Emcee Singapore: Charmaine hosted an Ayden podcast titled “Exceeding Customer Expectations”, together with experts from innovative businesses in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region – Cat Parker, Josh Bell, Lawrence Pelletier, and Lionel Tan – on how businesses can keep up with this demand while building seamless experiences for our consumers.

Charmaine kicked off the discussion by stating that there are two main drivers of these trends. One, digitalization has changed just about every facet of our lives, with the impact perhaps most strongly felt in consumer-facing businesses. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic created a fundamental shift in how people work, live, and shop. 

Lionel Tan, Adyen’s Product Lead for APAC explained, “Now there’s a new interaction that is becoming more and more popular for many small businesses. And we see that there’s going to be also a decrease in cash as a shift towards more contactless payments, QR code based payments, and also increase in cross-channel shopper experiences. So you can order in app, pick up in store, or you can get it delivered to your home, and then you can return it at a kiosk or in store as well.”

Moving on to technology, Lawrence Pelletier, Sales and Marketing Director at hospitality IT platform, Redcat added, “Some technology, whether it’s QR code ordering, whether it’s kiosks, whether it’s online ordering, those sorts of technologies are actually enabling people to open because they can operate with fewer staff.”    

While this may seem counterintuitive, Josh Bell, Principal at Guzman Gomez announced that his company has plans for in-person experience unique to every customer who walks through its doors. 

Lionel shared some creative ideas for meeting changing customer needs. He cited an illustration, “One retail example that I think that did it really, really well is OnRunning in their flagship store in Tokyo. So not only can the retail assistant help you get your right shoe, you can even try out the shoe, and test it on a treadmill to see whether or not it suits your running speed, your gait, and even your stride, and it doesn’t end there. So once they pick up your shoe, you pick out the right size, the staff can then continue to check you out there and then, right.”

Cat Parker, Global Director Commercial at retailer T2 Tea cited an example of Grab, “Singapore is a great example of this – Grab, whether it’s Grab Wallet, Grab Pay, you know, you’ve got a country with 5.6 million people. And three and a half million of those people are signed up to Grab.”

Charmaine concluded the podcast stating, “whether the customer is young or old, shopping in store or online, in Singapore or Australia, what unites them is the expectation of receiving excellent service, a customized experience, and making effortless payments.”

Tune in to S2 of our podcast, Behind the Figures, right now: https://lnkd.in/gzerD_xp