Personalisation is the need of the hour, Majid Al Futtaim’s head of customer engagement Joanne Bou Jawad said at The Retail Summit in Dubai.
The event is taking place at The Atlantis, The Palm, until March 15.
Ms Jawad said that retailers need to focus on creating personalised shopping experiences for customers in order to retain them.
A recent survey by customer engagement platform Braze showed that retail and e-commerce brands across the world are focusing more on retaining existing customers.
“In the face of economic uncertainty and inflation, customers are shying away from extraneous shopping and impulse buys, often opting to focus on saving up for big purchases,” the report said.
Braze also noted that Majid Al Futtaim’s Share Rewards loyalty programme increased the brand’s direct communications with customers.
This allowed Majid Al Futtaim to reach 5.6 million more customers, which helped increase revenue.
Majid Al Futtaim used the Share app to send rewards and deals to its consumers.
Majid Al Futtaim is preparing to stand out from the competition by reaching out to consumers for feedback, as well as creating personalised push notifications.
Ms Jawad said that brands should not only know their customers well, but also engage with them in a meaningful way.
She said, “At Carrefour, people looking to buy a specific product are very different from those looking to buy the deal of the day.”
To cater to each type of customer, Carrefour is creating different loyalty progammes as well.
“A two-way dialogue between retailers and consumers is important”, she said.
She also added that it is important to know how a consumer wishes to receive push notifications.
While some prefer Facebook, others prefer email, she said.
Majid Al Futtaim is also increasing its reach on TikTok in order to reach younger customers.
Speaking to ME Retail News, global representative of Braze, Magith Noohukhan, said: “Today’s consumers have too many choices to choose from and that makes it harder for brands to retain customers.”
He said that brands need to ask themselves some important questions in order to capture consumer’s interest.
“Are you treating every customer as an individual? Are you being relevant in the customer life cycle? Are you adding adding value with every engagement?”
“If not, your customers will move to a brand which gives them exactly that,” Mr Noohukhan added.
“Data is the building blocks of every successful campaign and the focus on zero-party and first-party data is vital for brands to create that brilliant customer experiences.”
