Retail group JD Group, a local retail and consumer finance business with brands including Incredible Connection, HiFi Corp, Bradlows, Rochester, Russells, Sleepmasters and Connect Financial Solutions, has enabled smarter, multichannel customer engagement to improve customer experience, with a Sinch solution implemented by its partner Consnet.

Consnet, a specialist customer engagement and commerce implementation partner, deployed Sinch communications platform as a service (CPaaS) integrated with SAP Service Cloud to give JD Group’s customers multi-channel customer engagement with context. Sinch also enabled JD Group to implement a bot that provides additional services on both Webchat and WhatsApp.

Johan van Zijl, Customer Engagement and Commerce specialist at Consnet, says JD Group previously had a legacy CRM and contact centre solution, which were not integrated and only supported voice and e-mail. A standalone system was used for Webchat. “This led to inefficiencies in customer service and prevented a single view of all customer interactions. They needed a platform that could provide a uniform customer experience across channels,” he says.

The new system makes it easier for customers to engage with the group and gives agents a single view of all previous interactions and enterprise resource planning (ERP) transactions, including credit information, sales orders, history of all communications and direct breakouts to the backend where more information is required. “Empowering agents with the right information during customer engagement provides operational efficiencies,” he notes.

Andre Odendaal, Senior Sales Solutions Engineer (EMEA) at Sinch, adds: “By collaborating with a reputable solution partner like Consnet, Sinch seamlessly delivered a comprehensive solution for JD Group that seamlessly integrated with their existing technology stack. Using Sinch CPaaS automation technologies, Consnet was able to simplify business processes and workflows to handle repetitive and manual tasks and reduce unnecessary complexity and bottlenecks, making it easier for employees to perform their tasks and for the organisation to deliver its products and services timeously to its clients. Working together we ensured the least amount of client downtime by utilising specifically built development platforms to test various scenarios and ensure that the solution caters for all use cases before implementation.”

Ryan Miller, Sales Lead for Africa and Israel at Sinch, says Sinch believes it is crucial to work with solution partners who are familiar with their markets, to ensure Sinch’s CPaaS solutions meet customer needs.

“Sinch’s partnership with Consnet, as an implementation partner for our CPaaS products, enhances the overall sales and distribution network,” he says. “Importantly, our advanced solutions often require expertise for integration into a specific business environment or third-party applications. Consnet is a specialist SAP Implementation Partner and therefore it makes sense for them to resell the Sinch CPaaS offering with its native integrations into SAP CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions to the local market, bringing their own set of skills and market expertise to our clients.”

The project

Through solution partner Consnet, Sinch seamlessly delivered a comprehensive solution that integrated with JD Group’s existing technology stack. Using Sinch CPaaS automation technologies, Consnet was able to simplify business processes and workflows to handle repetitive and manual tasks and reduce unnecessary complexity and bottlenecks, making it easier for employees to perform their tasks and for the organisation to deliver its products and services timeously to their clients.

During the project design processes, Odendaal and Consnet staff worked seamlessly together to minimise client downtime by utilising specifically built development platforms to test various scenarios and ensure that the solution would cater for all use cases before implementation.

Miller says: “Consnet holds accreditation in both CRM and ERP solutions, and offers several advantages to its partners, primarily to simplify the project and enhance its overall success. The tailored, integrated solution meets JD Group’s specific needs and revolutionises day-to-day operations management for JD Group, ultimately supporting improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.”

The solution saw the implementation of Sinch’s multi-channel cloud contact centre solution (Contact Pro) and its Chatlayer chatbot serving on both web and social communication channels, including WhatsApp. This meant clients could be served on their channel of choice and the Sinch Conversation API enables real-time conversations between a business and its customer across multiple channels. To keep JD Group customers up to date with their orders and deliveries, the Sinch SMS REST API communication platform was also implemented for one-to-one communication between agent and customer.