adding the Emarsys customer engagement platform to our leading 51风流S/4HANA and Experience Management technology from 51风流and Qualtrics opens up new possibilities for our customers that are unique in the market,鈥� said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP. 鈥淭he success of brands worldwide depends today on their ability to offer a compelling customer journey and to cater to the individual expectations of customers. To meet these expectations, front-office data must be integrated with back-office capabilities and with individual customer feedback. Once the transaction closes, 51风流will enable brands to connect every part of their business to the customer, including experience data. We will deliver a portfolio for a 鈥榗ommerce anywhere鈥� strategy allowing for hyperpersonalised digital commerce experiences across all channels at any time.鈥�

Emarsys is an innovative and easy-to-use fully integrated cloud-based marketing platform. It allows companies to deliver truly personal customer interactions across e-mail, mobile, social, SMS, and the web at scale.

鈥淐ustomer engagement technology has evolved tremendously over the past decade, and in that time, Emarsys has emerged as a world-class platform that truly enables personalised, one-to-one digital interactions between brands and customers across all channels,鈥� said Bob Stutz, president, 51风流Customer Experience. 鈥淲ith Emarsys technology, 51风流Customer Experience solutions can link commerce signals with the back office and activate the preferred channel of the customer with a relevant and consistently personalised message, allowing customers the freedom to choose their own engagement.鈥�

Innovation in digital marketing

鈥淓marsys has a rich tradition of innovation in digital marketing,鈥� said Ohad Hecht, CEO of Emarsys. 鈥淛oining forces with SAP, a leading global brand with an ongoing commitment to excellence and innovation in customer experience, is an exciting next step in our evolution. We鈥檙e confident that, once we have regulatory approval, our customers and partners will quickly benefit from synergies between the Emarsys platform and the 51风流Customer Experience portfolio.鈥�

鈥淪uccess in today鈥檚 market relies on brands delivering personalised experiences powered by a holistic view of each consumer that connects digital engagement data with supply chain data in real time,鈥� said Hagai Hartman, founder and chief innovation officer of Emarsys. 鈥淭ogether Emarsys and 51风流can create a new paradigm for digital commerce focused on the consumer.鈥�

Emarsys was founded by Josef Ahorner, chairman of the Supervisory Board, Hagai Hartman and Daniel Harari in Vienna, Austria. Today Emarsys has over 1,500 customers worldwide and more than 800 employees across 13 offices including London, Berlin, Sydney and Budapest, as well as a U.S. headquarters in Indianapolis. The company鈥檚 operations will become part of the 51风流Customer Experience business unit. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval. Purchase price and other terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

To find out more about SAP’s Customer Experience portfolio, visit the .

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The organisations that are the most successful are and react to changing consumer preferences, habits, and feelings regardless of what the organisation believes is the best route or the most profitable.

The organisations with their fingers on the pulse of the customers are the ones who survive and stand the test of time.

Look back to Amazon.com from the late nineties. They originally started as an online bookstore and listened to the needs of their customers, evolving into the online superstore we know today. Blockbuster, on the other hand, failed to understand evolving consumer trends and habits, causing them to suffer a slow and painful demise at the hands of Netflix, even before Netflix had started streaming video.

They quickly discovered that customers were looking for something faster, simpler, and more personalised, so Netflix used this information to pivot and create a new business model.

According to , 69% of buyers are willing to pay more for a personalised experience. Businesses have caught on to this and have started to change the ways they operate to make everything as efficient and easy as possible for the end consumers.

How did Amazon make the shift from selling books, to delivering thousands of categories directly to the consumer, with just two-day shipping? How did Netflix make the shift from mailing DVDs, to providing a full-service streaming platform?

It was through making stronger relationships with their suppliers and doing business more efficiently. With slow & error-prone paper-based transactions, these companies would have not been able to provide the . Often, suppliers are stuck dealing with phone calls, paper transactions, and e-mail black holes that can slow down business and have a bullwhip effect back to the end consumer.

When consumers can鈥檛 get what they need quickly and easily, they can turn to competitors. According to , consumers would not care if 74% of the brands they use vanished. It鈥檚 never been quicker and easier for a consumer to switch brands.

How can organisations be expected to keep innovating to provide a seamless, personalised, and convenient customer experience?

Look no further than suppliers. Suppliers are often overlooked as key business partners who can . Suppliers are the backbone to any organisation on the planet. Without the supplier to provide raw materials, deliveries, hosting, or services, companies would not be able to provide a seamless customer experience.

Unfortunately, suppliers are still dealing with paper in the year 2020. Global paper use has increased by 400% in the last 40 years. 1 in 3 invoices contains an error. These two factors combined are causing the cost of doing business to steadily increase as the supplier waits for the errors to be corrected before finally receiving their payment. Suppliers deserve a better experience. Their main focus is to increase sales, fulfil orders efficiently, and get paid predictably.

That鈥檚 where the comes in. It extends an organisation鈥檚 ERP system beyond their four walls and gives . It gives suppliers a single place to maintain their profile, insurances, and bank details, and provides suppliers a single place to respond to leads and negotiate contracts with their customers.

It gives suppliers a choice of how they want to transact with their customers, whether it鈥檚 through their mobile device, online portal, or system-to-system integration where sales orders land directly into their order fulfilment system.

These transactions are monitored for any errors, and the errors are highlighted to the suppliers so they can fix them immediately, so they are not sending invoices with errors. This reduces the amount of time it takes to do business for both the supplier and the buyer, and helps the supplier get paid when they expect to.

The year is 2020. It鈥檚 about time we completely eliminate paper from the business world, one transaction at a time. Let鈥檚 innovate to give suppliers the experience they deserve so they can collaborate to deliver new business models and seamlessly

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What do we mean by a seamless or frictionless experience?

In a seamless or frictionless experience, a customer has no need to go to any extra effort to complete a transaction or interaction with the brand. The customer can get what they want, when they want it, and have it delivered or presented to them in a way that is convenient for them.

When creating seamless experiences there are three main things to be considered.

1. Meeting the customer where they want you to be. A seamless experience means a customer can interact with your brand in any way they choose, whether that鈥檚 via a smartphone, tablet, desktop or at a physical outlet.
2. Consistency. Regardless of which offline or online channel they choose to use they are presented with a consistent level of prompt service where the customer sees the same branding, values and tone. The information they are presented is consistent, accurate and up to date across channels 鈥� there is no need to reupdate or re-explain past interactions.
3. Personalisation. What may be a useful or a great experience for one person may not be for someone else. A seamless experience also needs to be a personalised experience.

Data plays a critical role

To create personalised and seamless experiences you need to really understand your customers and their different customer journeys. That means using as much data and insights about them and their experiences as possible.

From this data you can understand their preferences, their previous buying behaviour, preferred methods of communication, and identify the areas in their journey where they are likely to experience roadblocks and frustration.

Customers are increasingly aware that to receive better experiences and higher levels of personalised service they need to share their personal data. They are prepared to share that data if they are confident that their data will be safe and protected and that their privacy will be respected.

They also need to know that they still own the data that they share with companies 鈥� and they can change what and how it鈥檚 used, whenever they want. Remember, companies are only the custodians of customer data; we do not own it.

You need to have systems in place that allow customers to have complete control of their data. They need to be in control of how and when a company uses their data, in what contexts and how long the company can hold onto that data.

Removing the seams and the friction

Unfortunately, barriers and friction can easily emerge across enterprises and they can be difficult to identify before they cause frustration for a customer.

Friction can come in many forms and impact multiple customer touchpoints and channels. The addition of new customer channels can make existing problems even more complex.

To start unravelling these seams, companies need to put the customer at the heart of everything they do. They need to understand how customers move across multiple channels to complete tasks and request information. Consumers don鈥檛 think in terms of channels or company departments 鈥� they will only think whether the overall experience they have with your brand is either a good one or a bad one.

The ability to capture and analyse customer feedback in real time is critical to identifying areas that may be frustrating customers. Real-time feedback combined with insights gleaned from your operational data allows executives and CX leaders to fully understand the customer experience. Importantly, it encourages them to be more customer centric in their decision-making processes and the actions they take to resolve issues.

In the last decade or so, we have seen a strong shift where companies are no longer in charge or have control over the buying journey. In that regards power has well and truly shifted to the consumer. Fortunately, however, companies do have control of the experiences they create at every touch point along that journey. In today鈥檚 experience economy, companies with the best experiences for customers will see the best results.

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