How ACFC’s Vision for Customer Engagement Leads To Sustainable Growth

ACFC has been delighting Vietnamese fashionistas since 2009. The luxury fashion retailer is a member of the Imex Pan Pacific Group (IPPG), and markets more than 22 international fashion brands through a nationwide network of around 250 stores.

Despite building an impressive base of more than 2 million VIP customers, ACFC is striving to deliver even better customer experiences — both in-store and across digital channels. 

Louis Nguyen, CEO of ACFC, says the company is facing the same challenges most retailers are contending with in the digital era, particularly when it comes to connecting with digital-native Millenials and Gen Zers. 

“Young customers interact with brands not only through traditional channels like media and stores, but via multiple channels across physical and virtual spaces — from traditional e-commerce to live streaming and social commerce,” he says. 

“Customer needs and preferences change rapidly, and brands have to catch up with these changes as quickly as possible,” he explains. “We must use customer insights to understand customer needs, so we can offer them personalised products and services that are relevant to their needs in real time.”

Delivering a total customer experience

Smart brands are using digital transformation to put their customers at the heart of everything they do. Louis says ACFC’s digital transformation vision aims to empower sustainable growth as an omni-channel retailer with a customer-centric mindset.

“Technology solutions help bring more value to our customers, and bind them to the company,” he explains. “Technology also transforms our business from a traditional retailer into a new digital retailer with more revenue streams than ever thought possible.”

Louis believes successful customer engagement is the source of sustainable growth, but effective engagement must extend beyond product or service offerings and marketing communications. 

“We must deliver a total customer experience,” he says. “That means considering the feelings our customers have when visiting our bricks-and-mortar stores, ecommerce website and mobile app. They need to feel comfortable, at home with our brand, and that their specific needs and interests are understood.”

Chinh Dinh, CIO at ACFC who is directly responsible for the digital transformation of the business also shares the same vision as his CEO. Chinh works closely with executive directors and mid-level managers at ACFC to understand business needs and provide the technology initiatives that support business growth. He believes that for retailers to grow, they must be able to deliver personalised customer experiences.

Creating a 360-degree customer view

To achieve that, Chinh and his team have turned to Salesforce. They plan to use Customer 360 to build customer personas and deliver personalised customer experiences in real time. 

“ACFC aims to use Customer 360 to collect customer-related information, gaining insights that we can then use to serve our customers better through real-time personalised offerings,” he says. 

ACFC will draw on Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Interaction Studio and Datorama to build and deploy an integrated solution, with help from implementation partner Gimasys.

However, digital transformation doesn’t come without growing pains. Careful change management is often required to unify processes and people. 

“Digital transformation is our motivating force for change,” says Chinh. “However, with new technology adoption, business processes change. People also need to change to align with the new way of doing business.”

Managing change for success

Chinh says training the ACFC team on Salesforce via Trailhead is helping to ease that transition, and initial employee feedback has been positive. 

The critical element of a successful digital transformation, however, is a clear understanding of the reason for change. 

“Be clear when you communicate why you are doing the transformation. Have a clear strategy and roadmap, but be ready to employ the change management process,” Chinh explains. “Then you will need partners to support and help you through the long, difficult but interesting journey of digital transformation.”

Customer engagement is the new currency of success in the digital era, and customer-centric technologies are putting more personalisation power in the hands of brands. ACFC is using Salesforce to develop a customer-centric mindset and deliver complete customer experiences across all online and offline channels. 

To learn more about creating connected customer experiences, download The Secret to Seamless Service: Connected Channels ebook.

Find out how Customer 360 can help your brand deliver personalised customer experiences.