Voyado's Vision for the Future: What’s Next in the World of Customer Experience?

At yesterday's Love Generation 2024 event in Stockholm, Felix Kruth, Chief Product Officer at Voyado, took to the stage to unveil exciting innovations and the future direction of Voyado. The event highlighted Voyado’s dedication to revolutionising the retail customer experience through advanced technology, with a strong focus on empowering retailers to increase efficiency, enhance customer journeys, and drive profitability.

Here’s a breakdown of the key takeaways from Felix Kruth's speech, including both recent developments and what’s in the pipeline.

(Disclaimer: This is based on my notes from yesterday. I believe they are correct, but I might have missed a word or two!)

1. New Capabilities for Customers: Interactions and Challenges

Voyado is expanding its customer data platform (CDP) by integrating non-purchase-related data through the new Interactions feature. This allows retailers to trigger actions based on customer behaviour that isn’t directly tied to purchasing, creating more nuanced engagement opportunities.

In addition to Interactions, Voyado has introduced Challenges, a tool that helps stitch together complex customer journeys to build loyalty. By combining purchases and interactions, retailers can now craft advanced loyalty programmes that extend far beyond simple stamp cards.

2. AI-Powered Innovation: Behavioural Features and Automation

Voyado is taking behavioural analysis to the next level with the launch of Current Interests, a feature that tracks a customer’s behaviour on-site and uses AI to push relevant data into Engage. This eliminates the need for retailers to manually build intent-based segments, making personalisation easier and more effective.

Kruth also announced two revamped behavioural flows, Back in Stock and Browser Abandonment, which are some of the highest-converting automation flows in the industry. These have been fully rebuilt to enhance performance and drive conversions further.

3. Generative AI: Copy, Subject Lines, and More

The power of AI is a consistent theme in Voyado’s latest updates. One of the most exciting AI-based features is AI Cloud Subject Lines, allowing retailers to automate A/B testing for email subject lines, effectively streamlining marketing processes. AI also extends to SMS with enhanced features like character counting for cost control and load balancing, which prevents sites from crashing during large-scale campaigns. Moreover, AI is now being used to generate SMS copy and translations, adding another layer of convenience for retailers operating across multiple languages.

4. Assistive Targeting and Segmentation Made Simple

Voyado is simplifying the complex process of customer segmentation with its new Assistive Targeting tool. Whether you're a seasoned power user or new to the platform, the tool offers inspiration and guidance on creating segments that make sense for your business. In an effort to make data-driven marketing easier, Voyado is also rolling out Pre-Built Segmentations, powered by machine learning, to help users identify the most relevant audiences based on factors like product affinity and engagement metrics.

5. Optimised Communication and Loyalty with Enhanced APIs

Retailers often face challenges when it comes to managing orders and customer communication. Voyado’s newly launched Order APIs aim to solve this by giving retailers a more granular understanding of the order process, enabling more personalised and timely customer interactions. This is especially useful for businesses with long shipping times, as it helps avoid sending irrelevant messages, like discounts on items a customer has already ordered.

On the loyalty front, Voyado has been tackling the complexities of multi-market operations, allowing retailers to configure their loyalty programmes to local preferences. Whether it’s paying with points or vouchers, retailers can now create tailored loyalty programmes for different markets.

6. Revolutionising Email Marketing with a New Editor

Felix Kruth introduced a much-anticipated update to Voyado’s Email Editor, responding to user feedback about the need for a more efficient, user-friendly tool. The new editor is highly customisable, allowing design teams to create specialised themes and modules that can be easily updated across multiple campaigns. With mobile-first functionality and multi-market support, the editor promises to streamline the email marketing process significantly, reducing repetitive tasks and improving efficiency.

7. Guided Selling: The Future of Product Discovery

One of the most intriguing innovations revealed by Voyado is its focus on Guided Selling. Unlike traditional chatbots, which often don’t enhance the shopping experience, guided selling uses contextual tools to assist customers in finding what they need more intuitively. From contextual faceting to conversational search, Voyado aims to make product discovery more natural and less reliant on lengthy prompts, effectively replicating the experience of having a knowledgeable sales assistant in-store.

8. Expanding Retail Media for Profitability

In a move designed to address the profitability challenges many retailers face, Voyado is set to launch Retail Media Capabilities. This will allow retailers to sell product placements to suppliers, mimicking the highly profitable model used by industry giants like Amazon. Voyado’s solution will be integrated directly into Elevate and Engage, offering a seamless way for retailers to monetise their e-commerce platforms while maintaining relevance through personalised content.

9. Bonnie: AI for the Future of Retail Strategy

Voyado’s Bonnie is at the heart of the company’s retail AI strategy. This intelligent assistant is designed to simplify analytics, helping retailers sift through reports and data with ease. By understanding key performance indicators (KPIs) and offering strategic insights, Bonnie enables retailers to focus on actionable data rather than getting bogged down by complex analysis. Over time, Bonnie will become even more integrated, potentially generating segments and automations to make retail management smoother and more efficient.

The Road Ahead

As Felix Kruth eloquently summarised in his closing remarks, Voyado’s mission is to empower retailers by offering them the tools to thrive in an increasingly competitive and complex market. The focus for 2024 and beyond will be on helping businesses do more with less, driving both efficiency and profitability through automation, AI, and advanced personalisation. With over 100 new features launched over last year alone, Voyado shows no signs of slowing down, cementing its role as a leader in the retail tech space.