Bridging the Omnichannel Gap in Retail with Dynamics 365

Even with over a decade’s long existence, omnichannel is still a challenge for most retailers worldwide because they still seek to understand how to bridge gaps in the business-critical strategies. The existing strategic gap translates lesser knowledge about omnichannel retail and shows the organizations’ inability to perform and deliver per the defined strategy. Besides, the fast-transforming global retail landscape is trying to find the best ways to eliminate the gap between traditional and modern retail experiences.

Dynamics 365 Commerce (previously known as Dynamics 365 Retail), now called unifies innovative capabilities and tools that allow retailers to streamline buying experiences for customers across channels while empowering enterprises to gain an insightful view of their customer data, along with operations and sales.

Disconnected Data and Disrupting Modern Buying Scenarios

While ensuring omnichannel experiences to the consumers, retailers face many roadblocks, primarily due to the lack of unified data in the existing systems. The disconnected customer data affects customer communications and restricts retailers from gaining meaningful business insights, including customer preferences and inventory.

The best solution for modern retailers is to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail that connects company- wide customer data and automatically updates relevant customer insights in real-time. Moreover, integrated Artificial Intelligence (or AI) capabilities define customer segments seamlessly and ensure smooth customer communications.

Dynamics 365 Commerce enables enterprises to improve and enhance customer engagements through various smart tools, including an e-commerce site builder that targets specific customer segments with diverse experiences, including geo- location and other attributes derived dynamically from their online browsing.

Legacy Solutions and Aligned Complexities

Organizations invest heavily in their existing legacy solutions to maximize benefits from such investments. Instead, businesses may end up dealing with undesired complexities in the current systems if they continue to avoid investing in a new unified solution. However, integrating add- on tools into the existing solutions might work well to keep the operations performing without compromising the currently implemented systems.

Microsoft Power Apps help businesses build customized solutions that connect existing customer data and integrate sales services and operations. Dynamics 365 Commerce coupled with Microsoft Power Apps allows enterprises to leverage the organization- wide customer data using the existing systems. Thus, the new unified solution empowers retailers to use the data lying isolated across the separate systems—without replacing those.

Improvising with Altering Customer Needs Can Help

Retailers’ inability to adapt to the fast-changing customer habits is another roadblock while ensuring omnichannel experiences to their patrons. Enterprises, therefore, must plan to streamline their back-end operations that would help them adapt to the modifying customer behaviors and preferences. In addition, implementing the right technology infrastructure, like Dynamics 365 for Retail, allows retailers to connect all the available customer data and ensure better customer experiences.

Modern consumers look out for reviews and social channels before making a purchase decision. Industry insights reveal that social commerce sales in the U.S. contributed about $36.6 billion in 2021. Integrating this new demand generating technology sources are critical for modern businesses to gain customer intelligence.

Dynamics 365 Commerce Services allow retailers to engage with widespread customers through a common data model along with advanced, emerging commerce platforms. Dynamics 365 Commerce Solution also empowers retailers to develop in- house capabilities for tracking and monitoring reviews posted across commerce engines while automating the reviews’ solicitation from customers through post- shipping emails and other such actions. Besides, Dynamics 365 Commerce uses deep data that connects platforms and helps retailers explore how targeted customers respond to social storytelling.

Rising Customer Expectations

Worldwide customers’ expectations have evolved, as they now desire more convenience while buying. Moreover, customers today understand and expect retailers to capture their buying patterns and trends. Retailers, therefore, are aggressively looking for tools to understand consumers better and ensure personalized user experiences.

Businesses may lose sales if customers feel inconvenient, whereas many companies are still trying to provide the options that customers expect. National Retail Federation suggests that nearly 97% of consumers have backed out due to their inconveniences during the purchase journey. The trend is common, primarily in smart services, like curbside pickups, next day delivery, and easy returns.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps retailers improve customer experience and personalize customer engagements across channels. Global enterprises are leveraging Dynamics 365 retail business solutions to include more product information for customers and staff at the point of purchase.

Microsoft Dynamics retail enables enterprises to improve their omnichannel capabilities and deliver personalized customer buying experiences. Retailers, therefore, look to Dynamics 365 for retail implementation to bridge the omnichannel gap while helping them exceed customer expectations and boost their business success.

Next Step

Team Dynamics Square helps businesses connect data effectively by leveraging Dynamics 365 solutions and enabling them to overcome the discussed four primary roadblocks and bridge the omnichannel gap in retail.

Engage Today for a customized Dynamics 365 Commerce Trial.