EC News DeskLuxury retailer Chalhoub Group has announced a digital transformation agreement with Salesforce to enhance customer e-commerce experiences amid the Covid-19 pandemic. GCC and Egypt’s beauty and personal care e-commerce market is valued at $1 billion, according to Bain & Company. In anticipation of its growth, and to meet customers’ shift to e-commerce amid the Covid-19 coronavirus, Chalhoub Group continued to accelerate its digital transformation to become a hybrid retailer, meet customer needs across channels and offer luxury experiences at the fingertips of consumers everywhere. Chalhoub Group has more than 700 retail stores across 9 countries.
In 2020, Chalhoub Group has already launched digital commerce experiences for 6 brands with Salesforce, including Yves Saint Lauren beauty, Make Up For Ever, Faces, Swarovski, Tory Burch, Tanagra with more launches in the pipeline. Working with the channel partners Changi Consulting and Emakina, Chalhoub Group continued its digital transformation by adopting the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud to drive e-commerce, and personalise customer journeys across chat, email, social media, and WhatsApp.
In response to customer demands, Chalhoub Group worked with Molton Brown to create a luxury handwash and hand care set, and also launched a digital concierge service to virtually connect customers with makeup artists, and perfume and skincare experts from the comfort and safety of their homes. Chalhoub Group has also doubled down on customer engagement via WhatsApp, with rapid responses and personalised recommendations on one of the region’s most popular social communication platforms.
Chalhoub Group is also leveraging AI from Salesforce’s with Einstein, built-in intelligent solutions to personalise customer journeys, offer product recommendations, and implement Einstein Bots to ease the load on customer service agents by automating routine requests, which enables agents to handle more complex issues. Chalhoub Group is leveraging MuleSoft to unlock and unify data throughout the customer journey, creating connected customer experiences in e-commerce, services, and retail stores with an API-led approach. With MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform, Chalhoub Group is able to accelerate speed of delivery and time-to-market, while reducing complexity and maintenance, and dependencies on legacy integration tools.
“As the Middle East’s e-commerce market reaches record highs, digital transformation is a necessity for retailers to rapidly adapt to the Covid-19 era,” said Kristof Lukovich, Head of Digital for the Beauty Vertical, Chalhoub Group. “At Chalhoub Group, our digital transformation with Salesforce is enabling us to listen to our customers and help them to maintain beauty and health at home. Chalhoub Group aims to be helpful and empathetic, and delighting customers through memorable experiences.”
“Recent events have accelerated the shift to e-commerce within the Middle East’s fast-paced retail sector,” said Thierry Nicault, Regional Vice-President, Middle East, Africa and Central Europe, Salesforce. “The Salesforce Customer 360 platform has enabled Chalhoub Group to respond quickly to the changing environment with a robust digital customer strategy that enables the group to respond to their customers across any timezone, location or device and deliver outstanding customer experiences.”
