How do you improve customer service with digital processes?

In his blog Antti Tanaka, Director of Omnicommerce Development at Stockmann, discusses the company’s understanding of digital processes and how the new customer information generated by those processes impacts customer service. How to strive digitalization to generate more satisfied customers?

“Digitalization means making the WHOLE company digital,” Antti Tanaka begins. “Digitalization is not just what an ICT director does. It cannot be a separate operation. From the management team onwards, it is everyone’s responsibility to think how to utilize digitalization in their own work.”

“I will give an example from car retail business: when the Internet came, the customer was able to find a lot of information online in advance and select the car even before entering the car dealership! Therefore, car dealers have to get involved in online discussions and thus influence the purchase decision. Digitalization, e-shops and social media have brought great challenges and opportunities to this business,” describes Antti Tanaka.

Draw the processes from start to finish

Antti Tanaka advises that before digitizing the process, it is worth visually drawing business and customer processes in detail, from start to finish. “When the process is drawn in detail there often appears new, more sensible ways to run. After that the process can be automated and optimized.”

Once processes are drawn, digitized and integrated into company systems and to external partner systems, the information generated by the processes can be measured and the service improved. “Don’t leave data in separate silos such as a purchasing systems or CRM, because they can’t be measured together when in silos.”

“Earlier, the first data item from the customer to the company was a purchase receipt. Now we know about the customer even before the purchase decision, things that help us serve the customer better. It’s a different thing what a customer looks and tries than what the customer buys! For example, in terms of total sales, it makes sense to keep the most expensive product on offer, even if it doesn’t sell brilliantly, and make the sales of mid-priced products grow brilliantly,” says Antti Tanaka. “In addition to processes, the psychology of sales must be considered.”

“We know the customer’s purchase history. When we add their interests to that we know how to offer the customer what he wants and needs, such as more sustainable and responsible products. Our salespeople also know how to serve better with the help of this customer information.”

“Gredi service brings security and transparency to our processes and facilitates a wide range of daily activities.”

Stockmann’s brand and Digital Asset Management service by Gredi incorporates information and brand materials, such as brand guidelines and logos. There you will find catalogs of the legendary Hullu Päivät – sales campaign, mood images of private label brand Stockmann Casa’s products, videos from marketing campaigns as well as product images. There are brand marketing materials that are used in targeted campaigns for loyal customers and other target groups.

“The benefits are huge. Gredi service has brought us transparency between marketing and purchasing activities and made it easier to run marketing activities. The process starts in Gredi system. The process makes it easier to do a variety of things when you don’t need numerous internal meetings to find out the necessary things. We no longer need to email materials as attachments when working with Gredi system. The larger attachments don’t get stuck in the firewalls of advertising agencies and other partners anymore,” says Antti Tanaka.

The Stockmann service created by Gredi has more than 200 users and several user groups. In addition to its own users, there are advertising agencies and other external parties using the same service.

“We operate in the Baltics in addition to Finland and the people of the Baltics also have well-functioning real time access to the materials.”

Customer service will be jointly improved in the new digital ecosystem

“As a company, Gredi has been very open from the beginning and has shown with tangible examples what Gredi’s service is able to do at different stages of our business processes. Gredi provides good references from many customers and different industries.”

Antti Tanaka also appreciates the reporting and analytics of Gredi brand and asset management service. “As an admin it’s easy for me to keep track of which brand and campaign materials should be promoted and which ones should be added.”

What is the role of Gredi service in Stockmann’s ecosystem? “To put it simply, it is the messenger from one system or person to another. It also brings security. We can trust that the information moves forward in the process. From a technical point of view, it makes sense that Gredi’s SaaS service operates in open environment.”

In business, product turnover is essential, and another key thing is product availability. “We have our own media such as our online store and our physical shops, and other media that is bought. In our online store the customer searches for products through categories or by inspiration, and we provide product recommendations. In our physical shops, the amount of information and supply of goods to the customer is huge, and the role of the salesperson is to help the customer make good purchasing decisions.”

Antti Tanaka has held management positions in digitalization for decades, at Verkkokauppa.com and other companies. Today he is responsible for Stockmann’s multi-channel business development as Omnicommerce Development Director.