Unified Commerce – Yesway and Impact 21

Derek Gaskins, CMO at Yesway, together with Lisa Biggs, CEO of Impact 21, join Carolyn Schnare in a discussion about how our industry is responding to the challenges of ‘Unified Commerce’. Many customer facing solutions were deployed over time with unrealized benefits. When not fully integrated, visible gaps diminish the customer experience.

“The end game is a unified customer experience. A Unified Commerce strategy provides a framework to focus on customer facing solutions and potentially leapfrog away from costly backend solutions and support.” Lisa Biggs, Impact 21

Lisa Biggs shares Impact 21 methodology to bring a Unified Commerce strategy and roadmap forward. Derek Gaskins shares what it took to get the infrastructure in place, advance marketing and merchandising, and launch loyalty and other customer facing solutions while cultivating the company brand and culture.

The following is an excerpt from Lisa Biggs on Impact 21’s approach to developing a Unified Commerce strategy:

Many customer facing solutions were deployed over time with unrealized benefits. When not fully integrated, visible gaps diminish the customer experience.

These unintegrated solutions are our customer touchpoints and all too often they fall short of delivering a consistent brand experience to customers across platforms. Take for example – loyalty, digital marketing, forecourt & instore POS, self-checkout, frictionless commerce, mobile ordering, curbside & instore pick-up, ecommerce websites, kiosks – developed and installed over time – and of course accelerated by the pandemic, many retailers brought these solutions to market with unintentional gaps.

It will take a customer facing strategy to resolve.

“Just giving it a name, is a starting point” – “Give yourself permission, for just one moment, to plan your path forward based on streamlining customer touchpoints without thinking about current backend system costs and support, if you do, you might find yourself leapfrogging into some lighter, more integrated customer facing solutions.”

The End Game

The end-result is an organization that is universally customer-focused when prioritizing strategies and roadmaps.

• The company is transformed around a vision to modernize the customer experience.
• Leadership proves its commitment to the vision by setting priorities to deliver on it.
• The business is aligned cross-functionally to work in harmony around a common roadmap.
• Retailers offer a consistent and seamless brand experience at each point of contact.
• Key stakeholders gain a 360° view of the customer across all brand touchpoints.

Read more from Impact 21 on Unified Commerce

Visit: https://impact21.com/