NEW YORK—Retailers and marketers continue to play the technology card as they attempt to bring more efficiency to operations and to boost loyalty among an increasingly fickle customer base.
Using technology tools to address customer retention and acquisition has taken on even greater importance in the past few years, according to a recent marketing technology report by the digital agency Squiz, which has offices in New York, London and other major cities.
In a survey conducted for the report, roughly two of three marketers acknowledged that they are working to leverage marketing technology in ways they hope will allow them to better understand their customers and prospects.
The survey’s findings are based on research done by Morar, an independent research group, which surveyed more than 600 senior marketing executives from companies based in the U.S., U.K. and Australian markets. Each of the companies surveyed had more than 500 employees.
Ninety-seven percent of the respondents said their companies have invested in marketing technology over the past 12 months, and almost two-thirds of these respondents (64 percent) said they invested “heavily” in this area, according to the Squiz report.
“Marketers are investing in these products for numerous reasons: 62 percent want to better understand customers, 37 percent are doing so to remain competitive and 55 percent because they want to be able to take a data-driven approach to marketing,” the report noted.
The investment in technology by marketing also represents a response to the evolving changes in the way customers expect to be treated and the way they want to be able to access services such as eyecare and products. The new technologies often enable marketers to automate complex and time-intensive work that is required in the effort to learn and collect more information about their customer base, the report noted.
“Collectively, [this] indicates that organizations are trying to get closer to their customers, not just explicitly, but implicitly as well,” according to the Squiz report. “Only through freeing up time by the use of automation technologies and really understanding your customers (through data) are you able to become an efficient and effective, customer-centric organization.”