Bain & Company: GCC & Egypt’s Beauty E-Commerce Market Valued at USD 1 Billion;
Chalhoub Group Personalizes Customer Journeys with Salesforce Customer 360 platform
By ; Nelly All
Leading luxury retailer Chalhoub Group announced today a digital transformation agreement with Salesforce, the global leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), to enhance customer e-commerce experiences amid the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Egypt’s beauty and personal care e-commerce market is valued at USD 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 has accelerated its digital transformation to meet customer needs and to deliver on e-commerce expectations. Chalhoub Group has more than 125 companies, partners, and affiliates, and 600 retail stores across 14 countries.
In 2020, Chalhoub Group has already launched digital commerce experiences for 3 brands -- Make Up For Ever, Yves Saint Lauren (YSL), and Swarovski.
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 personalize customer journeys across chat, email, social media, and WhatsApp.
“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.”
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 personalized 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 personalize 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.
“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.”
