Stepping Up Customer Experience

Digital
Industry Insights
November 09, 2021

The rapid digital transformation across key sectors of the economy, combined with the new norms at work places and homes over the past two years has made digital marketing increasingly important to ensure that organisations reach their target customers while maintaining brand visibility.

Online meetings and webinars have replaced business travel, face to face meetings and roadshows, and while we move back towards hybrid events – which are mix of online and physical events – no-one can argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world, and how we market, forever.

Like many other businesses with tangible products and services, the trade and logistics industry found itself facing the challenge of connecting with its stakeholders around the world. As such, companies were forced to think carefully about how to reach customers more efficiently. Digital marketing naturally became the first touchpoint to reach audiences isolated by geographies and pandemic-triggered lockdowns, while companies tried to gauge demand and remain relevant.

Based on this shift, the trade and logistics industry has had to adapt by adopting a multichannel mindset and strategy to ensure delivering a good customer experience across multiple touchpoints – quite a shift for an industry typically more synonymous with connections and face-to-face meetings.

Broadly speaking the set of marketing technologies used to conduct and improve marketing activities – or ‘MarTech stack’ – has become an extremely important facet of an organisation’s ability to serve customer experience requirements. Chief Technical Officers (CTOs) and digital marketing heads have become invaluable resources for guiding and advising on the best technologies for personalised experiences, virtual events, dynamic websites, and fast cloud hosting to address customer expectations and environments.

Social listening and social media management tools take enquiries and concerns from customers and ensure their responses and feedback are efficiently met through a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

As a highly useful value add, marketing technology and new customer touchpoints have brought with them large amounts of data points. Data science, behavioural analytics and a host of personalisation programmes are needed to curate the large amounts of data to highlight trends and analyse audiences.

As AD Ports Group continues to integrate world-class ports, industrial cities and logistics services across the region and around the world, we have combined and streamlined our digital footprint to optimise our operations and enhance customer experience. By thoroughly understanding the insights revealed by data streaming in from across the business, we’ve been able to customise our strategies and approaches to better serve the industry. Reconnecting with customers, understanding market requirements, spotting trends and strengthening customer relationships – these are the hallmarks of our approach in the new normal.

Real-time analytics that help enhance our marketing data and customer profiles are driving our return on marketing investment, and unlocking new levels of global growth, as we pursue a forward-looking ‘big data’ strategy for development.

Ultimately, the successful implementation of AD Ports Group’s digitally focused marketing strategies has positioned us very well for the new era of trade. Our innovative approach, which includes this enhanced MarTech stack, has resulted in Sitecore, a global leader in digital experience management software, recognising our efforts as the “Best Use of Digital Innovation and Technologies in Trade & Logistics”.

By not only directly and indirectly listening to our customers to better serve their requirements, we remain fully committed to embracing the digital experience throughout our supply chains and finding new ways to make trade as seamless as possible. We do this all while ensuring customer expectations are met and exceeded.