Winning the CX War: Supercharging Customer Service 

In the increasingly competitive retail and eCommerce market, brands that aspire to be disruptive, need to realise the potential of fostering customer loyalty through tailored customer support experiences.

In order to decrease abandoned shopping carts and move customers further on the sales funnel, successful eCommerce brands have placed qualitative and personalised customer service at the centre of their growth and brand loyalty strategy.

Some thought-provoking topics to be discussed in this session include, developing an authentic customer communication strategy, how to become a ubiquitous ecommerce brand, the increasing use of chatbots in ecommerce, usage maximisation and integrated experiences, harnessing artificial intelligence and predictive analytics in eCommerce, omni-channel consistency, retailer partnerships and cross channel agreements, retargeting and capitalising on the growth of mobile commerce.

From digital pretender to digital performer – raising your Digital IQ 

Cisco predicts that 4 out of 10 leading retail brands might go out of business before 2020 if they fail to transform themselves digitally. Before your retail business becomes a negative industry statistic, it is vital to re-evaluate your current digital transformation strategy and establish a disruptive digital engagement model.

Digital engagement is continuously evolving; with some online brands opening physical ‘boutique’ stores, whilst traditional retailers look to increase their share of the online pie. This competitive environment requires the most agile digital transformation strategy.

Whether you represent a traditional retailer or an existing e-tailer; this session will equip you with a scalable digital engagement strategy adapted from changing market conditions, get you on the path to seamless architecture and advanced automation capabilities, leveraging digital to offer and omni-channel shopping experience, personalisation and customisation, how to leverage the advantages of ecommerce instead of replicating traditional retail online, and lastly explore how mobile app penetration can be used as a key differentiator in African ecommerce.

Capitalising on the Emerging Social Commerce Giant 

Retail and social media partnerships are revolutionising the eCommerce marketplace to offer consumers a more convenient online shopping experience. According to Gartner, up to 74% of consumers turn to social networks to guide their purchases. This represents an opportunity for agile online retailers to use innovative social selling strategies to drive revenue generation and customer loyalty on platforms that potential customers spend hours on daily.

Social commerce is evolving into a game-changing marketplace spurred on by various technological advancements that are bringing customers closer to retail brands. To influence customers purchasing behaviour, successful social retailers are deserting traditional commercial sales tactics and focusing on customers emotions to advance tangible long-term relationships based on strong brand resonance.

This session will focus on how to turn social media traffic into sales, some of the topics to be addressed include: integration of digital payments into social networks, monetizing messaging apps, increasing conversion rates through user generated content and ratings, influencer marketing, gamification and social commerce, and leveraging social media to build brand loyalty.

Defining the path to Next-Generation Delivery & Fulfillment & Accelerating Cross-Border Logistics 

In a survey of 500 adults, about one half (53%) of those who have shopped online said that faster delivery of goods would encourage them to do so more often. (International e-Commerce in Africa: The Way Forward). In order to improve speed of service, more eCommerce businesses are investing in automation to address disparate order capture and outdated fulfillment systems.

Innovative eCommerce companies are increasingly embracing omni-channel fulfilment strategies to exceed growing customer expectations whilst partnerships are progressively seen as a solution to ensuring wider product assortment and a key to offering flexible delivery options that drive customer loyalty.

This session will explore the latest strategies to improve order management, delivery and fulfillment for e-retailers. Topics to be addressed include; how to ensure fast, reliable and flexible delivery, improving e-fulfillment capabilities, cross border logistics, omni-channel fulfillment, the growth of cash-on-delivery, long-term warehousing, omni-channel logistics, optimising transport and logistics solutions, transforming logistics supply chains into information-driven value chains and real-time customer demand visibility.

Tapping into the Mobile Commerce Revolution 

With mobile projected to become the number one device worldwide for online retail; it has become a no-brainer to have mobile become the centre of your digital and product development strategy. Retailers hoping to tap into this growing market need to adopt a holistic mobile approach that stresses the importance of user experience, in order to establish new, value-added relationships that maximise revenue opportunities and offer consumers a seamless shopping experience.

Despite numerous emerging innovations in mobile that have facilitated the growth of mCommerce – customer experience still lags behind. In order to meet these evolving consumer expectations, retailers should aim to unify disparate customer data from multiple retail channels to meet service and fulfillment expectations, deliver targeted and personalised mobile marketing campaigns that drive revenue through mobile optimised websites and apps.

This session will discuss how leading retail brands can transform smartphones and tablets into fully-fledged sales tools through the use of analytics and predictive technologies, improving brand equity and customer loyalty, augmented reality, location-based programmes and services, artificial intelligence and chatbots, exploiting messaging apps for sales, optimising mobile payments, developing mobile apps and reducing mobile fraud to improve trust and security.

With money transfers in Africa still in their infancy; a number of obstacles for operating in this ecosystem exist, including; uncertainty regarding the volume of remittances, limited competition, higher transfer costs, regulation and a lack of technological innovations.

One of the foremost challenges to cross border money transfers and remittances is interoperability within and between countries. Cooperation and interoperability agreements between mobile network operators have exposed the opportunities for real-time cross border and cross wallet transactions. Whilst the opportunity for connecting payments services providers to a single global clearing and settlement network will not only enable secure and seamless cross border movement of funds, but reduce the dependence on physical touch points and drive technological innovation in the industry. This presents an opportunity for fintech companies operating in the money remittances space, to disruptively transform the payments ecosystem through innovative services that will reduce costs for consumers, whilst increasing accessibility and the speed of payments and remittances in Africa.

Some of the insightful topics to be discussed include; how to build inclusive digital payments ecosystems, future of money transfers and remittances in Africa, harmonising cross border regulations and payments standards so that mobile money can be used for cross border transactions, accelerating remittances through blockchain technology, and what the future holds for POS and card readers in Africa.

There are over 300 fintech stratups across Africa, disrupting the financial services industry through innovative products and solutions that continue to attract attention from banks and investors.

The high number of unbanked and underserved segments alongside sustained economic growth has increased the need for the rapid distribution of financial products. Africa’s willingness to adapt has been driven by the mobile and digital consumer; which represents a significant opportunity for start-ups to provide access to financial products that remain on the cutting edge of global marketplace innovation – threatening to make Africa’s traditional banks obsolete. The competitive landscape driven by fintech disruption, has pressured corporates to find, grow, invest and collaborate with start-ups .The ultimate measure of success - driving financial inclusion and high liquidity of capital which will drive more robust economic growth and offer customers customised, relevant and affordable products and services built for the African context.

This session will explore how non-bank payments service providers are disrupting financial services, how to exploit artificial intelligence in financial services, Africa’s role in the fourth industrial revolution, future of digital currencies, using blockchain & distributed ledgers to reduce the cost of remittances in Africa, blockchain as the defining characteristic of the ‘New Economy’ and lastly creating an enabling regulatory environment for fintech.