5 Qs With Rohan Arora On Technology For Improved Consumer Connect

Clearly, today’s consumer is digitally empowered and cognizant of the various technological tools, devices and platforms available to learn about his choice of products and services. For the brand owners, on the other hand, using technology can sometimes be a Catch-22. While it is evident that technology helps connect with consumers better, it can in turn kill excitement for the ones looking for a more personalised experience. Hence, a constant struggle for marketers to understand, reach and influence the target audience and ultimately increase the overall customer experience and create more opportunities.

Most companies in this regard are shifting spends to digital channels, in the hope of overcoming the above challenge. Bausch + Lomb is a case in point, where the brand has been yielding the best of results, using digital technology for improved consumer engagement and ROI. 

In our conversation with Rohan Arora, Head of Marketing, Bausch + Lomb, he explains how the brand has been leveraging technology to achieve their mission of simplifying the search and purchase process for consumers, how technology is aiding understanding the consumer better and much more. 

Excerpts:

Q. What is your company vision and how technology can help the organization to achieve that vision?

At Bausch + Lomb, our mission has always been to help our consumers See Better, Live Better. A key part of delivering this promise is to help more and more consumers experience our products and that was the key pivot for our digital transformation journey – we wanted to make it simpler for consumers to discover our products, explore the options available for their specific need and then, very simply, be able to experience the product first hand, either at their home or with an expert by their side. We started building our digital framework with this simplicity in mind – it involved ensuring presence on social and other digital platforms to reach out to consumers, capturing intent via search and building a smart destination that can present the right content based on consumer intent. As we scaled up, we also realized the need to personalize and automate our marketing communication based on large amounts of consumer intent data, which also needed to be managed – and this is where Oracle CX and Responsys have become a critical part of our transformation journey.

Q. What were some of the issues business functions faced?

As we started adopting digital communication platforms, we realized that we were able to collect a lot of very valuable information about consumer intent and action that had the potential to deliver critical business insights and drive conversions. However, we did not have a platform to help us, firstly, get a singular view of our engaged consumers, secondly, visualize their engagement journey with the brand and, lastly, automate communication tasks that can guide consumers on their purchase journey. Not being a direct-to-consumer brand, we also required platforms through which we can bridge the gap between intent and purchase by bringing our channel partners online. We felt the need for a solution that can help us understand all these factors and build a seamless experience for our consumers.

Q. Which tech solution are you using and why?

As part of the process, we evaluated multiple platforms, including some of the leading players in the industry, and the key reason for implementing Oracle CX was its ability to provide a singular view of the consumer across marketing and service platforms. In a category that requires an expert to guide new consumers, Oracle allows us to seamlessly transition consumers through their journey from building intent via automated communication through Responsys to hand holding them through their on-boarding process for contact lenses. Plus, we already had a strong relationship of trust with Oracle since we have been using the ERP solution for quite some time. 

Q. Is this implementation a part of your overall digital transformation journey and how have you planned it ahead?

Oracle CX sits at the heart of our digital engagement framework. With its ability to capture intents and actions, we have been able to derive a lot of valuable insights about category behavior that have helped us bring huge efficiencies in our digital spends. Through the platform, alongside Responsys, we have been able to run smarter campaigns, increase engagement, drive higher conversion rates and, ultimately, cut down our acquisition cost. And this is just the starting point. Apart from continuously driving efficiencies, we are also looking at expanding the framework to allow us to build and influence the digital purchase journey of our consumers, while ensuring that we bring our channel partners in the loop. 

Q. What are the business benefits- qualitatively and/or quantitatively? Is there any transformation in specific tasks within your business functions that you have observed?

While the implementation is pretty recent, we have seen some very encouraging early results. With Oracle CX and Responsys, our acquisition cost have reduced by up to 80% with impact coming both directly and indirectly. With all of our marketing efforts focused on acquiring new consumers, these early results have surely been transformative and have given us the confidence to scale up even during tough times. But beyond just hard efficiency numbers, we have been able deliver more engaging campaigns through insights on category behavior and personalized communication.