“The world is changing. Consumer expectations are evolving faster than ever. Whilst it’s true that consumers have been forcing brands to create truly personalized experiences for some time, the speed at which this needs to happen has accelerated.

Brands that invest in their digital transformation now are setting themselves up for sustainable success by creating the necessary processes, conditions, and environment to prepare for unanticipated market changes.

Sitecore and Valtech have built a strong partnership, enabling organizations to orchestrate seamless experiences around the customer, rethink the customer journey and implement fully connected solutions to meet customers where they are.”

— Paige O’Neill, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitecore and Todd Harris, Senior Vice President for Strategic Alliances at Valtech.

Be strong and act

The priority during any crisis is stabilizing operations and protecting your employees. It is also the time to be creative with your customer connections, and to adapt — your brand, products, channels, messages, tools, and infrastructure — to the changing circumstances. It’s crucial to give customers what they need now and what they This is an opportunity to be “one less thing to think about”, as well as a source of comfort and positivity. Any positive interaction your brand has with a customer in times of change will be more appreciated — and therefore memorable — than an interaction in less challenging times.

When things look like they are starting to recover, you will start to see which customer behaviors and preferences are going to stick. For example, B2B customers might continue to value using mobile apps to order from suppliers, and sales teams might not want to give up the time and cost savings associated with video calling.

Now is the time to focus on:

• Ensuring that former customers who might have tried alternative brands — due to convenience, supply issues, altered needs, etc. — return to your brand
• Retaining new customers who have switched to digital channels for entertainment, sports, food deliveries, fitness — for example older people doing online shopping, families using online educational tools, businesses conducting video meetings — rather than letting them go back to their old habits

The stakes are higher than ever before, but the technology is also smarter. All the hurdles that businesses face – building new channels, experiences, and markets – can be overcome, but it is critical that the right decisions and partnerships are made now.

This is where Valtech and Sitecore come in. With more than 15 years creating connected digital experiences on over 3,000 projects, they help complex businesses create flexible, scalable structures where new digital strategies can be created quickly and in a controlled way.

They understand each other. And they understand your business.

Review your marketing strategies and processes

• Are you using the most appropriate channels?
• Are your messages hitting the right tone?
• Are you keeping customers updated with informed, consistent messaging about your business, e.g. online hours, shipping costs/times, charity/community work and possible delays?
• Are you sending messages at the right time, taking into account that people are working more flexible hours and might be juggling other personal responsibilities at the same time

These are the types of questions that you need to be asking.

What do they need?

Both types of customers need online content that entertains and alleviates stress. Businesses that have adapted and thrived

in recent times include supermarkets broadening their delivery services, gyms shifting their workouts online, and museums offering virtual tours. Just like everyone else, your business needs to adapt to changing expectations and regulations as they arise.

Personalization with agility

We are witnessing the evolution of personalization to individualization.

New technologies such as AI and machine learning allow for greater agility, but with every new development, there is a risk of bad personalization. It’s a tightrope

that businesses have to balance in order not to deliver irrelevant content and alienate customers.

People experience reality very differently during a crisis, depending on many factors: where they are located,whether they still have a job or have been furloughed, whether they are frontline essential workers, have experienced loss or ill health, or are home schooling while working.

It has never been more necessary to segment an audience into groups for maximum relevance.

Innovate...

Valtech is looking at using the data from RFID tagging for sharper inventory tasks — there are already robotics that travel around an entire store and perform RFID inventory checks with greater than 95% accuracy.

Valtech is also pulling in data from social feeds and using trend APIs to gain insight into what customers want this week. We use machine learning to unearth historical point of sale (POS) and ecommerce data to reveal the most popular purchase combinations. These APIs and MACH technologies can be fed into systems that allow customers to navigate the physical store in a novel way on a daily basis – for example, flexible features that move around the store based on machine learning recommendations, and 3D renderings of store plans that allow for data-driven decisions.

Most businesses are facing the greatest challenge in their history, as they deal with new and rapidly changing market realities. They will need the ability to respond swiftly by building new channels, experiences, and market opportunities, often on short notice.

Multi-brand, multi-country and multi-channel businesses will face the greatest challenge — if they lack the skills and solutions to adapt.

Valtech and Sitecore:

A global partnership to take you beyond NOW

When things are tough, it might be tempting to play it safe and hold tight to what you already have. This would be a mistake. Now is the time to create building blocks to a stronger future. After all, “necessity is the mother of invention.”

Your business and customers won’t be in the current phase forever – you must ensure that any strategies you implement now will continue to deliver benefits further down the line.

Together, Sitecore and Valtech have the insights, skills, and proven capabilities to help businesses meet the opportunities that will emerge in the coming months, and years. Now is not the time to go it alone. With Sitecore and Valtech you don’t have to. We are a trusted dual force in treading new pathways and reaching new ground in a very short time frame.

In building connected futures. Connected ideas. Connected capabilities. Connected experiences.