Reusable building blocks in application development will enable the group to improve CX and agility in the turbulent economic landscape.
As the owner of over 10 household brands in more than 2,000 stores in Hong Kong and Macau, the Dairy Farm Group wanted to unify its customer loyalty experience using an app platform.
The group has announced that will be leveraging on an integration and application programming interface platform by MuleSoft, as well as CRM and data intelligence solutions from Salesforce and Tableau.
With this initiative, Dairy Farm has made it easier and more convenient for customers to earn points, access and redeem rewards by connecting all its brands and coalition partners on its single digital rewards club called ‘yuu’ to build stronger brand loyalty.
Said the firm’s IT director, Crystal Chan: “yuu is Dairy Farm Group’s first digital rewards club that seeks to bring exceptional value, quality and convenience to Hong Kong and Macau customers all through a single app. With the integration and API platform, the firm are able to connect different systems from multiple brands using an API-led approach to roll out new services in a reduced timeframe. “With an omnichannel customer experience across all our brands, we can better manage each customer’s journey and their preferred communication channels,” Chan said.
Unifying the rewards program
Previously, Dairy Farm customers had to access several applications and physical cards to reach loyalty programs for the different brands under the group. With yuu, rewards can be accessed through a single connected application for an improved customer experience.
The process involved building reusable APIs on the MuleSoft platform to connect the group’s more than 50 internal and external systems (including various point of sale and e-commerce systems), to create synergy between its online and offline channels. Most importantly, the platform enabled real-time customer experience when shopping with the house brands.
The APIs can easily be discovered and reused for future projects, enabling the group’s retailers to deliver new customer experiences faster each time by increasing both IT and line of business productivity.
Since implementing the integration platform, Dairy Farm Group has accelerated the modernization of its application development processes and significantly sped up project delivery time.
Achieving seamless CX
The group is also leveraging Salesforce solutions to easily publish more timely and tailored content, news, and promotions to fit customer preferences. Then, through data visualization using Tableau solutions, the group’s businesses can draw actionable insights across the rewards program to analyze and identify trends across its banners. Such information helps the the organization to stay up to date on the rewards club and continuously improve CX.
Going forward, as the yuu rewards club continues to grow, the group can use the API-led approach to continue to provide more value to its customers by creating new in-app features and innovative experiences quickly. Underlying this digitalization trend is the concept of the ‘composable enterprise’ where key components of the business are modular and can be remodeled easily to support change and growth.
Being composed of IT assets and processes, a composable enterprise can develop new applications in a fraction of the time needed in the past, thereby improving time-to-market for new apps and initiatives moving forward.
