Page 1159 – SalesTech Star

Tencent Cloud Enters into Strategic Collaboration with Traac to Provide Cloud Solutions and Services in Europe

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January 12, 2023

Tencent Cloud Enters into Strategic Collaboration with Traac to Provide Cloud Solutions and Services in Europe

Tencent Cloud – the cloud business of global technology company Tencent – today announced it has entered into a strategic collaboration with Traac, an authorized reseller of Tencent Cloud for Europe, to provide industry-leading cloud solutions and services and expand the business in the region.

Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, the heart of Swiss innovations and new technologies hub, Traac has strong competencies in B2B cooperation with leading global vendors, customers and ecosystems, providing best-in-class services in offering cloud solutions and digital products. Currently, Traac is Tencent Cloud’s authorized reseller in 19 European countries, including Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

“Setting up a collaboration with Traac, the company which has strong competencies in B2B cooperation and extensive market reach is an important step in building our market position in Europe. We highly value the market achievements, experience, and global markets knowledge of Traac. The Traac team successfully combines strategic thinking with knowledge of new technologies, which can be a valuable asset for our existing and future customers in strengthening their competitive advantage. As demands for digital solutions and cloud technologies continue to see strong growth across Europe, Tencent Cloud will work closely with Traac together to help European customers speed up digital transformation and business growth”, says Leo Li Shiwei, Vice President for Europe, Tencent Cloud International.

“Tencent Cloud is one of the world’s leading cloud companies, providing innovative, stable, and secure industry-leading cloud products and solutions. It is my pleasure and honor to cooperate with such a prestigious company, especially at the time when global digitalization accelerates. Nowadays cloud means not only storage. It is a whole digital products ecosystem. The more digitalized the world, the more cloud and digital products it needs. Together with Tencent Cloud, Traac will provide cutting-edge cloud technologies, helping European companies to accelerate their digital transformation, foster innovations, and build a unique competitive advantage. This is why I am excited about the collaboration with Tencent Cloud and I am proud that I will lead Traac in this mission”, says Ilona Weiss, Chairman of Traac.

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Fresh Retail Software Leader Invafresh Announces Appointment of Sarah Sandberg as Chief Customer Officer

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January 12, 2023

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Fresh Retail Software Leader Invafresh Announces Appointment of Sarah Sandberg as Chief Customer Officer

Invafresh positioned for continued customer growth across the global grocery industry

Invafresh, the grocery industry’s leading fresh retail platform, announced the addition of Sarah Sandberg to the Invafresh Executive Team as Chief Customer Officer.

Sandberg is an accomplished senior executive with over a decade of customer success and leadership experience building high performance, customer-centric teams. Her broad expertise includes senior leadership positions with Lightspeed, NuORDER, Etail Solutions, and Fuel Cycle. In her position as Chief Customer Officer, Sandberg will oversee the scaling of Invafresh’s customer engagement strategy across Invafresh–including customer onboarding, customer success, and the support organization–to deliver an exceptional experience at every stage of the customer life cycle.

Read More: Carving is for Turkeys, Not Territories

“We are excited to have Sarah join our leadership team. Her passion and drive for customer success is evident in her leadership experience.”

— Tim Spencer, Chief Executive Officer at Invafresh

“I’m excited to join the Invafresh team and to be part of an organization that is making a positive impact to how grocery retailers use technology to deliver the freshest experience to their customers,” said Sandberg. “My focus will be to ensure that our customers get the most value out of their investment with Invafresh by understanding their business needs and providing data-science-backed actionable insights to their operations. I look forward to visiting our customers to learn more about their business goals when it comes to their Fresh operations.”

“We are excited to have Sarah join our leadership team. Her passion and drive for customer success is evident in her leadership experience,” said Tim Spencer, Chief Executive Officer at Invafresh. “We’re committed to delivering a best-in-class experience for our customers, and this newly created position is a demonstration of our focus on being a trusted partner to our customers. With her customer-first approach, Sarah has proven experience to build upon the exceptional level of customer care we’ve created.”

This appointment comes at a time of continued growth and market momentum for Invafresh. The company has expanded its cloud-native and analytics capabilities to deliver an industry leading fresh retail platform and is poised for expansion in 2023.

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o9 Solutions Grows Annual Recurring Revenue by 84% in 2022

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January 12, 2023

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o9 Solutions Grows Annual Recurring Revenue by 84% in 2022

o9 Solutions, a leading enterprise AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, today reported that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) added in 2022 grew over 84% year-over-year. During Q4’22, o9 set a new record for ARR added in a single quarter as the company saw broad growth driven by new clients and expansions at existing clients. A significant portion of the growth during 2022 was driven by expanded usage of o9’s AI-powered Digital Brain platform at dozens of existing clients that are realizing the accelerated benefits of a unified connected enterprise planning platform. These expansions more than doubled year-over-year in 2022.

During 2022, o9 implemented 74 go-lives at numerous well-known brands across sectors, including soft lines, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, consumer electronics and more. Twenty-five of them were completed in Q4’22 alone, highlighting o9’s accelerating capability to support clients in their efforts to digitize their end-to-end planning and decision-making. o9’s cloud-based planning platform supported nearly 150,000 monthly active users during the year across a variety of industries and planning use cases, underscoring its widespread adoption. The company’s worldwide talent pool also grew to more than 2,400 throughout the year.

“The massive value-generating power of an integrated business planning platform like the o9 Digital Brain and urgent need for intelligent and resilient supply chains is the force that’s driving our strong year-over-year results and momentum heading into 2023,” said Chakri Gottemukkala, Co-founder and CEO, o9 Solutions. “We anticipate that the importance of investing in o9’s AI-powered platform to digitally transform the world’s largest and most complex supply chains will only continue to increase.”

Igor Rikalo, President and COO of o9 Solutions, said, “o9’s results in 2022 showcases our ability to execute across diverse industries, regions and markets. I’m extremely proud of what o9 accomplished in 2022, both from a growth perspective and also what we’ve achieved through our social impact initiatives to support the communities we serve. I look forward to continued success in 2023 and beyond.”

Other notable highlights of Q4’22 include:

The new IPA EffWorks report by o9 Solutions reveals 4 key decisions to take to drive increased ROI in short, medium, and long-term
o9 Solutions named as Collaborative Supply Networks Leader by Forrester Wave
o9 Solutions and Samsung SDS launched the o9 Digital Brain Platform as a mobile app
Eckes Granini, the High Performance Metals Division of voestalpine, Godfrey Phillips India, and Indofil Industries announced plans to use o9 Solutions’ Digital Brain platform to digitally transform their supply chain operations
o9 Solutions and Supply Chain Insights with LKQ Europe revealed significant supply chain planning improvements following the first-ever pilot to test outside-in planning
o9 Solutions ranked No. 396 on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast500™ and was named a Food Logistics 2022 Top Software & Technology Provider
o9 Solutions joined the Climate Pledge
The o9 integration for Microsoft Dynamics 365 became available
o9 Solutions and project44 accelerated their partnership to support enterprises with enhanced end-to-end supply chain planning

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EarlyBirds Can Help with Retail E Commerce Innovation such as Capability Mapping

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January 12, 2023

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EarlyBirds Can Help with Retail E Commerce Innovation such as Capability Mapping

EarlyBirds, has created open innovation ecosystem platform with services where innovators, early adopters, and subject matter experts (SMEs) can meet and collaborate to discover ways to accelerate technology advancement and adoption in an organisation, wants to point out that they can help with retail e-commerce innovation, such as capability mapping.

Global retail e-commerce sales continues to rise at a steady pace with worldwide sales amounting to about 5.2 trillion US dollars in 2021 and predicted to reach about 8.1 trillion US dollars by 2026. However, there are a number of interesting statistics in 2022, revealing that China has the biggest retail e-commerce sales all over the world with online sales amounting to almost half of the country’s sales. This is followed by UK at 26 percent, South Korea at 32 percent, and Denmark at 20 percent. Meanwhile, the fastest growing e-commerce countries according to online sales are the Philippines and India, where e-commerce sales is expected to grow by over 25 percent.

This bright future for e-commerce can be explained by market forces giving no choice to traditional retailers but to go online or expand their online presence. It should be noted that there are many business and technical challenges and opportunities to take into account when trying to grow a company’s e-commerce capabilities. McKinsey has discussed the growth trend in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) market and the huge obstacles that companies have to overcome when making the move to bypass third-party retailers or wholesalers and directly interacting with consumers to adjust brand strategy and innovation based on real-time consumer insights. Many companies have experienced varying degrees of success when trying to build out their D2C businesses. Fortunately, there are a number of solutions for scaling their D2C capabilities such as employing ready-to-use platforms, marketplaces, and software as a service (SaaS) to clear the way for access to the online channel. Some of the core innovative technologies for e-commerce include chatbots, smart search, marketplaces, pricing, payment, ERP solutions, robotics, blockchain, customer retention, analytics, big data, and more.

Meanwhile, technological innovations usually come from innovators, whether they are mature, start-up or scale-up organisations.

Morgan Stanley has recently reported that global e-commerce stocks have risen in value drastically during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic but have been on a downtrend since. But key trends still indicate that e-commerce can recover and grow. Luckily, a number of improvements, such as in digital payments, capabilities for fulfillment, and the supply chain, are enhancing the customer experience, which stimulates online purchases. Initiatives to increase connectivity to boost Internet use have also been important drivers of retail e-commerce particularly in populations skew younger and spend more time online compared to their counterparts in developed countries. “One of the top differentiating factors for e-commerce platforms could be supply chain and fulfillment capabilities, which could empower better customer servicing,” says Gary Yu, who reports on telecom and internet stocks in China, where grocery delivery has been on faster rise compared to China e-commerce overall.

Businesses that are involved or want to take part in retail e-commerce but are experiencing difficulties in comprehending and take advantage of the core themes and sub-themes that comprise the abilities to develop or continuously enhance their enterprise solutions, the EarlyBirds innovation map may offer significant help. This can help the organisation in creating its e-commerce capability strategic roadmap and can also be utilised in solving business and operational issues in a short period of time. These roadmaps are dynamic, which means they are modified and adjusted everyday to identify new and current technologies, determining the gaps for research and development, identifying partnerships, and more.

The EarlyBirds open innovation ecosystem has the purpose of allowing different organisations, whether they are early adopters, innovators, or SMEs, to connect and hasten innovation. This has the goal of helping improve speed, culture, and capacity to vitalize innovation and solve the business’ challenges through their Explorer and Challenger programs. The Explorer program is for businesses who require innovation as a service to supplement their current innovation programs or launch innovation projects as needed. The Challenger program is for finding a solution to one technical or business challenge at a time and look for the appropriate innovators.

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AI Learning Leader, Ahura AI Extends Seed Raise to $5.6M to Support Product and Sales Momentum

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January 12, 2023

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AI Learning Leader, Ahura AI Extends Seed Raise to $5.6M to Support Product and Sales Momentum

Ahura AI, a leading AI learning experience platform startup announced the close of their seed+ investment round, bring total round to $5.6M. This announcement follows the recent news of Ahura AI being chosen as a semifinalist in the GSV Cup 2023, the world’s largest pitch competition for Pre-K to Gray EdTech startups. The company’s recent capital raise will support and fuel the company’s product development and sales activity.

There’s been an explosion of innovation and change to corporate learning platforms (LMS, LXPs) catalyzed by recent trends of remote work, the Great Resignation, and heightened awareness of the positive impact of belonging on productivity and talent retention. New unicorn companies, such as Degreed and Edcast, are being minted, collecting increasing portions of the $90B American companies are now spending on corporate learning.

Read More: Carving is for Turkeys, Not Territories

“As investors in early-stage ventures that are developing scalable and ground-breaking innovation, we are pleased to have invested and support Ahura AI in their critical work the team is doing in AI and personalized learning in upskilling workforces,” said Chris Sang Managing Partner, CP Ventures

“Data is the most valuable asset in the world, and companies like Ahura AI are creating economic opportunities for everyone globally to harness the value of their data to empower themselves. After recently raising $4.3M pre-revenue in the challenging economic climate, it’s clear the market is ready for such a groundbreaking transformation in both education as well as ESG-led, data-driven tools for positive impact,” said Brittany Kaiser, Founder of Own Your Own Data Foundation.

“As a refugee from the Middle East with educated and professional parents, I’ve been directly impacted by and witnessed the power of knowledge-creating opportunity,” said Bryan Talebi, CEO & Co-founder of Ahura AI. “We are doing groundbreaking work in impacting the future of how we learn, digital learning, and how to engage people and create new economic opportunities for all. Our recent additional seed raise is an incredible indicator that our allies, partners and investors support our mission-driven company dedicated to not only our technology but also our team’s diversity and our global disposition.”

AI innovation and technologies come on the heels of the new talent development process, “everboarding,” where continuous learning and development of relevant skills are encouraged and invested in across teams company-wide.

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Ekinops Delivers 23% Revenue Growth in 2022 at Record €127.6 Million

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January 12, 2023

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Ekinops Delivers 23% Revenue Growth in 2022 at Record €127.6 Million

EKINOPS, a leading supplier of telecommunication solutions for telecom operators and enterprises, has published its revenue for the 2022 financial year, ending on December 31, 2022.

€m – IFRS Non-audited data	2021	2022	Change
H1 revenue	50.8	63.3	+25 %
H2 revenue	52.8	64.3	+22 %
12-month revenue	103.6	127.6	+23 %

SixSq has been consolidated since November 1, 2021.

Ekinops ended FY 2022 with consolidated revenue of €127.6m, up 23% from the previous year (+19% at constant exchange rates).

Q4 2022 revenue totaled €31.5m versus €28.7 million a year earlier, representing an increase of 10% (+6% at constant exchange rates) despite the particularly strong pressure on the supply chain at year-end. The difficulties in delivering some orders at the end of the year resulted in a shortfall of a few million euros of revenue in Q4 2022 which will be shipped in early 2023 without causing major disruption to customers.
At the same time, business activity and order intake remained vigorous in Q4.

Robust momentum for all business lines with over 38% increase in software and services

The Group’s brisk growth in 2022 was fueled by strong demand for all its product lines, particularly for Optical Transport solutions (up 29% in 2022) which was boosted by the success of 200 Gb/s and 400 Gb/s WDM systems, notably in North America.

Access solutions reported annual growth of 20%, mainly driven by the sharp rebound in business in France.

The share of Software & Services continued to grow, representing 15% of Group revenue in 2022. Full-year revenue generated by Software & Services rose by over 38%, driven by sales of software which facilitates network functions’ virtualization and by a company focus on providing more services.

Strong growth internationally with 56% increase in North America

2022 was characterized by international growth which remained dynamic, up 17% for the full year. International business accounted for 64% in 2022 (vs. 67% for FY 2021).

In North America, activity continued to record robust growth with business volumes totaling €29.8m versus €19.1m in 2021, representing a very significant increase of 56% (+39% in USD). Ekinops benefited from strong demand for Optical Transport equipment in the region. North America represented 23% of Group’s total sales in 2022 (vs. 18% in 2021).

Asia-Pacific posted a strong growth trajectory in 2022, up 38% on a full-year basis. The region accounted for 7% of Ekinops’ total business activity in 2022 (vs. 6% in 2021).

EMEA (Europe, excluding France, the Middle-East and Africa), generated FY 2022 revenue of €43.5m, slightly down by 2% versus the prior year, largely owing to a base effect (note that the EMEA region delivered the strongest growth in 2021 at +29%). EMEA represented 34% of Ekinops’ total business activity (vs. 43% in 2021).

The Group restored sharp growth in France; in its domestic market, Ekinops’ 2022 sales amounted to €45.9m, significantly up by 36% (vs. -0.3% in 2021), representing 36% of Group total revenue (vs. 33% in 2021). This growth is the result of a strong increase in sales achieved with Ekinops’ long-standing customers.

2022 guidance confirmed for gross margin and EBITDA

FY 2022 was marked by the accelerated growth momentum reported in 2021, despite persistent supply problems for certain electronic components which only now seem to ease.

Bolstered by this successful performance, Ekinops confirms its annual guidance for 2022:

gross margin between 52% and 56%;
EBITDA margin between 14% and 18%.

Ekinops will publish its 2022 annual results on March 7, 2022.

Didier Brédy, Chairman and CEO of Ekinops, said:

“2022 reflects a considerable acceleration in our growth, from +12% in 2021 to +23% in 2022, despite a disrupted market environment and a challenging year-end for production.

2023 is off to an excellent start, with high demand, illustrated by our record order intake for this period of the year. We continue to win market share thanks to our differentiated offer in our segments, coupled with our ability to meet better than others the lead times required by existing and new customers.

We can already foresee yet another year of double-digit growth for Ekinops.”

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KeyedIn Survey Finds Vast Majority of Projects Not Well Aligned with Strategic Business Priorities, Huge Lack of Resources to Carry Projects Out

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January 12, 2023

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KeyedIn Survey Finds Vast Majority of Projects Not Well Aligned with Strategic Business Priorities, Huge Lack of Resources to Carry Projects Out

January 18 Webinar Offers Deep Dive on Third Annual PMO Outlook Report which Showcases the Challenges and Opportunities for PMO Leaders in 2023

Ninety-four percent of projects are not well aligned with strategic business priorities and 77% of project practitioners don’t have enough resources to meet project demand, according to the 2023 PMO Outlook Report conducted by KeyedIn, a leading project portfolio management (PPM) software provider.

The new report highlights the findings from a survey of 120+ PMO/portfolio leaders, executives, and project managers, and was developed to assess the state of the project management office (PMO) as it becomes front and center for organizations executing digital transformation initiatives and other strategic efforts.

“This was KeyedIn’s third year of conducting its PMO Outlook Assessment Survey,” said Rachel Hentges, Director of Marketing for KeyedIn. “The most alarming statistic is the drop in alignment of resources to business priorities from being very well aligned in 2021 (23%) to only 8% very well aligned in 2022. This year’s results continue to highlight the disconnect between PMOs, executives, and their organizations when it comes to successfully delivering, tracking, and executing on changing business priorities.”

The role of the PMO continues to change, as demonstrated by survey takers’ response to the question around the role of the PMO within their organizations. No clear answer emerged: 23% stated it’s a reporting and tracking function, 15% a business improvement function, 6% governance and standards and 47% citing a mix of functions, and an additional 6% citing other reasons.

The top challenge for PMOs in 2023 continues to be resource management at 52%, followed by project prioritization at 22%.

Resource Management

Organizations continue to struggle with issues related to resource management:

Capacity planning (42%)
Resource allocation (37%)
Resource utilization (11%)
Tracking resource skills (7%)
Managing contractors (3%)

Project Prioritization

Organizations also continue to face project prioritization issues:

Saying “no” to some projects in the portfolio (42%)
Accurately scoring the value of portfolio of projects (33%)
Modeling scenarios to optimize portfolio value (9%)
Aligning portfolio projects with corporate strategy (8%)
Tracking the value portfolio projects deliver (8%)

“Strategically prioritizing their portfolios in conjunction with shifting business priorities remains an ongoing challenge,” Hentges said. “In the report, KeyedIn introduces the importance of ‘The PMO Pivot’ and what that means for successful PMOs in 2023. The PMO Pivot refers to the PMO establishing themselves as the bridge for strategy delivery and project execution even when business priorities shift.”

KeyedIn conducted the survey online with more than 120 individuals in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., representing project and portfolio management functions within enterprise organizations.

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Newly Launched Website Disrupting Modern-Day Job Search

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January 12, 2023

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Newly Launched Website Disrupting Modern-Day Job Search

hiresalestalent.com officially announced the launch of their website. Hire Sales Talent is a job network that matches talented sales professionals with opportunities at top companies. With thousands of SDRs, Account Executives, and Sales Leaders using the platform, Hire Sales Talent is the premier network for companies to make their next hire.

Reduce Hiring Costs

The average cost per hire is $4,700. Hire Sales Talent is on a mission to drastically reduce the cost per hire by creating a curated network of world-class sales professionals that can be hired with minimal fees.

Thousands of Job Seekers are Using Hire Sales Talent

13% of ALL jobs in the US are sales jobs. Hire Sales Talent has created an exclusive home for those jobs and it’s already drawn the attention of many. The website, with over 500 open jobs at top companies like Zoom, Airtable, Atlassian, TripAdvisor, Reddit, and The Chicago Cubs, has amassed a network of thousands of salespeople actively looking for their next opportunity.

Source of hire is the most commonly tracked metric amongst talent acquisition professionals. With over 80% of all job applications occurring online, it’s no surprise that job boards are the most prevalent source of hire.

Tyler Parker, Founder of Hire Sales Talent, is gaining popularity with the sales community on LinkedIn. “Layoffs suck. Fortunately for companies that are still hiring, the talent pool has grown tremendously over the past few months. I created hiresalestalent.com as an opt-out for businesses that were tired of overpaying to hire quality salespeople. And as the website gained some traction, it’s also grown into a solution for job seekers that were tired of the broken, modern-day job search.”

Extras for Job Seekers

Hire Sales Talent also offers a Career Guide with daily, actionable career advice, resume tricks, interview tips, and more. The site includes a resume service where job seekers can get a FREE, expert review of their resume to see how it stacks up against today’s advanced Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

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Kore.ai Launches RetailAssist at NRF 2023

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January 12, 2023

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Kore.ai Launches RetailAssist at NRF 2023

Conversational AI leader announces an enterprise solution to deliver omnichannel shopping experiences, personalize offerings and increase customer loyalty

Kore.ai, a world-leading enterprise conversational AI software platform and solutions company, announced that it will be launching RetailAssist, a conversational commerce assistant solution for the retail industry at the National Federation of Retailers show (NRF 2023) in New York City on January 14, 2023.

Retailers are dealing with macroeconomic challenges like inflation, labor shortages and rising wages. In response, many are seeking to transform customer and employee experiences. By utilizing conversational AI technology, retailers can reposition business models through AI-driven automation, and implement next-generation customer and employee experiences to build loyalty and reduce churn.

RetailAssist enables retail and ecommerce companies to modernize, scale and transform operations by building competencies around self-service automation, personalization, omnichannel fulfillment, and 24/7 pre-/post-sales service and support. The solution also acts as an employee assistant to help retailers with onboarding, day-to-day operations, and customer support.

Read More: Carving is for Turkeys, Not Territories

“RetailAssist is one of the most comprehensive offerings, bringing together competencies that enable our retail clients to innovate and scale their digital self service use cases faster,” said Kore.ai CEO and Founder Raj Koneru. “With the ability to offer conversational intelligent virtual assistants that support the customer journey from start to finish, the solution empowers retailers to tap into the AI-powered conversational commerce today.”

Digital investments in retail will increasingly leverage technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud for driving commerce, store digitalization and efforts to attract and retain talent, reveals the Gartner 2023 CIO and Technology Agenda report. The Kore.ai RetailAssist solution leverages next generation language models like GPT-3, the technology behind ChatGPT and brings everything that retailers need to elevate total experience.

“We choose Kore.ai because it has established itself as a world-class conversational AI platform. Its sophisticated NLP engine and ability to roll out to various channels quickly have been key factors in our success and the retail vertical solutions offered by Kore.ai have allowed us to bring a personalized experience to both our consumers and consultants. The speed at which we were able to move to market is a testament to the value of the Kore.ai platform,” said Venkat Gopalan, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Belcorp, the global leader in beauty and personal care products.

Kore.ai is demonstrating RetailAssist at the NRF 2023 show (Booth 208) showcasing key use cases such as an employee assistant on walkie talkies and Zebra mobile devices, digital associate (personalized chatbot) for web and mobile apps as well as the smart contact center automation for stores and contact centers.

The RetailAssist digital associate AI-chatbot helps customers find the right products, get self-service support, check product compatibility, get the order status, returns, manage appointments in web and mobile apps and provide recommendations to customers based on their spend profile, demographics, geography, inventory availability, web and social profiles.
RetailAssist smart contact center automation helps automate voice and digital interactions for self-service and live assisted customer support operations in stores and contact centers while helping agents with their own intelligent virtual assistant for suggested responses, next best actions, action fulfillment and post-interaction wrap summaries.
The RetailAssist employee assistant is an AI-chatbot that informs workers about everything happening in the store – whether it is customers waiting on curbside, someone looking for help from an expert in the store, as well as enabling upselling and cross selling of products and services. It is also pre-trained to handle employees’ HR, administrative, IT and operations related queries and comes with out-of-the-box integrations with the retail enterprise applications ecosystem.

“Personalization for web and mobile apps should be a top priority to transform online shopping experiences,” said Kore.ai Senior Vice President and General Manager, Gopinath Polavarapu. “Kore.ai has built an intelligent AI-native chatbot that allows consumers to search and discover products while simultaneously asking intricate questions to personalize the right products and services based on their customer profile, inventory status and promotions.”

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Tips to Avoid Losing ECommerce Customers with the Right Approach to Delivery Exceptions

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January 12, 2023

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AxleHire has identified tips ecommerce brands can take to avoid losing customers with the right approach to delivery exceptions.

AxleHire, providing e-commerce companies with expedited, urban, same- and next-day deliveries, has identified tips ecommerce brands can take to avoid losing customers with the right approach to delivery exceptions.

Package returns usually occur because some piece of information is incorrect, which results in an undeliverable package, at least temporarily.

The right package does not always make it to the correct location at the right time. Accenture reports that this happens about 5% of the time. If you’re shipping 10,000 packages a month, that’s 500 packages that don’t make it on time. Every re-attempt increases cost, but the loss of goodwill with a brand’s customer and reputational damage to the brand is much more significant than the increased delivery cost. One delivery issue can cause an ECommerce brand to lose a customer for life.

The ability to satisfactorily handle all exceptions begins before they occur. It starts with understanding the shipper’s needs, such as if the shipper wants single or multiple re-delivery attempts, if the carrier or driver can reach out to the customer for assistance, or if the shipper wants to manage that communication.

Carrier system interfaces should be transparent and robust enough to keep the shipper in the loop at every step of the delivery process, from package intake to delivery, and allow the shipper to intervene in exception handling.

The key for the carrier is flexibility to handle whatever situations arise. Drivers need to be flexible too, slowing down, taking an extra minute or two to get past an issue and make sure the package gets to the customer. It’s essential that carrier systems allow the shipper to communicate special instructions and that drivers follow through to prevent customer service calls.

For carriers, dealing with exceptions starts with a willingness to take a little (and sometimes a lot) of extra time and effort to resolve issues. Handling delivery exceptions and package returns is the problem of the carrier, not the shipper. As an extension of the brand, every exception is the last-mile delivery provider’s problem.

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Fresh Retail Software Leader Invafresh Announces Appointment of Sarah Sandberg as Chief Customer Officer

Invafresh positioned for continued customer growth across the global grocery industry

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

EarlyBirds Can Help with Retail E Commerce Innovation such as Capability Mapping

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

AI Learning Leader, Ahura AI Extends Seed Raise to $5.6M to Support Product and Sales Momentum

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Ekinops Delivers 23% Revenue Growth in 2022 at Record €127.6 Million

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Newly Launched Website Disrupting Modern-Day Job Search

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Kore.ai Launches RetailAssist at NRF 2023

Conversational AI leader announces an enterprise solution to deliver omnichannel shopping experiences, personalize offerings and increase customer loyalty

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Tips to Avoid Losing ECommerce Customers with the Right Approach to Delivery Exceptions

AxleHire has identified tips ecommerce brands can take to avoid losing customers with the right approach to delivery exceptions.

Write in to psen@itechseries.com to learn more about our exclusive editorial packages and programs.

Popular Posts

Fresh Retail Software Leader Invafresh Announces Appointment of Sarah Sandberg as Chief Customer Officer

EarlyBirds Can Help with Retail E Commerce Innovation such as Capability Mapping

AI Learning Leader, Ahura AI Extends Seed Raise to $5.6M to Support Product and Sales Momentum

Ekinops Delivers 23% Revenue Growth in 2022 at Record €127.6 Million

Newly Launched Website Disrupting Modern-Day Job Search

Kore.ai Launches RetailAssist at NRF 2023

Tips to Avoid Losing ECommerce Customers with the Right Approach to Delivery Exceptions

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