Fixing the Content Gap: Why Retailers Need a Dynamic Approach to CX

Today’s retail environment demands ultra-relevant customer experiences (CX). Consumer needs change swiftly, inventory moves fast, and trends come and go. By creating content informed by evolving customer data, businesses can drive engagement, differentiate their brands, and deliver exceptional CX that keep customers returning for more.

Most retailers aren’t there yet, however. A content gap stands between them and truly dynamic CX.

Want to Deliver Dynamic CX? Close the Content Gap

As a retailer, you gather extensive customer data, from basic demographic information to detailed purchasing behaviors. However, the creative content you present on your website, in ad campaigns, in marketing emails, and on social media platforms doesn’t always reflect the richness of that data.

For maximum impact, your content needs to speak to as many people as possible. But that leads to an unintended effect: Your customers receive vague advertising that fails to connect.

The disparity between your personalized data and your more generalized content is known as the content gap. To close that gap, you need to make your content relevant for each purchaser all the time. With current CX solutions that simply “push” static content, that’s impossible. Enter dynamic CX.

Here’s What You Can Do to Achieve Data-Driven Dynamic CX

Dynamic CX involves continuously adapting and tailoring the customer experience based on real-time data. It’s an agile, responsive approach. It results in unique, relevant content for your customers and can foster customer loyalty and skyrocket business growth.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Activate your data.

Consider the many kinds of data your company collects, from customer buying preferences to local trends to inventory and promotional information. If each data type lives in different silos, that’s not helpful.

With a dynamic CX solution, you can synthesize your disparate data sources, analyze them, and make data accessible so you can use it at every step of your CX process.

2. Use that data to build assets for customizable CX.

To enable dynamic CX, you need atomic content-brand-compliant, modular creative assets that a dynamic CX solution can leverage in response to specific data triggers. Once you have this, the possibilities are endless.

Hot outside? One hero image gets pulled in. A customer forgets something in their cart? Promote that product in a dynamic email. Need content for Facebook, email and SMS? Assets automatically get re-formatted to fit the specifications of each channel. Not sure how to handle previously unknown users? Leverage artificial intelligence to find the best-performing creative.

That’s a lot for any one team to handle. Launching a dynamic CX solution to orchestrate your customer experiences makes this possible.

3. Commit to experimentation and change over the long term.

Customer needs change over time. Your CX needs to change too. Conduct rigorous concept and iterative testing to see what works. Map new experiences across channels and along the buyer journey while constantly analyzing incoming customer data. Here, too, AI can streamline tasks for feasibility and more valuable insights.

Take These Simple Steps to Deliver Dynamic CX

Talk to your team about customer data and how to use it to personalize your CX. Then, look for a dynamic CX solution that leverages AI, takes advantage of your existing data sources, and allows you to automatically roll out dynamic creative at scale.

The result? You’ll no longer be talking at your customers en masse. Instead, you’ll be talking to specific people, providing the most relevant information in the most helpful context.

That’s what drives conversions. That’s what builds loyalty. That’s what retailers need to do to stay ahead of the competition.

Darren Waddell is an accomplished CX strategist who deeply understands the industry's ever-evolving landscape. For nine-plus years, Waddell has served as the executive vice president of Innervate (formerly RevJet), the dynamic customer experience company.