Technology uses social media conversations for customer engagement

As technology becomes integrated into every industry, it is the responsibility of each individual business to keep up with and embrace these changes. Technology leader Manhattan Associates has announced the Manhattan Customer Engagement solution, which has the potential to change the Australian food retail sector.

Customers are increasingly looking for more personalised experiences that make their life easier. As part of the Manhattan Active Omni platform, the Customer Engagement platform will provide retailers with insights into their customers’ shopping experience and give them the opportunity to create individualised experiences based on their preferences.

“Nearly 90% of organisations say they are focused on personalising customer experiences, yet only 40% of shoppers say that information they get from retailers is relevant to their tastes and interests,” Brendan Witcher, principal analyst at Forrester Research, explained in The Wall Street Journal.

Manhattan Customer Engagement connects customer conversations on social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, with real-time order information to give associates a complete picture of each customer’s buying journey.

By viewing all information on one single platform, it provides a more simplified and broad view of the customer’s needs and wants. It also allows retailers to recognise problems immediately and make quick service improvements. Customer Engagement works seamlessly with Enterprise Order Management to predict and identify potential issues that could happen in the buying journey, and automatically create cases to correct them before they become problems.

“When it comes to defining the optimal service experience, every customer comes with a different set of needs and desires,” said Eddie Capel, president and CEO of Manhattan Associates. “By being the first to connect order and customer data, Manhattan’s new Customer Engagement solution delivers the industry’s only actionable insight into the what, why and how of omnichannel shopping so that retailers can truly personalise and optimise the entire buyer journey.”

Key features of Manhattan Customer Engagement include:

• Delivers real-time customer profile and metrics, including lifetime spend, purchase tendency, social insights and intelligent alerts to maximise customer interactions.
• Associates can open, manage, escalate and resolve customer issues directly.
• Native integration to social channels within the ordering system of record increases customer service reach and reduces response times for customer needs.
• Dashboards help manage the customer experience using the comprehensive view of customer history, and monitor daily work activity.

The customer is at the heart of business success, and by utilising technology such as Manhattan Customer Engagement, food businesses could better understand their customers and have the edge over competitors.

Image credit: Manhattan Associates