Datacom realises new digital solutions products after CX transformation

Two new digital solutions to help clients respond to physical distancing restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have become the first big outcomes of Datacom's decision to invest in a fresh customer experience management approach.

The ICT services provider, which was looking to migrate to a digital-first approach for its own customer experience management, recently tapped Adobe's technology platform as the backbone solution to overhaul its CX intelligence. The transformation project has seen Datacom re-platform the Datacom domains onto Adobe Experience Manager, and also adopt Adobe Analytics and Target, tools which enable the internal Datacom team to build more personalised experiences with the goal of offering customers content that is useful and relevant to them.

And in bringing in Adobe, Datacom has built out its digital solutions for customers that suddenly had to respond to physical distancing restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep their business operating.

Reinventing digital engagement

Datacom digital marketing head, Caroline van Rooyen, explained the decision to adopt the Adobe platform to CMO as part of its overall brand transformation.

“The goal was to reinvent the experience for customers as they engage with us across our digital channels,” van Rooyen said. “Working to improve customer experience, it made sense to move to Adobe Cloud to leverage all the benefits the platform has to offer, including minimal downtime for future updates, speed to market and scalability.”

Like almost all businesses, Datacom shifted to work from home as part of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions. Van Rooyen explained this upheaval and reconfiguring of the way teams worked has been beneficial to the Adobe project. In particular, it's enabled the team to use the time “to accelerate the efforts on the launch of the new Datacom domain and digital branding”.

“We have noted a significant improvement in productivity too,” she added. 

Datacom’s digital transformation, van Rooyen told CMO, “starts and ends with the customer”. “The Adobe stack is the right offering that will empower us to evolve that experience and improve brand awareness for maximum ROI,” she said. 

“Datacom’s internal Adobe Experience Manager practice is the largest and most experienced in the region. That was also a significant factor in our decision making."

In terms of the nuts and bolts, the transformation project involved migrating two of Datacom's core microsites built on a single instance of the Adobe Experience Manager on-premise software into the Adobe Cloud. “We run an agile delivery squad and were able to align timelines to sync cadence,” van Rooyen said.

“We also had access to Adobe support teams when it came down to the wire, where we looped them in to troubleshoot and advise where needed. We had a tight go-live process mapped out by our internal solution architect who led the team through the steps to a successful migration.”

The project has been very much one with two goals and two wins - it's good for Datacom and, in turn, good for what it can offer its customers as a result of digital transformation.

“The added benefit is that key learnings and experience gathered from this project could be then passed onto our customers,” van Rooyen said. “This is already happening. Recently, we built a pop-up ecommerce store in a matter of weeks for a local customer so they could continue to run their operations during lockdown.”

The native integration and real-time tracking also means Datacom can customise what it tracks to deliver meaningful insights that will inform the business and help improve the experience for customers. But it doesn’t stop there, and Datacom is looking at the combination of Adobe’s analytics smarts and targeting tools to push further personalisation across its website.

Other initiatives in train include the new domain, datacom.com, which the business has now acquired and is currently in the final stages of content authoring this future website.

“We will also be making use of Adobe’s Multi-Site Manager, which will allow us to adapt our content to each specific region, further maximising our customer experience,” van Rooyen said. “This, alongside our plans to consolidate our content, will help Datacom to unify and enhance its digital footprint.”

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