Personalized Customer Experience

using Ecommerce Portals

Contents

● Introduction to a Customer Portal

● Features of a Customer Portal

● Detailed Solution

● Use Cases

Customer Portal

Customer portals are platforms that are built by organizations for delivering

personalized experience to customers. They are also known as self service

portals, that allow users to view and retrieve their data as per their need.

Customer portal will facilitate organizations to:

● Accept product orders online

● Deliver personalized content to customers based on their preferences

● Engage customers using loyalty points and offers

● Establish a communication channel with customers

Business AdvantagesThe business advantages of having a customer portal are:

● It opens up a new sales channel - the ecommerce platform

● Establishes a direct communication channel

● Builds brand loyalty among customers

● Helps in quantifying marketing initiatives

● It will reduce workload or employees by implementing automation

● It helps in implementing process based execution at different levels using

custom workflows. Eg : Content authoring workflow helps to validate

content at different levels.

● Helps in quick resolution of customer grievances

Contents

● Introduction to Customer Portals

● Features of a Customer Portal

● Detailed Solution

● Use Cases

1. Content management and delivery platform

2. Ecommerce engine

3. Personalization and targeting engine

4. Analytics engine

5. Intelligent customer interactions/engagement system

6. Digital marketing tools

Features of a Customer Portal

1.Content Management and Delivery Platform

Content management system act as the backbone of a customer portal. It is

where all the customer interactions happen. It also plays the role of an

integration hub through which communications happen between different

systems.

Content Management and delivery platform helps in

● Managing content in different sections of portal.

● Managing the users and their membership levels.

● Delivering content in a search engine friendly manner for better visibility.

● Automating the content approval process using workflows.

2. Ecommerce Engine

Managing product portfolio and processing orders are one of the tedious

processes in any business. Ecommerce engine makes this easy by helping you in

managing your product portfolio and streamlining the order management

process.

Ecommerce engine helps in

● Managing an online product portfolio of product catalogs

● Accepting product orders online

● Streamlining the order management process

● Managing memberships and discounts

● Automating price calculation that depends on various parameters

3. Personalization and Targeting Engine

Personalization has become the core of any e-business. Customers expect e-

commerce systems to provide them unique experiences based on their

preferences. Studies prove that personalization has increased customer

engagement and sales to a great extent. Personalization helps in building

customer loyalty too.

Personalization in customer portal can help in

● Delivering personalized content for customers

● Driving engagement with customers to make them feel special

● Predicting customer behavior based on their persona

● Making chat agents informed about the customer persona and behavior

3. Analytics Engine

Customer interactions can be tracked at various touch points in the portal using

analytics. Based on these data, valuable insights regarding customer behavior

can be framed. Analytics engine also helps in visualizing these data in a

meaningful way.

The Analytics engine can help in

● Easy access of data for accelerated decision making

● Integration with business intelligence systems and personalization engines

4. Intelligent Customer Interactions/ Engagement

Human or Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chat agents can act as a helping hand

for customers in their purchase journey. Agent assisted shopping is one of the

most important features that customers are expecting from a portal. Integration

of chat systems with personalization and marketing automation systems will

ensure an informed engagement with customers.

Chat agents can help users in

● Choosing the right products and placing orders on behalf of customers

● Delivering personalized service for customers through customer persona

information

● Addressing their complaints and ensuring its smooth resolution

5. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing features ensure targeted content delivery among different

platforms. This include visibility in search engines, social media, third party

platforms etc. Another outcome of digital marketing activities are increased

customer engagement and conversions. To ensure that all activities are in track,

marketing automation systems can be used.

Digital marketing tools can help in

● Increasing visibility of customer portal which will result in increased

footfalls.

● Delivering marketing content to potential customers and thus drive in more

customer sign ups.

● Ensuring good ROI, by delivering rich insights about activities in different

platforms.

Contents

● Introduction to Customer Portals

● Features of a Customer Portal

● Detailed Solution

● Use Cases

Overview of the system

DRUPAL

CMS

Ecommerce platform - Drupal Commerce

ACQUIA

LIFT

Product catalog listing, order placement, loyalty and memberships

Digital Marketing Tool Automating content marketing activities

Real time shopping assistants Helping customers to clear queries and proceed to purchase

Content Delivery

Customer Support

ERP / CRM Tracking tool

Existing Integrations

End User

Helpdesk System Helps in managing customer complaints and support requests

Pers

on

aliza

tion

Pla

tform

Detailed Solution

Systems in the Customer PortalThe customer portal consists of following systems

● Web content management framework which act as the front end layer where all customer interactions happens. This will also handle the profile of each user including loyalty points and membership levels.

● Ecommerce system for product, price, order management and purchase process.

● Personalization platform that will capture data from various touch points and has the ability to segment the customers and provide personalized content targeting specific customers.

● Digital marketing tool set includes landing page builder, email automation tools, social media integration tools etc.

● Real time shopping assistant with artificial Intelligence based automation support.

● Ability to interface with various third party systems like ERP, CRM, Tracking tools etc.

Content Management Framework

Drupal, an open source content management system that offer extensive content

marketing support will be used to manage content in the ecommerce system.

How content management system ease up the process.

● Drupal CMS provides structured data entry interfaces that allows seamless

update of content.

● Work flow based content authoring will help in implementing an approval

mechanism for content updates.

● It unifies information from multiple systems and display it in a personalized

dashboard.

● Custom landing pages can be built in the system without any technical

knowledge.●

Drupal commerce can be the ecommerce system used. It provides a stable

environment and allows deep customizations in the order management process.

How ecommerce system helps in order processing

● Drupal commerce facilitates effortless order creation and management.

● Product attributes can be defined for single as well as batch product uploads.

● Features like product bundling, discounts, manual order generation are

available.

● Customer memberships and discounts can be managed within this system.

● Advanced pricing and tax rules can be set within the system.

● Pricing and order related documents can be generated from the system itself.

Ecommerce System

Acquia Lift can be used as the personalization platform. It acts like a hub to

collect user persona related information from different touch points and distribute

it to different systems to tailor the user experience.

● It facilitates profiling of both known and unknown users.

● User persona developed using personalization system will be used to deliver

personalized content for customers.

● Personalization rules can be set to tailor various customer communications.

● Customer profile data can be shared with different communication systems

to facilitate personalized communication.

Personalization Platform

Digital Marketing features facilitate coordination of various digital marketing

activities through online platforms.

They are also equipped with

● Descriptive dashboards and advanced data visualizations.

● AB testing tools to define the best conversion optimized content .

● Workflows that facilitate content coordination between different teams.

● Communication rules can be set to automate the process.

● Integration with personalization tools that help in driving targeted

communication based on user persona.

Digital Marketing Tools

Chat systems facilitate real time interaction with customers. Artificial intelligence

powered chatbots can also be used.

● Chat agents can initiate communication with users.

● Chat agents can be grouped based on their departments / function.

● Chats can be routed to subject experts, if needed.

● Chat systems also come with support desk features. This help agents to

register complaints instantaneously.

● Integration with personalization systems helps in retrieving user persona

related information.

Real Time Shopping Assistants

Contents

● Introduction to Customer Portals

● Features of a customer portal

● Detailed Solution

● Use Cases

Use Case - Buyers Journey

Abc.com is a prominent ecommerce merchant based in Mumbai, India.

They sell electronic gadgets. Abc.com has provided a customer portal

for users who buy products from them. It is equipped with features like

chat support, data personalization, marketing automation etc. This

helps them serve their clients better.

John has been purchasing products from Abc.com for about a year. He

is looking for a trimmer now. He visited Abc.com twice for that. But he

did not purchase it as he was not particularly sure he wanted that

design of the model.

Use Case - Buyers JourneyOn a fine Friday, John received an email from Abc.com about offers available for

that weekend. They had given great offers for 7 products. The trimmer was one

of them and he was excited to see that there was a 10% discount for TX-100,

the trimmer he was looking for. This made him reconsider his options.

How it is achieved

● Digital marketing tools used by Abc.com delivered the custom designed email in

John’s Inbox. Integration of digital marketing tool with personalization system

facilitated delivering custom message, ie adding TX-100 to the list.

● Personalization system identified user persona of John as a long standing customer

who had expressed interest towards the trimmer and browsed the website twice for

the TX-100 trimmer. It also identified that John had purchased products priced at

this range before.

● Personalization system passed the persona information to e-commerce system. The

ecommerce system assigned the 10% discount to this user. 1

Buyers Journey

2

John’s interest towards the trimmer made him click the corresponding ‘Buy

Now’ link. It took him to an attractive landing page that displayed details

about the new trimmer TX-01. Along with product specifications, there was a

personalized advertisement that displayed an offer on a cleaning kit, if

purchased along with the trimmer.

How it is achieved

● Content management system helped marketing team of Abc.com create custom

landing pages without developer’s involvement.

● Personalization system identified John used ‘Product Care’ accessories, this made

the personalization system display an advertisement about the cleaning kit.

● Product bundling feature in ecommerce system helped bundle the cleaning kit

with the trimmer.

● Loyalty feature in ecommerce system helped in creating discounts for

the cleaning kit.

Buyers Journey

3

John had a query about product bundling. So he contacted Eliza, the chat

agent. Eliza cleared his queries and created a custom order for him. John was

surprised to see that Eliza knew about his interest in the trimmer and she also

mentioned an article about trimmer he had read before. By the end of

conversation, John received the order link in the chat box itself.

How it is achieved

● Real time shopping assistants available 24x7 helped John answer his queries.

● The manual order creation feature provided by the ecommerce system helped

Eliza create a custom order for John.

● Integration of chat system with the personalization system helped Eliza to be

informed about John’s activities and interests. Personalization system passed this

information about John to Eliza in real time. Eliza received persona tags related to

his previous activity, probability of purchase, purchase history, purchase journey

etc.

Buyers Journey

4

Clicking the order link took John to the cart. He entered the delivery address

to calculate shipping cost and entered the payment details to confirm the

order. He got redirected to the payment gateway for making payment. On

making payment, he received the order confirmation mail along with

payment receipt. Estimated time for delivery was also mentioned in that

mail.

How it is achieved

● Integration of ecommerce system with drop-shipping providers helped in real

time calculation of shipping rates and retrieving the estimated time of delivery.

● Payment gateway integration facilitated accepting payments online.

● Ecommerce system also facilitate automated generation of invoices and

receipts.

Buyers Journey

5

After purchase, John can access his personalized dashboard. He can see his

new order details there. He can also track the order status from there.

Dashboard also facilitates accessing details related to previous orders. If

he had any further queries, he can consult chat agent Eliza.

How it is achieved

● Personalized dashboard offered by content management system facilitated easy

access of customer details.

● Tracking tool integration with CMS helped in displaying the product tracking

details in user dashboard.

● Chat agent support in dashboard helped John answer his queries.

Use Case - Sellers Journey

Abc.com is a prominent ecommerce merchant based in Mumbai, India.

They sell electronic gadgets. Abc.com has provided a customer portal

for users who buy products from them. It is equipped with features like

chat support, data personalization, marketing automation etc. This

helps them serve their clients better.

Tim joined Abc.com just 2 weeks back. His manager Kelvin decides to

give Tim a demo of the features available in Abc.com, so that Tim can

start managing the portal from the next day.

Use Case - Sellers Journey

1

Kelvin started with the dashboard feature. Tim was able to see details

regarding sales, order processing, inventory detail etc. in Kelvin’s dashboard.

Kevin also demonstrated how to generate reports like product sales, order

management, user behavior, visitor analytics, marketing campaign

effectiveness etc. Later, Tim was introduced to the user management section

of Abc.com. Tim was able to see himself listed under the marketing group.

How it is achieved

● Descriptive dashboard and report generation feature in content management

system helped Kelvin in easy extraction of data.

● Group based user roles helped Abc.com to have better control over the access of

specific information.

● Google Analytics integration helped Abc.com gain insights on customer

engagement within the website.

Sellers Journey

2

Tim has to upload products to the portal on next day. So, Kelvin introduced

the product management sections to him. Kelvin explained about the fields to

be added for each product and approval mechanism for the same. In Abc.com,

the product management was done by marketing team and the pricing was

finalized by Sales team. So, after adding product, it will be send to sales team

for approval. Once it's done, it will be published in the website.

Kelvin also explained how automation has helped Abc.com save on human

efforts. He cited the example of UPS integration that helped customers

calculate shipping rates and delivery time instantaneously.

How it is achieved

● Structured data entry interfaces provided by Drupal CMS facilitates hassle free

content authoring and the workflow mechanism helped them to automate the

approval process.

● Integration with tracking tools made it possible to automate the

shipping rate calculation.

Sellers Journey

3

Kelvin then explained about the efforts taken by Abc.com to enhance user

experience and bring in more sales. Tim was excited to see how chat agents

help users clear queries and address their complaints. He noticed that as the

chat agents know the user persona, they can carry out more meaningful

conversations. He finds that the chats are diverted to subject experts in some

cases. Kelvin informed Tim that Abc.com will be automating the chat process

with Chat bots in the near future.

How it is achieved

● Real Time shopping assistance being in more interactions from customers. Abc.com

can assign chat agents based on their group/department.

● Chat systems are also equipped to divert chats to subject experts if needed.

Sellers Journey

3

● Chat systems are also equipped with help desk facility that help organizations to

address customer complaints through a ticketing mechanism.

● Chat systems are also integrated to personalization systems to pass on user

persona related information to chat agents in real time. This helps chat agents drive

meaningful communication.

● Usage of Artificial intelligence based chat bots automates the process. This reduces

the number of work force to be deployed for chat process. Intelligent Chat bots can

guide customers in the purchase process.

Sellers Journey

4

Kelvin next explained how personalization of content based on user persona

enhanced customer experience and increased their sales by 15%. The idea of

personalization was new to Tim. Kelvin also explained how personalization

systems can help in converting anonymous users to known users and deliver

content that matches user persona.

How it is achieved

● Personalization systems collect data from different touch points and builds a user

persona for every user. They study the user behavior and activities to find a

user's purchase indent. This persona is then used to deliver personalized content.

In websites, personalization can be implemented in product listing,

advertisements, notifications etc. Personalization can also be used in

communication channels like emailers.

Sellers Journey

5

Tim then asked about the marketing efforts that Abc.com has put on for

customer acquisition. On the online front, Tim explained that the system

itself is built on Drupal content management system, which has extensive

content marketing capabilities. He also explained its ability to create

custom landing pages for campaigns without technical knowledge. Kelvin

also informed that a marketing automation tool is integrated to this system

to ensure timely and targeted communication with customers.

How it is achieved

● Drupal by default has extensive content management capabilities. This is the

reason why it is suitable for development of customer portals.

● Integration with marketing automation systems helps in delivering content to

target audience. Other than promotional content distribution, marketing

automation tools also help in reducing cart abandonment.

Contact Zyxware

http://www.zyxware.com

drupal@zyxware.com

+91-8606011184

Thank You