In the experience economy, where value is created through technology connections between people, machines, and organisations, the relationship between the customer experience and the brand’s purpose becomes critical.

With data being the new oil in the digital economy, many firms’ data infrastructure is still a cost centre today and could be transformed into a profit centre by leveraging data to enhance everything.

Businesses must begin to consider data as an enterprise asset at the enterprise level while simultaneously managing data locally within business units. This enables the exchange of goods and customer data, which opens opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, and improved customer service and retention rates. It comes back to owning and capitalising on your own database rather than continuously relying on universal data platforms and giving them ownership of your data such as social media and social networking channels.

It is true. Facebook and Google dominate universal data monetisation as free consumer platforms. This kind of rich data aggregated over the years is used by brands in brand building and customer acquisition exercises, but they don’t cut it when it comes to engagement and real time monetisation.

When travel was impacted by the pandemic, rather than screaming “Mayday,” an airline company launched a super app that offered a comprehensive portfolio of travel and lifestyle products that were well-positioned to provide the best value to its customers and enable them to access a more diverse travel offering. Whether it is the home delivery of duty-free fresh food or the buy-now-fly-later, Airasia attempted to provide its consumers with more options when its own wings were cut by restrictions and guidelines.

Opening windows when the walls are closing in

As the access to third-party data becomes more complex, brands are shifting more and more to first-party data. Unlike third-party data, which is often available to a wide variety of companies, first-party data is unique to your company. This is information that you control and collect with customers’ explicit consent, for example, through application and website interactions and marketing activities such as e-mail and loyalty programs.

A Data Axle survey found that customers are more likely to provide personal data if they get something of value in return. As a result, loyalty programs have become an ideal platform to gather information while rewarding customers.

With US e-commerce on pace to reach its first $1 trillion year by 2022, merchants must learn how they reacted through the most challenging periods and apply those lessons to the present.

Zero-party data provided proactively by a consumer is superior to first-party data. According to a 2019 McKinsey report, customers are unwilling to provide data for transactions they do not consider essential. On the other hand, the research found that customers are willing to set privacy concerns aside in exchange for transactions that provide a positive exchange of value. Thus, what is the value? Convenience and hyper-relevance are absolute priorities for the customer buying journey.

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How super is your super app?

According to a Vonage survey, 61% of customers believe interactive voice response (IVR) actively spoils the customer experience — and just 13% believe it is more useful than phoning a person directly.

Making the experience more personalised, with something like the Perx Lifestyle Marketing Platform, is a good place to start, but that is nowhere near enough. From the time they join your customer support channel, they will expect a one-on-one interaction. AI and analytics show your customers how important they evolutionarily are to you. Brands that take advantage of this opportunity can create unrivalled customer experiences that position them well ahead of their competitors.

Consumers are now so used to super apps like WeChat, Alipay, and Grab which provide a plethora of services from a single portal, that the provider of a specific service through the app is immaterial. Consumers want comfort and relevancy. Convenience of having a specific hub to meet all their needs with little effort; appropriateness in trading their data for hyper-personalized services.

As one adviser so eloquently said, people are not loyal to Amazon. Instead, they hold onto it for the convenience it provides. Likewise, customers are no longer loyal to a brand. They will, nevertheless, remain loyal to the experience a brand provides.

Being a super app also entails keeping things simple. For example, when comparing Flipkart’s Plus reward program to Amazon’s Prime, the shortcomings in Flipkart’s loyalty program are immediately apparent. This is because Flipkart had needlessly complicated its rewards system.

One of the factors that will make your loyalty program different from the competition is the right incentives. If you provide customers with important rewards based on their interests, personalities, and purchasing patterns, they will feel cared for and stay delighted with your offer.

Customers will avoid dealing with a company that does not seem very interested in them. To really engage, companies must understand consumer behaviour. This is only possible if you have built an ecosystem full of touchpoints across channels.

Instant gratification is at an all-time high, with COVID-19 advancing organisations’ digital communications strategies by an average of six years.

Brands must recognise without a doubt that consumers are even more fickled with choices. Therefore, they need to empower their brand by influencing consumer behaviour. It can be accomplished by being able to rewarding consumers. Companies can use the Perx Technologies rewards marketplace to do this.

Brands must do everything possible to fully understand their customers’ expectations and foster the experiences and technology that will drive the instant gratification economy.

That way, brands can delight customers, and customers can stay superfans of brands.

Written by Anna Gong, CEO and Founder of Perx Technologies