Over the last year or so, I’ve explored this idea of anthropomorphism in branding on a few different occasions via some article in CMSWire (Apple Vision Pro and The Adobe Summit Recap). If you’re not familiar with this idea, let me break it down for you.

Anthropomorphism is the idea of assigning human-like characteristics to non-human things. For example, our pets. We talk to them, feel emotions with them, etc., but at the end of the day, they aren’t human. Another example of this can be seen is Disney portrayal of characters like Mickey Mouse, or the Beast.

So, you may be asking yourself, “How can this relate to branding and digital commerce?”

Over the last 20 years, consumers have shifted their perception and motivations around purchasing choices and patterns. In today’s world, consumers aren’t looking to make a purchase, they’re looking to make a connection. They aren’t looking to have a one-way monologue; they are looking to have a two way dialog. Consumers have adopted a much more conscious mindset when purchasing than previous years.

Why?

Simple, it’s the access to information and the ability of choice. Consumers have more choices than ever before, and are more informed on social, economic, and environmental topics that are persuading their purchase behavior. They are seeing a friend’s story on Instagram or TikTok and being inspired to make a purchase or to adopt a style or new trend.

So, what does this mean for brands?

Customers desire the ability to see your brand as not just somewhere they buy something from, but to see your brand as they see their friends, loved ones and other important people in their life that they connect with. If done correctly, a brand that effectively taps into the anthropomorphism mindset will yield enhanced customer lifetime value, brand awareness and of course, increased revenues

Here are three ways to adopt anthropomorphism in your brand for 2024:

Seek to Understand

Before you can relate on a deeper level with your customer segments, you first must seek to understand who they are. What do they care about? What are they interested in? What are they posting on social media? By digging in deep on what motivates and drives your customers in their own personal life – you’ll be able to move into the next phase of connection which is becoming relatable.

Seek to Communicate

After having a full understanding of your customer, your next goal should be to build out marketing, branding, and experience-driven campaigns that communicate how your brand thinks like the customer does. Communication of the brand’s message is essential for customers to understand and see that you’re more than a business that sells a product or a service, but that you’re an entity that “gets them.” A good example of this is to build digital shopping experiences that are driven by content that supports the mindset of your customers.

Take the Harley Davidson brand. On the surface, they make and sell motorcycles. However, the persona of the brand runs deep in the blood of the customers who purchase them. Harley Davidson isn’t a means of transportation, it’s a way of life. For their customers, it’s how memories are made and how they connect with other likeminded individuals. Harley Davidson does a fantastic job of inspiring and encouraging customers to be who they truly are; and this can be seen through their social channels as well as their digital commerce experience where customers can build their dream bikes.

Seek to Relate

Once a brand can understand and communicate to their customers, the final phase in this journey to anthropomorphism excellence is seeking to relate. Just like with Harley Davidson, brands need to inject content and experiences that relate to the mindset of their customers. Harley Davidson’s experience HD section of their website is the perfect example of this. Once you navigate to this area, anything, and everything you would ever want to know about the Harley Davidson lifestyle is here. From cruises and meetups to learning to ride, Harley covers all their bases. By relating to customers and their desires, Harley Davidson becomes more than just a motorcycle manufacturer; they transcend into the consciousness of consumers in a way that keeps them coming back from life.

As I’m sure you know, there’s never been more choices and competition in this day and age. From Amazon to Alibaba, consumers are constantly flooded with choice as brands fight for their attention span. With all of that being said, taking the path of anthropomorphism to curate experiences that drive customer retention is easier said than done – but if done correctly, your brand will generate the sticky customers you desire to keep revenues strong – but more than that, connect with customers on the deeper level they desire. This is what creates customers for life; this is what creates revenues that last.

As a global digital consultancy with thousands of skilled strategists and technologies across the world, we’re making a difference by transforming how the world’s biggest brands connect with customers and grow their business. We bring experience and expertise, speed and agility, and a healthy dose of pragmatism to drive businesses forward.

Collaboration is one of the driving factors to our success, and together, we’re able to contribute thought leadership to gain industry recognition from the “big three” analyst firms, Forrester, Gartner, and IDC. Continue reading to learn about Perficient’s key analyst report inclusions from the first half of 2023.

Perficient’s Expertise Noted in Forrester Reports

The first half of 2023 has provided numerous opportunities to share our capabilities, landing us quotes in three Forrester reports in just six months.

Forrester’s report Build The Business Case For Inclusive Design acknowledges an increased business focus on digital accessibility, and the need for organizations to provide inclusive products, services and experiences for employees and customers. In recent years, there has been an increase in accessibility lawsuits, making service providers that meet accessibility requirements highly sought after. As stated in the Forrester report, “Perficient says that these days, more often than not, the RFPs it responds to require that experiences conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at Level AA, the global standard for accessibility.”

Taking our inclusion a step further, Forrester outlines key investments for inclusive design, one being hiring costs – a point Perficient provided additional insight on in the report:
“Perficient worked with a client that brought in an accessibility leader with the experience – at leader five years is recommended – and know-how to get employees engaged and avoid common pitfalls.”

Perficient colleagues were quoted in two Forrester reports that were published in the second quarter. In the report, Understand Developer Experience To Improve Business Outcomes, the developer experience is examined in-depth. According to the report, there are numerous ways to improve the developer experience, one being “Embrace a culture of resilience in the face of mistakes.”

Judah Tice, Director of Custom Product Development

Perficient’s Judah Tice, Director of Custom Product Development was quoted in this section of the report, providing insights on recognizing mistakes as growth opportunities.
“Accepting mistakes [is vital]. You can’t act like you can’t make mistakes. As leaders, we can’t be hard with people when they do make mistakes. They need to be hands-on, making mistakes, [learning from those mistakes, and] trying again.”

Perficient’s Jim Hertzfeld, Director of Digital Strategy at Perficient is quoted in Forrester’s report The Realities Of Change Resistance To Digital Transformation, acknowledging that the value desired through transformation must be supported by organizational efforts that build trust and empathy. We believe being proactive and ensuring a team is ready, willing and able to change is key to transformational success.

Our relationships with industry analyst firms combined with the knowledge of our subject matter experts create opportunities to not only contribute to research, but allow for the potential to have these contributions quoted.

Recognizing Our Salesforce Capabilities

Salesforce is growing at a rapid pace, and people are looking for Salesforce service providers who consistently deliver quality solutions. We’ve implemented more than 3,000 Salesforce solutions that empower businesses to become more responsive, efficient, and relevant, and our Salesforce practice has received recognition from multiple analyst firms in 2023.

The first Salesforce recognition was in Forrester’s Salesforce Consulting Landscape. In this report, Perficient is listed in the small consulting partner market size segment as a technology implementor, with extended business capabilities in Salesforce Health Cloud and Salesforce Experience Cloud. With our extensive industry focus in financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing, we understand how to strategize and create impactful digital experiences through Salesforce.

Perficient was also recognized as a Salesforce system integrator partner in Gartner’s Market Guide for Partner Relationship Management Applications report. Manufacturers face unique challenges on their digital transformation journey, but we often turn those challenges into opportunities with Salesforce and related technologies. One of the ways we do this is with our Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator, which enables manufacturers to improve partner engagement and forecasting, streamline lead management, and strengthen mobile tools for real-time information capabilities.

A leading global technology research and advisory firm also recognized our Salesforce practice in a report highlighting notable Salesforce partners. The report studied Salesforce platform offerings and positioned providers based on relevant capabilities that were evaluated. We believe our inclusions in these reports are a true testament to our wide-ranging expertise in creating impactful digital experiences using Salesforce for clients and customers.

Continuing the Growth of Our IDC Partnership

We added International Data Corporation (IDC) into our mix of analyst firms last year, and we’ve already seen a number of report inclusions that showcase our capabilities. Soon following Adobe Summit 2023, IDC published its IDC Market Perspective: Adobe Summit 2023: Experience-Led Growth, Generative AI, and Content Supply Chains report where Perficient was listed as a regional partner for Adobe.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR AWARD-WINNING ADOBE PRACTICE

We also were in three IDC Market Glance reports in the second quarter. In the IDC Market Glance: Customer Experience Services report, Perficient was included in the IT Services Providers key market segment. According to IDC, “IT Services Providers supply services around technology advice, implementation and integration, management and support.”

The two additional IDC Market Glance reports were both commerce-focused: IDC Market Glance: Digital Commerce and IDC Market Glance: Core Commerce Layer Software and Services. In both reports, Perficient was listed as a System Integrator Services and Consultancy. IDC states, “a systems integrator designs and implements systems for digital commerce; SI services ameliorate the need for in-house talent that case stand up and engineer often complex systems composed of various commerce systems, API, and microservices.”

These inclusions showcase a variety of our offerings in addition to highlighting core capabilities.

Expanding Perficient’s Presence in the Analyst Community

Aside from the reports highlighted in this blog, there are a handful of additional report inclusions Perficient received that help contribute to our growing presence within our analyst communities. Stay up to date with Perficient’s successes and highlights on our Analyst Coverage page with upcoming reports that show how Perficient continues to stay top of mind with key industry analysts.

Perficient and our colleagues are driven to deliver value to the world’s largest enterprises and biggest brands through bright minds and deep expertise. Individually and collectively, we achieve this through collaboration and innovation, among our other core values. This shows the dedication our teams have for simplifying complexities to deliver unified, exceptional customer experiences across multiple industries.

Jaron Bullock, an associate technical consultant based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, works on our award-winning Commerce team. Below, he shares insights about our close-knit, supportive organization through collaboration and innovation.

How do you explain your job to family, friends, or children?

I explain my job to friends and family by relating it to their personal experiences. I ask them to think of a website they’ve used for online shopping and tell them to picture the information they might see on a product like descriptions, comparable products, and key product benefits. Once they’re imagining this, I explain I work on systems that help organize that information and display it on the website.

LEARN MORE: Commerce Team at Perficient Delivering End-to-End Solutions

What is your proudest professional accomplishment?

One of my proudest professional accomplishments happened during my time at Perficient with an international manufacturer and distributor of climbing products, access systems, protection equipment, and truck and van storage equipment.

During this project, I provided straightforward training on various system features, effective communication, and end-to-end support. This included thorough information detailing specifics of the system at large, explanations of how the system was built, and reassurance that the system would fully support their evolving business needs. Ultimately, this gave the client confidence to overcome any hesitations they had in fully optimizing their new technology implementations.

As a whole, this made me realize that one individual can make a huge impact on the overall progress, completion, and success of a project in addition to the client’s overall satisfaction. Sometimes, it’s easy to focus solely on the project details, but it’s important to remember the people behind the tasks and goals at large. I believe that connecting as individuals on a project is extremely important in fostering success, and I think the results of this project support this philosophy.

What has your experience at Perficient taught you?

Being at Perficient has taught me that most problems and roadblocks can be resolved with clear, effective communication followed by action. Challenges and mistakes are bound to happen at some point, but being able to remain level-headed and open throughout communication with colleagues and clients turns perceived mountains into molehills.

What advice would you give to colleagues who are starting their career with Perficient?

I would encourage fresh colleagues to never stop learning or looking for opportunities to grow. Progression is an important quality both personally and professionally and should never be underestimated. Effort you take now to enhance or expand your skills can potentially open a plethora of doors for you further down the road.

LEARN MORE: Perficient Academy, a One-Stop Shop for Career Growth

Why are you #ProudlyPerficient?

I am #ProudlyPerficient because of the many wonderful and thriving aspects within our organization. Perficient fosters a sense of community and supports growth for everyone, showing that Perficient values their employees, and recognizes all the effort they put in. There is truly no better feeling than knowing your company supports you.

SEE MORE PEOPLE OF PERFICIENT

It’s no secret our success is because of our people. No matter the technology or time zone, our colleagues are committed to delivering innovative, end-to-end digital solutions for the world’s biggest brands, and we bring a collaborative spirit to every interaction. We’re always seeking the best and brightest to work with us. Join our team and experience a culture that challenges, champions, and celebrates our people.

Visit our Careers page to see career opportunities and more!

Go inside Life at Perficient and connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

We are excited to announce that Karie Daudt, Director of Commerce Strategy, and Justin Racine, Director of Commerce Consulting, will speak at Digital Commerce 360’s EnvisionB2B in Chicago, Illinois.

EnvisionB2B is an in-person conference that connects ecommerce experts and researchers to B2B professionals to help them build and maintain a digital B2B strategy that speaks to their customers. This three-day event kicks off on June 8, 2022, and aims to help manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and others achieve more accessible and faster-purchasing methods for goods and services online for their customers.

With over 40 sessions at the event, speakers will cover topics such as:

• Acquiring and retaining online customers
• Ecommerce technology and digital transformation
• Manufacturer-distributor channel strategies
• B2B marketplaces

See Our Directors Speak at EnvisionB2B

Daudt and Racine will lead their speaking sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Learn more about their sessions below.

Justin Racine – Maximize Performance with an Ecommerce Tune-Up: Wednesday, June 8, 2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. CDT

In this workshop, Racine and other B2B commerce experts will provide first-class advice, tips, and techniques that refine every aspect of an organization’s ecommerce program. From this session, you’ll gain insights on improving your back-end systems, data management, ecommerce technology, customer service, marketing, and much more.

Karie Daudt – Build Your Ecommerce Dream Team: Thursday, June 9, from 2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CDT

Manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors had seen success with sales before online buying became a normality in the B2B space. This fact has prevented key stakeholders and top executives from making B2B ecommerce investments, creating challenges within their organization. In this session, you’ll learn how businesses can persuade their C-suite to change their outlook on B2B ecommerce investments by creating teams that curate compelling ecommerce strategies.

Attend the B2B Commerce Conference of the Year

This is the premier event for all B2B professionals looking to drive growth in their existing business or wanting to develop a digital strategy for their organization. You can read more here about how you can register for the event. You don’t want to miss out on what you could learn with highly valuable sessions, workshops, and experts like these.

Register for Justin and Karie’s sessions today. If you want to connect after the event, feel free to connect on LinkedIn with Justin Racine and Karie Daudt.

For more information on our commerce practice, contact our experts today.

The connection between technology and consumers in the insurance industry has never been more relevant. Although the insurance industry was already facing rising competition and customer expectations, the global pandemic forced our industry to take legacy processes and technologies, and transition to “digital” seemingly overnight. 

With the rise in vaccination rates and a hopeful return to a “new normal,” it won’t be possible to put the genie back in the bottle and return to legacy operations. Consumers and distribution partners alike have experienced the impact digital interactions bring. The entire insurance value chain will need to continue its digital evolution to drive operations, increase personalization, and improve experiences where expectations are set by marketplace leaders, not just industry category leaders.   

Let’s look at four important areas that are actively shaping the insurance industry and the commerce experience – data, processes, technology, and our people.  

Leveraging Data Responsibly 

As digital natives begin to make up the majority of the U.S. population (just over half the U.S. population is considered millennial or younger as of July 2019), the demand for personalization in the commerce experience grows. Data fuels personalization and process improvement in a modern commerce experience. Applying data to consumer interactions and leveraging it for predictive and prescriptive relationship strategies creates the information required to invoke real-time interactions such as suggestions for the next best actions based on knowledge of a customer and their goals.   

Data sharing relies on trust between a brand and the consumer willing to share it. A broad study indicates that 60% of global customers are willing to share data in return for perceived value from their insurance carrier. Unfortunately, insurance also ranks in the global top 10 not trusted industries. In addition to adherence to increasing privacy regulations, it will be important for insurance carriers to demonstrate responsible data custodianship and judiciously use data sets in the commerce process.   

Don’t Automate a Bad Process 

Without a clear and efficient process, your commerce initiatives will fail. Automation of bad processes won’t magically deliver improved results. Good process design is the foundation for effective execution and is further enabled by technology investment, not vice versa.   

Processes must evolve with the consumer as well. Looking to the future, broader societal trends will influence commerce processes used for product development and distribution. Some considerations for future commerce processes include:   

• New product opportunities are being driven by innovation and market conditions. Autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things (IoT) reflect broader innovation while an aging population and climate change require new risk products to be developed.   
• Product distribution through new channels such as social selling, OEM partnerships, and Insuretech.   
• Tried and true process principles hold for the future as well. Whether for new services or existing products, the supporting commerce process must offer simplicity and ease of use throughout the experience.  

Leveraging the Best Technology 

With sound data and good process design, technology offers the infinite potential to drive competitive advantages in the commerce experience. Digital tools can improve the way consumers learn about, shop for, and purchase products in the insurance industry. A recent industry survey revealed that younger consumers (under 55) are three times more likely to switch carriers based on digital tool availability.   

Key areas where the insurance industry can improve digital tools for commerce include: 

• Data-driven lead generation tools – At least 44% of agents identified digital tools as the best thing carriers can invest in right now. 
• Personalization drivers – Personalization efforts through digital tools improve the ability to create meaningful connections across every touchpoint that help acquire, engage, and retain customers. 
• Transparency and control – Enhanced digital tools can help improve the commerce experience with improved research and comparison tools. 

Understanding Our People 

New skill sets are required to operate in a digital environment. In The State of Digital Insurance, 2021, a Forrester report shows that security, customer experience (CX) design and data issues are the biggest inhibitors to digital transformation. With organizations transitioning from product-centric operating models to customer-focused and digitally-enabled, carriers will be required to reskill, upskill, and seek new skillsets from the marketplace. This is one of the largest operational challenges carriers face, requiring novel approaches to attracting and retaining the right talent.   

Carriers should recruit skills that will help modernize the infrastructure for helping customers engage in a digital direct environment. This requires hiring and reskilling employees for new approaches to marketing, data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) that will support a digital foundation within the carrier.   

At the agency level, digital commerce will require agents to increase their understanding and use of digital tools for prospecting and interacting with potential clients. Interactions will evolve from in-office, face-to-face interactions to video conferencing and other digital presentation skills. Agents will be called for expertise on complex products as simpler products, such as auto, become commoditized onto direct platforms. Their ability to navigate complex underwriting in areas such as property and commercial will differentiate their value proposition in a digital commerce environment.  

My Closing Thoughts on This Evolving Industry 

Digital is no longer an incremental thought or activity. It must be embedded as a core operating strategy, including commerce experiences, for any insurance organization to remain relevant and innovative. We must all support the evolution of data, process, technology, and the distribution workforce, to further the world of insurance down a road to a more digital, advanced world.  

In my last blog, I explained what digital commerce looks like in today’s world for businesses everywhere. Now, we’ll discuss what a digital commerce transformation looks like.

Whether a business has created new leadership roles to address digital demands or not, businesses need help evolving in many areas, including:

• Knowing their customer and their current and future digital expectations
• Identifying where the business impedes or restricts realizing those expectations and building a plan to overcome them
• Planning and successfully executing upon how to evolve the people, processes, and technology within the business to a digital-first future

These are critical aspects of transforming to a digitally successful future that cannot be overlooked, such as:

Knowing the Digital Customer

There are many businesses today that have not had a direct relationship with their customer.  Manufacturers, for example, often rely on value chain participants like distributors, dealers, and retailers to build and own the relationship with the end customer. These businesses now find themselves on their heels, and digital customers expect these manufacturers to have a digital presence, play a role in the way the customer evaluates and experiences the products, and be personally relevant to the customer.

Although these businesses find themselves starting near the beginning of understanding the voice of their customer, it’s critical to start to align to the expectations of a digital customer. This extends into knowing your partners, dealers, and retailers along with helping them realize that having a relationship with (over transacting with) a customer is no longer channel conflict, but is essential to aligning to the digital expectation your collective customer base demands.

Even businesses with current direct engagement with customers cannot claim they understand their customers. To become a digitally-obsessed business is to realize that digital demands evolve at an incredible speed, and what you know of your customer today is not what you need to prepare for in the very near future. Regardless of whether businesses are just starting to understand their customer or feel they know their customer very well, digital commerce trends will continue to evolve buying patterns and expectations beyond what they are today. Businesses must prioritize understanding the customer through a continual effort of an external agency or internal team.

Auditing People, Processes, and Technology against Needs

Keeping up with market trends, technology trends, disruptive forces, and evolving digital demands while maintaining a business is difficult, if not impossible. It’s a vain effort to be “heads up” and “heads down” at the same time. Bringing the right people together that can provide market and technology trends along with a clear understanding of the business and what it takes to align to digital demands is critical. Only then can a meaningful evaluation of a business’ current resources, processes, and technology occur to establish where the business is struggling and misaligned to digital customer expectations.

Having perspectives on the following are all key to critically evaluating the state of a business and identifying room for improvement:

• How technology change impacts process
• How process change impacts skill requirements
• How skill development allows for greater technological adoption

Building a Roadmap to Success and Completing the Journey

Understanding the digital customer and critically evaluating the state of a business are necessary to finding gaps between the two. However, the real complexity lies in developing a clear transformational program to close the gap and align to the digital expectations for a business. Businesses must develop a plan that evolves their digital maturity, addresses the competitive landscape, embraces technology trends, eliminates a technical debt, overcomes limitations in resources, responds to disruptive forces, and considers many other influential forces that will determine its success. The plan must allow agility, the ability to react to changing digital demands, the emergence of new disruptors, and the opportunities that come with a rapidly changing landscape. This task will determine the future success and, in some cases, even the viability of the business.

Most businesses struggle to bring together the voice of customers (VOC) and employees (VOE) with the change management and technology trends effectively to build a roadmap to a new digital future.  Typically, businesses are overly accustomed to their ways, lack insight into what is technically possible, don’t know what new changes in people and processes will have a positive effect or any combination of these. Nevertheless, it’s imperative that businesses overcome these challenges and meet their digital customer on the customer’s terms. Business leaders need only look at Blockbuster and Netflix, or Amazon and Sears to find examples of this undeniable truth. How they respond determines whose fate they will share.

Let us be Your Commerce Partner

At Perficient, our team of digital commerce transformation specialists has helped businesses navigate the complexity of transforming to meet a digitally demanding customer. To find out how Perficient can help your business achieve the same success, contact our commerce experts today.

In Spire, we have two main methods for changing the style of global elements. We refer to this as the Style Guide, which covers the style of HTML elements such as headings, paragraphs, input tags and so on. For front-end components, we use the Mobius library, which is a configurable and extendable React Styles component. Below are the two methods:

setPreStyleGuideTheme: This method is primarily used for Mobius Theme changes and comes before the “setPostStyleGuideTheme” method.

setPostStyleGuideTheme: After the “setPreStyleGuideTheme,” we use this method to override our styles in our Style Guide, and it’s the final change to our Style Guide. The Style Guide from an admin cannot override the style defined here.

For example, let’s say we want to change the color of the primary button in the Spire blueprint. Here we’ve created a custom blueprint with the name “CustomBluePrint” inside the “src/Start.tsx.” In the “Start.tsx,” we write the “setPreStyleGuideTheme” and “setPostStyleGuideTheme” methods.

Note: Any variables from the “Base Mobius Theme” can be modified by Pre and Post-Style Guide methods.

Tip: Instead of using the using the “setPostStyleGuideTheme, use the “setPreStyleGuideTheme”  for updating Style Guides. As a result, you can update the style guide from the admin console Style Guide panel if necessary.

Why Utilizing These Methods are Useful

By using these two methods, you’re able to significantly reduce the total time required for website style-related changes, avoid making style changes to individual React Components, and boost your website performance and user experience. For more information, contact our experts.

Nearly all businesses have invested in digital commerce to varying degrees over the past two decades. Previously, digital commerce was thought of as a channel through which the business exposed its way of doing business to a digital audience. This thought served businesses well when the digital audience had little expectation with a business online and were willing to discover how to engage with it best.

But today digital audience expectations are extremely high and demand a frictionless experience that they want from all businesses. Digital commerce is no longer a digital model of a business and its processes, but an experience and expectation that digital audiences bring to the business. The script, as they say, has been flipped.

Businesses that have not realized this transformation make these common mistakes:

• Blaming technology and “re-platforming” without aligning people, processes, and technology to meet digital commerce demands and not seeing different results.
• Focusing on the wrong capabilities and missing the key foundational elements necessary to create experiences that delight audiences
• Overshooting their digital maturity and trying to immediately implement disruptive trends without maturing the organization to do so successfully

It’s easy to see how businesses find themselves in this situation, as most haven’t adopted strategies to align their existing business to newer technologies as it developed. They haven’t stepped back and looked at the digital evolution as a whole and what impact it has had on customer expectation – and these expectations don’t align with how the business functions today.

Digital commerce is meeting your customer when and where they want to engage and transact with your business. This requires a digital commerce transformation that harmonizes the organizations buying and selling of products and services to the digital-first expectations of their audience. Failing to transform and align is certain to drive digital audiences to competitors that do. The consequence of this is enormous with digital commerce as a core driver of future revenue growth.

Why businesses struggle to become digitally obsessed

Most businesses predate the mobile phone and almost as many predate the Internet. This is the best realization that the people, processes, and technology that have made businesses what they are today aren’t aligned to what a digital-first customer looks like or what the way they demand to do business.

It’s not enough to simply label an organization “digital” and make them responsible for the revenue that flows through the Internet as a “channel.” Much of the business and the way it functions outside of this digital team has a direct impact on the ability of this digital organization to achieve the digital-first engagement with customers that’s required today.

Businesses have gone to great lengths to silo these digital organizations with efforts like dedicating inventory, isolating budgets, defining digital-only key performance indicators (KPIs), and many other efforts to in effect create a digital arm without effectively changing the rest of their existing business to support digital-first engagement. This has the effect of simply digitalizing current business operations and exposing them to a digital audience. Remember, nearly all businesses function today isn’t how digital customers want to engage. These siloed approaches, therefore, will not align to digital demands and in many cases will only highlight the misalignment a business has with such demands.

Recent trends have seen new roles emerge in an effort to support a digital-first future. Chief Digital Officers, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Experience Officer, Head of Digital, and many other variations have been created to recognize the importance of doing business the way customers want to engage.  However, these roles will only be effective when they are able to effect change across all departments.  Failure to realize and support the roles in the pervasive changes across a business’ people, processes and technology leads to the limited success many organizations have seen when trying to meet their customer’s digital demands.

In my next piece, we’ll dive more into what the next steps look like in a successful digital commerce transformation. In the meantime, contact our commerce experts today.

I won’t bore you with the repetitive dialogue around how COVID-19 has changed customer expectations forever, I’ve done enough of that in recent blogs.  

But what I will tell you is how the last 2 years of the pandemic have expedited the possibilities of what’s possible for the future of commerce, specifically with how customers and their expectations for new ways to purchase will be constantly changing at a record pace. 

Before we explore some of these trends that should be on your radar, let’s discuss the “why” – why will consumers move so quickly into new purchasing trends? 

Well, I believe that the pandemic has opened our eyes as consumers to become more comfortable with the uncomfortable. Consumers are more likely to embrace new experiences, especially when it comes to digital commerce. There were a lot of firsts because of this exact mindset, such as: 

• The first online shopping experience for some consumers 
• The first buy online pickup curbside 
• The first grocery shopping purchases delivered to their front door 

These firsts weren’t the results of a proactive choice – it was the result of the pandemic and the limited options that consumers had to get the products they needed. Their normal shopping behaviors were upended and as a result, new shopping experiences occurred.  

With these new experiences, a shift in mindset also occurred – where consumers said, “Wow, who knew getting groceries delivered could be so easy, I wonder what else I can order and receive from the comfort of my home?” This exact mindset created a newly found curiosity with consumers to where they are now, more than ever, open to new experiences.  

So, what are some of these future state commerce-enabled experiences that should be on your radar? 

Virtual Reality (VR) displayed products
We will continue to see more products displayed in a VR-type setting. Consumers can visualize what the product looks like in their homes before they decide to make a purchase. Additionally, virtual product models and 3D renderings will allow customers to explore all sides of the product.  

Voice Search
“Hey Alexa, I need more laundry detergent.” Now, this isn’t new per se, but it will continue to grow. Virtual assistants like Alexa will continue to dominate voice searches. However, what will be new is enabling voice search for a specific ecommerce store. For example, a large retailer of clothing and apparel might enable voice searches for subjects like, “What jeans are trendy for 2022?” Leveraging this type of voice search will help retailers combat voice devices like Alexa as they can provide value-added services to consumers who are looking for more than just generic product purchases.  

Virtual Shopping Assistants
A trend that is sure to continue within the digital commerce space, specifically with high-end brands will be virtual shopping assistants. These virtual shopping assistants will help guide and nurture customers through product purchases that have higher complexities like specific sizing and fits. Additionally, I predict B2B organizations will start to leverage virtual shopping assistants, especially for B2B products that would fall into the Configure Price Quote (CPQ) space – which will help guide buyers to the right selections based upon their needs, but virtually.  

So, which of these should you start to incorporate into your business today? Well, the answer is that it actually depends on several factors. The first place you should look to start is with your current customer and employee base, and what they articulate as being important to them. Based upon your findings, you’ll start to gather themes of what is important – and you’ll be able to frame up what is likely on the radar for your customers’ expectations and build in a plan to find new ways like the three mentioned above to deliver these ‘next generational’ type of experiences.  

As Albert Einstein said “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” Tap into your customer’s current imagination and you’ll find the future path you need to take to deliver experiences that will become their expectations. For more information on creating an enhanced customer experience (CX), download our guide, The Future of User Experience Is Here: Why and How 5 Emerging UX Trends Are Making Dreams a Reality, or contact our experts today about our CX AMP.

We’re excited for our very own, Justin Racine, Director of Commerce, and Karie Daudt, Director of Commerce Strategy, to present at Digital Commerce 360’s Fast-Tracking B2B Ecommerce Sales & Expansion, the second of three B2B events premiering on Thursday, August 12, 2021. This live-streamed session will present research from various thought leaders and commerce experts regarding best practices and advice to help any B2B business grow and thrive online in the world of digital commerce.

What the Agenda Includes

This event will cover several research topics, keynote sessions, B2B buyer/seller survey data, and provide solutions to internal business challenges. After each session, an interactive roundtable will take place to engage in discussion. Racine and Daudt each plan to lead the following sessions respectively:

Great Expectations (10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. CT)

In this evolving digital space, it’s important for organizations not only to have a strong idea of who their digital customers are, but how to consistently meet and exceed their expectations on a daily basis. Racine will join this panel of B2B commerce executives to share insights, best practices, and advice on how each business can build and hone a customer retention strategy that exceeds expectations and more importantly, sets the bar for what great customer experience should be going forward.

Ecommerce Fail Safe (1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. CT)

Creating a strong and reliable digital B2B strategy can be difficult, and many organizations often get it wrong. There’s more to curating a B2B strategy than the technology that’s chosen, but the process, procedure, and execution for each organization. Daudt will join these speakers and explain how to accurately do so.

An Event You Won’t Want to Miss

These commerce experts and leaders will deliver world-class B2B advice and present opportunities for your organizations to utilize in your B2B commerce strategy. Learn more about the details of the event and contact our experts for more information on our commerce services.

We’re excited to announce our inclusion in Gartner’s Digital Commerce Vendor Guide, 2021 as a Digital Commerce Service Provider. This guide helps application leaders become aware of and understand which ecosystem applications are important to integrate within their digital commerce platforms to drive successful customer experiences.

In the 2021 Gartner CIO survey, 83% of respondents expect to increase their use of digital channels to reach customers, and almost 80% will increase their self-service usage in 2021. This shows that commerce organizations increasingly want to expand how they utilize their digital channels in any capacity to optimize and sustain excellent purchasing experiences. Based on these findings, it seems like this movement will continue to trend upward in the next few years.

Inclusion in the vendor guide indicates Perficient as a provider that offers a variety of digital commerce implementation services ranging from design, development, integration, and testing and deployment of specific functions, applications, and initiatives. This listing recognizes our ability to effectively integrate related technical applications and platforms into a dependable and supportive customer experience (CX) for digital commerce, optimize company processes, and increase online revenue.

In addition, the vendor guide also presents:

• Key findings that drive success in digital commerce
• Strategic planning assumptions regarding digital commerce platforms and leading commerce organizations
• Trends for commerce organizations to follow and integrate with their digital commerce portfolio in the next five years

You can download the full report here (available for purchase or to Gartner subscribers).

People wanting to be and feel healthy isn’t anything new, but with all that’s happened over the last year with COVID-19, consumers have an increased focus on health and wellness. A recent survey estimates the global wellness market at more than $1.5 trillion with an annual growth of 5-10%. Quite the healthy outlook if you ask me.

These statistics aren’t surprising; it’s encouraging to know that consumers are putting a focus on their health. Even more encouraging, this enhanced focus increases the likelihood that consumers will spend more discretionary income to achieve healthier lifestyles. That last sentence is very important and let me explain why.

Feeling Good is Driving Customers to Live Better

Traditionally, consumers would leverage their private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid to help supplement the costs of health products – a very reactive approach to health and wellness. For example, you hurt your knee playing basketball, which means you now require surgery and a knee brace to help recover post-surgery.

So, what’s changed? Well, what changed is that consumers are taking a proactive approach to health. More consumers are taking control of their health and are looking at ways to live healthier lifestyles, as at least 77% intend to make more attempts to stay healthy in the future.

This proactive mindset means consumers will actively search for products that could prevent them from a disease or injury, like a knee injury, rather than treating the issue after it’s developed. An event like COVID-19 is eye-opening, leading consumers to seek out solutions in all forms, from healthy food recipes and workout videos to wellness products and services to purchase to support a healthier lifestyle. If you’re a business in the health and wellness industry, you need to be there to meet and exceed the expectations of these customers through digital commerce-led experiences. To do this, you need to understand where you currently sit within the supply chain.

E-Retailers

Are you an e-Retailer with a commerce site? How has consumer behavior changed or shifted? What new products or services are customers looking for that you may or may not offer today? Focus on what your customer expectations are and how they might be proactively looking to consume new content or products that might be outside your current offering, then find ways to incorporate these into future purchasing experiences to elevate your brand with your customer experience.

Distributors

If you’re in the business of health and wellness product distribution, what trends are you seeing around net-new customers coming to shop on your ecommerce site? For example, if you’re a medical product distributor serving the physical therapy market, then your traditional customers might be physical therapy clinics. But, your data and analytics may show a new trend of physical therapy product e-retailers hitting your site and looking to set up accounts with your business. To accommodate this, you should create new content and services that would appeal to this market and find ways that these new e-retailers can connect to your enterprise resource planning system (ERP) and order management system (OMS) systems to leverage your distribution network and dropship products to customers. Building in new ecommerce features that allow you to segment and personalize content based upon the businesses that authenticate on your site will provide the appropriate content to the appropriate persona and create additional value and brand loyalty.

Manufacturers

Fortunately, or unfortunately, manufacturers in this space have it the worst. As you sit at the top of the supply chain, having a pulse on what consumers are interested in and which new and emerging trends are surfacing is critical to stay ahead of the competition. You must ask yourself the daunting question, “Do we go direct and risk channel conflict?” This requires serious consideration and contemplation as it’s a decision that will have a significant business impact.

Diving into the data and analytics around your current commerce site (if you have one) and focusing on how people are finding your site and what they are searching for can help you make this decision. Are you seeing many consumers searching one of your popular brands and trying to purchase? This could be a use case to go direct. But before doing so, I recommend looking within your channel to see if there are ways to support both distribution and retail partners to drive traffic to your products through their businesses.

Continue Creating Healthy Perspectives

There’s a lot more to unpack besides what’s I’ve already mentioned, but the big takeaway is that consumers have and will continue to make proactive decisions around their health and wellness that will translate digitally. Regardless of where you sit in the supply chain, as long as new customer personas and demographics are browsing your site for information that supports a healthy lifestyle, it will affect your business. For more questions on how you can excel in the ecommerce healthcare field, download our healthcare guide, Digital Solutions to Navigate Healthcare Commerce in 2021, and contact our commerce experts today.