When you are taking on the giants in an industry, it pays to treat every customer like royalty. That starts with getting to know them better. But for fresh food retailer, Harris Farm Markets, the desire for better customer management was hampered by customer interactions that were fragmented across a number of channels.

The Royal Automobile Club in Western Australia has gone live with its mobile-first online member portal, the inaugural step in a multi-pronged digital transformation program aimed at delivering better experiences to customers.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) has undergone a significant digital transformation as part of efforts to shift from regulatory watchdog to customer-centric services provider.

Artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of customer experience management platforms that unite the online and offline experience, Accenture’s chief claims.

When ecommerce burst across the Internet in the late 1990s, it was natural to see it as something new and different. Traditional retailers regarded pure-play online competitors as alien invaders, and those who set up a clicks-and-mortar model often did so using separate divisions with unique tools and processes.

The rise of connected, ever-more knowledgeable customers has changed the very nature of modern marketing. In our first New Zealand roundtable, CMO and our event sponsor, Microsoft, brought local marketers and digital leaders together to debate customer-centric marketing, the challenges in orchestrating customer-led change within organisations, and increasingly, how marketing is taking a leading role in product innovation.

It can be hard to build a relationship with someone whose name you don’t know. Turning anonymous transactions into relationships is a challenge that’s also confronted Australia Post, which each day provides services to tens of thousands of anonymous walk-in customers. Anonymous transactions deliver revenue, but they reveal nothing about the demographics, motivations or past histories of those making them.

The ubiquitous convenience store chain updates its loyalty program from punch cards to a mobile app for super-frequent patrons
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Customer loyalty lies at the heart of ING Direct’s latest efforts to target customers in their moment of need using a combination of sophisticated data analytics, insight and real-time communication.

Customer experience software vendor, MaritzCX, has opened its Sydney office, already enlisting Qantas, JAX Tyres and Public Transport Victoria as some of its domestic clients.

Behavioural research firm, Gateway Research, claims to have completed the world’s largest single store eye tracking study across 300 Australian shoppers in partnership with Nestle and Woolworths.

A/B testing software vendor, Optimizely, will expand out its personalisation platform after securing US$58 million in a new round of investment funding.

The growing desire among brands to improve customer experience has created a massive opportunity for technology suppliers to provide tools that help them build and deliver that experience. But as with many fast-growing segments of the marketing technology stack, confusion remains regarding exactly what a customer experience management (CEM) platform should do.

Companies leading the pack globally for revenue growth have linked are creating customer experiences based on data-driven insight and linking everything they do to brand and customer values, a new study claims.

Becoming a customer experience-oriented company requires customer intelligence, strategy and cultural change, along with a healthy investment into technology and content, according to hearing implant producer, Cochlear.

It’s the marketer’s job to stretch and challenge the business model of their organisation in the face of digital disruption in order to foster innovation.

Strong customer data practices, an ecommerce optimisation platform and geolocation are all helping Australian retailer, Jeanswest, better personalise the digital shopping experience for its customers.

Analytics and the cloud increasingly go hand in hand, and OpenText has provided the latest example with its Big Data Analytics service announced on Wednesday.

Two years on from deploying tag management, online insurance site, Greenstone, is looking to close the loop and achieve a single source of truth on customers and prospects by rolling out an audience management platform.

Your customers are usually more than willing to tell you what is wrong with your business – and occasionally even what is right. Unfortunately, however, many businesses just don’t have the capability to listen effectively to all of that volunteered information and act on what they hear.

As big data, cloud-based platforms and wearables infiltrate the e-commerce space, the pressure is on retailers to keep focus on what really makes the customer experience simple, seamless and relevant.