Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai is the Regional Manager for Infobip West Africa. He is an experienced information technology expert. Olatayo has garnered over sixteen years’ experience working with various IT companies, his long history of leadership alongside his experience in developing innovative sales strategies and implementing processes that deliver value to global businesses makes him an ideal fit his role at Infobip.
He has held the position of Country Manager for Infobip Nigeria along with his multi-varied past roles in other organisations as; Assistant General Manager (Nigeria) at CWG plc, Software Services Sales Leader & Cloud Specialist (Central and West Africa) for IBM, and Executive Director Sales (West Africa) for BCX.
Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai, in this interview with TechEconomy, speaks to challenges many retail organisations face today and how they can leverage the period of Black Friday to win-back old customers or acquire new ones. Is there how can Infobip help your organisation? Well, Mr. Ladipo-Ajai has the answer:
What were Infobip’s major findings during the COVID era? What are some of the actions taken by various companies that are still practiced today, based on the impact of COVID.
When talking specifically about organisations that are retail and/or e-commerce focused, the pandemic has changed the way that we do business. Looking at this sector of businesses, you see that many of them have had to enhance their functionalities and features on the customer engagement channels/platforms, solidifying the need to look for ways to make their customers more comfortable.
The pandemic has also enabled businesses to look for ways to become more competitive in the customer experience arena and to meet customers’ online shopping expectations since the pandemic restricted shopping in physical stores.
Furthermore, another finding relates to an increase in consumers moving towards online shopping, and subsequently needing products to be delivered directly to their homes.
The retailers that didn’t have an online presence prior to the pandemic, such as supermarkets that were predominantly dependent on physical foot traffic, had to then create ways for customers to make purchases without having to physically visit their store.
As a result, some stores in Nigeria started using media channels, such as WhatsApp, to communicate with their customers.
The customer can simply send their shopping request via WhatsApp, by sending a list and pictures of what they want to buy. Should the customer need to contact a customer care agent, they can also communicate their queries via this platform too. It’s as simple as that.
In a nutshell, what the pandemic has proven to the retail sector is that organisations have to have an online presence alongside their physical presence in order to remain relevant and competitive.
How can retailers stay ahead of the curve without losing out in the market?
This requires a shift in mindset in realizing the customers’ position in the retail ecosystem. Traditionally, customers were at the helm of either the business owner or subscription platform. In today’s times, the customer is king, and has the power to dictate who he or she buys from, especially since we live in a highly competitive market, surrounded by choice.
The introduction of certain features such as ‘click-to-buy’ speaks to the ‘customer is king’ ideology, showcasing that retailers are having to fight more avidly for customers’ attention.
Manufacturers and retailers therefore have to look for ways in which they can help the customer make decisions faster and with ease, try enticing their purchase. At the end of the day, the customer is looking for a seamless purchase process.
Click-to-buy, as an example, requires the customer to pre-register their payment details on a specific platform or on the retailer’s website, so that the customer can select an item and pay for it seamlessly in a matter of moments.
This eliminates the customer having to input their payment details each time they are looking to make a purchase, and therefore eliminates them potentially abandoning their cart.
Click-to-buy is a classic customer-centric feature that allows customers to spend less time thinking about a purchase. This in turn has a positive impact on customer engagement, the customer experience and the overall customer psychology attached to the process.
This shopping feature makes purchasing so easy and efficient that it can even promote impulsive purchases – something which retailers certainly won’t complain about.
Aside from being entirely customer-conscious, another way for retailers to stay ahead of the curve is to continuously innovate, and work towards constantly improving the customers’ experience and by proving them with the right tools that enable them to make faster purchasing decisions which in turn should lead to a quick check out process.
How has Infobip helped banks like Zenith in their customer acquisition quest, bringing it down to how retailers can attract buyers to their site especially in Black Friday space?
We can look at this situation twofold: firstly, looking how retailers can engage customers better, and secondly, ensuring that customers actually buy from them. At the end of the day, retailers’ primary focus is on ensuring that customers buy, and that they do so repeatedly.
It is crucial to have a communications strategy that encompasses multiple customer engagement touchpoints, and customers need to have a choice on which communication platform they want to be engaged on. So, retailers have to be available via phone, website, a mobile app (if relevant), WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
Organisations now need to understand that because the customer is in the centre of this engagement process, the communication structure must be a complete cycle. That means that the communication needs to be bi-directional so that the organisation can in turn communicate with the customers as well. Ultimately, there must be an avenue for a conversation exchange.
Retailers also need to ensure that their social media channels are active, as this can be a tool to help attract customer to your website or platform.
Customer feedback and reviews/ratings are another powerful means to attract new customers to a business’ website, as potential customers will often look to the experience of an existing customer before deciding to purchase.
To enhance the customer experience, retailers need to understand how to suggest to customers what other customers purchased while they were on your site. This will encourage them to shop more by showcasing a range of products that complement one other.
While the abovementioned features enhance the customer experience, it’s the customer engagement that truly helps attract potential buyers to your shopping portal. When potential customers hear about the seamless and efficient shopping experience on a retailer’s site alongside the great customer service, they are tempted to visit the site for themselves. Word of mouth remains an incredibly powerful marketing tool.
On the topic of Black Friday, retailers need to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ or risk being left behind. To entice customers to shop, retailers can employ various tactics such as supplying free items to complement a purchase, supplying free delivery of items, or else having an uncomplicated return policy to accommodate shoppers who may end up with buyer’s remorse. Elements like this can set a retailer apart from their competition.
What can retailers do to drive sustainability? What kind of services/solutions can Infobip help them?
Since COVID-19, many Nigerians have had to change their mindset in terms of how they buy. Prior to the pandemic, many Nigerians typically wouldn’t buy items online without seeing it, yet today, shopping habits have changed drastically and many Nigerians are prioritising online shopping, which has led to the rise of ecommerce and subsequent delivery platforms.
Interestingly, there’s now more trust in the online retail ecosystem.
In order to look at what’s required to help optimise our customers’ platforms or websites, there are a multitude of engagement strategies to employ, especially when Black Friday is on the horizon. I’ve touched on a few strategies earlier, but just to recap: retailers need a sound communications strategy, they need to fully understand their market and customers, and they need to be able to engage the customer (if need be) on their preferred platform.
When talking about Black Friday, the question on everyone’s mind is: how do I sell? For starters, one way to lose out on sales is with a website crash, so this needs to a consideration.
As a retailer, does your website have sound security, adequate bandwidth, and a strong capability to handle the high volumes of traffic?
Furthermore, to entice Black Friday shoppers to your online store, retailers need to heighten their social media presence. But, more than that, what is your social media strategy? Are you using your social channels as an informative platform? Or are you communicating deals or specials? Will you be posting banners, and what happens if a customer clicks on the banner – will it take them to a buying page? These are all considerations that retailers need to take into account.
Technology has enabled businesses to optimise their website or retail platforms and to ensure that there’s a golden thread between the various purchase channels. For example, there’s a good chance that a customer may call your contact centre and ask about a particular deal in your Black Friday promo page that sits on your website. So, when the customer calls, are they able to make a payment there and then, or be sent automatically to a purchase page?
These are all examples of technologies that can help drive sales for retail businesses, and it’s what gives retailers or retailers an edge. It certainly sets them apart from the other organisations that just send out adverts without follow up or additional information to entice customers to close a sale.
At Infobip, our products offer a 360-degree solution to ensure that our customers’ objectives are achieved. It is essential that businesses adopt an omnichannel strategy that ties everything together, ensuring that the customer is served faster and that they can make decisions easily across any of the communications platforms on offer.
If you want to talk to companies in terms of incentives, what advise would you share with businesses or retailers to give to their customers?
In terms of incentives, there’s no limit to what can be done, however, it depends on what your business is all about. If your business is reliant on traffic to your website via the likes of YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms, it would make sense to offer subsidised data for your customers, because you ultimately want them to consume your adverts/content.
As a retail organisation, for a period like Black Friday, I touched on the incentives that e-tailers can employ. Furthermore, businesses can include engaging features on their platforms, for example, we have the Web RTC, like a web video. This is a situation where your website can offer a video call that is free and when your customers want to talk to someone, a video pops up and they can engage and ask questions.
There’s also Request for Calls, you can just click a button and you get a call from a customer care centre. Everything connects seamlessly and the call is toll-free.
There are also an alerts feature used by websites whereby a customer clicks on the button and requests to be alerted when a particular product becomes available. The organisation then calls the customer when the product is in stock.
For Infobip, do you have solutions that are tailored to SMEs and Startups, as some can’t afford expensive solutions?
Aside from servicing enterprise businesses in Nigeria, we carry a lot of communication traffic for SMEs and startups, especially tech startups.
Interestingly, at least 90% of the biggest e-commerce platforms in Nigeria and West Africa run a large portion of their traffic on Infobip’s platforms. This includes emails, SMS, voicemails, among others.
We also offer a range of self-service products, which are not necessarily structured to big corporate strategies. Small organisations can easily use their credit or debit cards to make payment and ship out their products to customers.
Are payments for your services receivable in Naira?
Infobip is a Nigerian company, and we don’t operate through third parties. We are registered here and collect payment in Naira.
In terms of the Metaverse and the future of customer experience, do you see a shift happening very soon, especially in this market, to improve customer experience?
Considering the direction that Nigeria is moving in, we are very aligned with global technology. However, it’s important to note that there are two segments of Nigeria: there’s the digitally-aware economy of Nigeria, and the growing/yet to be included economy of Nigeria. That is where the potential lies, and as Nigeria begins to build that awareness, you will see a bigger market.
Currently, about 20% of the population is in the digitally-aware scope. So, in terms of the solutions pertaining to the metaverse, virtual reality, AI and others, organisations need to give customers a more inclusive and entrenched experience.
Organisations that will begin to use these tools to their advantage will reap the rewards. While there is a wealth of opportunity in Africa, we are still struggling with infrastructural challenges such as data and bandwidth issues.
Organisations that are interested in going that route can start with baby steps, and look at more tailored solutions, in order to provide the customers with a better experience.
What are you bringing on board for this Black Friday?
One of the key things we want our customer to take advantage of is our platform – the fact that it is a single paying dashboard solution that allows you to orchestrate across all your channels.
A lot of customers don’t know that the same channel they’re routing their SMS is the same channel they can allocate to a customer care consultant, create a chatbot for their website or mobile app. They can manage comments, responses, etc., all on one platform.
Another thing that would interest customers is that our platform is integratable into their CRM, ERP and other systems.
They can inter-relate information across different software applications that they use within their business and into Infobip’s platform.
We also offer a section where customers can engage with our customer experience consultants to advise them on the services. We are proud to mention that we are giving out free customer experience services to our big customers to guide them on purchasing products.
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