Amazon started as an online bookseller, and in relatively short order has changed the face of retail, not only by shaking up online commerce but by driving other retailers to completely transform how they present the in-person shopping experience. Today, the likes of Target — via shopping cart GPS and curbside pickup — and Nordstrom — introducing stores with no merchandise — are blurring the lines between digital and physical worlds, a fact driven purely by rising customer expectations associated with Amazon’s success.

In a world where retailers are shuttering their brick-and-mortars at a rapid rate while Amazon soars, the only true solution to staying afloat is competing on experience. Marketers understand that they must compete on experience these days. Here’s why: Companies globally lose $300 billion a year because of bad experiences — and over the next five years, $800 billion will shift in the retail, financial services and healthcare industries from those that can’t deliver good experience to the 15% that are getting personalization right.

So, what steps can retailers take to ensure they are part of that 15%? The smartest retailers are curbing the tide by focusing on customer-centricity with an omnichannel approach. For them, competing on experience means operationalizing vast amounts of quality data, applying technologies like machine learning and AI to personalize at scale (and ditching macro-segmented marketing) and orchestrating intelligently across a growing number of touchpoints.

Data At The Heart Of Exceptional Experiences

According to research, retailers that focus on omnichannel experiences — those in which online research and in-store merchandise are integrated and customers are targeted with offers through a variety of channels — drive greater customer spend and increased loyalty. Simply put: Retailers that blend online and traditional retail outperform those that do not. Of course, understanding customer behaviors and preferences is vital to a successful online/offline approach, and it all lies in quality customer data accessible wherever and whenever retailers need it.

Moreover, retailers are increasingly fortifying their omnichannel efforts by adopting an open garden approach to marketing technology, which empowers marketers to innovate their customer experience while overcoming traditional technical barriers. Open gardens provide flexibility to leverage existing technologies and freely interact with new ones, to create un-siloed, unified customer profiles, interact with customers across channels and ensure data consistency. This flexibility is a key component to driving a personalized customer experience.

Customer-centric retail is heading toward more sophisticated uses of data; namely more advanced analytics, natural language processing and bots and an increased use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, all of which will combine to create a more personalized customer experience. According to Forrester (registration required), intelligent agents will influence 10% of purchase decisions in the coming year. Combining these agents with the customer experience will transform how we understand personalization in customer interactions and drive customer retention. Retailers need to be able to seamlessly integrate these new technologies into their marketing stacks in order to create value for their organizations.