If social commerce and Web3 have you feeling uncertain, you’re not alone. Many leaders we talk to are either overwhelmed and waiting it out, excited but unsure of how to get started, or moving fast and hoping for the best. All sides make perfect sense. After all, these spaces are new enough to feel unproven and filled with so many possibilities that it can be hard to know which bets to make.
We believe it’s time to look past these hesitations. As Peter Drucker said, “the best way to overcome hesitation is to build your future.”
And the best way to build toward a successful future is by balancing your risks with enough opportunities to win.
Health plan data enables you to understand who is not getting care that could, and who is getting inpatient care but could
use virtual health — and maybe even prefer it.
of clinical trials
are delayed or closed
because of problems
with recruitment.
approximately
80%
of potential patients live
more than two hours away
from existing
study centers.
70%
Clinical trial populations typically are not (e.g., ~72 percent white), according to a report from the FDA.
48%
of U.S. adults have ever seen
an advertisement for one.
less than
Insights
Decoding Social
Commerce & Web 3
As you plan for growth, take stock
of your significant latent asset: the best existing set of health data for patient populations of anyone in the
health ecosystem.
Consumers have made the call. They want to buy products wherever they are, without leaving their platform of choice. This increasingly means selling through social media, where the data shows significant potential. About 2 billion people, or 64% of all social media users, report making purchases spurred by social content or offers . The #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag demonstrates social media’s power as a product discovery engine, attracting billions of views.
Some brands are uniquely positioned to take advantage of social selling. For example, Stella and Dot equip “ambassadors” – their distributed sales force – with tools to build online jewelry and accessories stores they can connect to their own social networks. Brands with large and varied product catalogs and significant brick-and-mortar infrastructures face bigger hurdles when choosing the most strategic path forward. Many, like Macy’s, Zales, and Bed Bath & Beyond are starting with influencer shops, where personally curated product lists can help turn followers into customers.
Regardless of the strategy and tactics you choose, the trend to include social commerce as part of an overall sales strategy remains strong. Forecasts suggest the use of social commerce will increase by 30% in the next eight years.
Unlocking the Value of the Fastest-Growing Sales Channel
You can do a lot to generate demand and drive high-volume custom orders to your user-friendly mobile channel:
Create higher demand for custom orders on mobile
Keep the big picture in view
Building on your wealth of member data and relationships,
health plans might take inspiration from the “safe driver”
apps offered by many automobile insurers.
When custom orders
fail to deliver
3 of 3
2 of 3
1 of 3
Bad data
If your POS system doesn’t offer a quick solution to accommodate a long line of custom orders, employees will find workarounds in their effort to satisfy the customer. Such ad libs cause data issues downstream that can distort sales insights, leading to inventory and financial forecasting challenges. Inaccurate order placement leaves you without a clear picture of what’s selling, and where to take your business and offerings next.
Frustrated employees and high turnover.
In companies with high-volume and highly customized orders, poor intake experiences lead to employees struggling with a key part of their jobs. In today’s tight labor market, high turnover can make custom order training extremely challenging and expensive. Many companies have a higher percentage of new employees than ever, with scarce institutional knowledge about customization. Frustration at the employees level inevitably translates to the customer experience—and can lead to even more employee turnover.
Negative customer experiences.
While customers turn to digital channels for better control of their custom orders, their experiences are often less than intuitive. Uncertainty about the final product runs high—especially if employees have to ad lib parts of the order fulfillment process along the way.
And problems at the order-intake stage often lead to disappointments at delivery.
Companies that rely solely on their own frontline workforce to take and fulfill custom orders face common friction points and problems.
Prototyping Your Way to Success
Leverage market segmentation and geo-targeting to identify which customers are most likely to transition to mobile.
Consider redirecting marketing dollars toward mobile adoption efforts. There are many levers you can apply to move traffic, redirect channel usage, and identify customers most likely to use your mobile experience.
Leverage in-store signage and store employees to help educate customers on the ease and convenience of mobile devices and your mobile channel.
Make your mobile web and PWA (progressive web app) experiences just as robust as your app, so that customers have a great experience in any digital channel regardless of where they choose to engage.
Building Awareness and Engagement With New Audiences in New Ways
While some brands are trying new things, most have not gotten off the blocks. While the reasons are varied, the most common is simply not knowing how or where to start.
Uncertainty is compounded by the fact that most brands simply don’t have the bandwidth or relevant skills to figure it out. Faced with a historically tight (and expensive) labor market, supply chain issues, and macro-economic concerns, leaders are consumed by existing initiatives.
In addition, there’s a perception that this realm may be too niche or only popular among the gamer crowd. This leads to limiting beliefs that social commerce and Web3 may just be a passing fad, making it harder to recognize their increasingly broad acceptance and potential.
As a result, waiting can seem like the safest bet. But choosing analysis over action comes with risks, including missed connection with the rising affluence of younger audiences, the ability to establish yourself and evolve based on early lessons learned, and negative impacts on valuation due to lack of innovation.
On the other side, jumping in and picking poorly brings its own set of risks, from wasted time and funds to poor team morale and retention to appearing tone-deaf and turning off potential customers.
Navigating Uncharted Territory
AT A GLANCE
of American consumers order takeout or delivery at least once a week.
60%
Here are some practical steps that will help you get started with clarity, evaluate results, and minimize risk.
Moving Forward With Reduced Risk
The retail market has already made the call – social commerce and Web3 are gaining momentum and offering real opportunities for brands that get it right. By all indications and metrics, these spaces will define the digital customer experience of the future. It’s time to get started, find the right partners to support your journey, and place a series of small bets that will stack the odds in your favor down the road.
The Bottom Line
of consumers abandon online shopping carts due to delivery times that just aren’t fast enough.
50%
use third-party delivery services at least twice a week
31%
Restaurant Online Ordering Statistics
online ordering is growing 300% faster then in-house dining.
300%
Web3 represents yet another future-focused opportunity for leading brands, and many are already realizing value by minting NFTs and setting up shop in the metaverse.
The space represents a confluence of technologies built upon the foundation of blockchain. Transactions on the blockchain are visible to everyone, providing a new and transparent way for things of value – like bitcoin or NFTs – to be held securely.
While NFTs can feel like a new phenomenon, most of us have already experienced something very similar in the form of digital tickets. Generally, a ticketing organization such as Ticketmaster sells guests access to an event via a QR code, which represents a type of NFT. The digital ticket allows guests access based on the value guaranteed by the digital system behind it – a database that says the ticket is valid and unused. If someone attempts to copy the image and use it a second time, the system will show that it's invalid.
Brands as disparate as Nike, Pizza Hut, Gucci and Coca-Cola have all placed bets on Web3. For example, Gucci is harnessing the power of the metaverse to build affinity and gain relevance among emerging Gen Z customers. Their partnership with Roblox brings them into an immersive virtual world, where customer avatars can interact with the brand and its products as a part of their self-expression.
Julie Smith
by
BACK TO Insights
Jesse Burns
and
Why Now?
We are at a significant inflection point in the digital customer experience evolution, and the transformation is only accelerating. Waiting it out could mean losing ground you won’t be able to re-gain later and potentially being deemed irrelevant by Gen Z consumers.
New opportunities are exploding in two broad, interconnected categories:
Remember the .com days of the mid-90s? And the rise of e-commerce and user-generated content in the early days of Web2? The promise of social commerce and Web3 is at least as significant for brands nimble enough to reimagine their customer experience. Many are already gaining ground, establishing relevance, and building affinity with new audiences.
Successful social commerce or Web3 initiatives require a fundamental shift in thinking. Although many organizations have become more comfortable talking about failure’s role in innovation, most have yet to walk the talk. Social commerce and Web3 present an opportunity to embrace the concept of failing fast.
We recommend taking lessons from the venture capital world, where there’s a clear understanding and expectation that most ventures fail. They are willing to lose – sometimes up to six out of ten times – because they know that the winners will more than cover any misses along the way.
Some of the most innovative companies also minimize risk by metering funding, establish sunset timelines on projects and ensure financial commitments are commensurate with milestone achievements.
Working with a strategic partner is another way to help lower risk and amplify the speed of success. A fresh, external perspective can help break the innovator’s dilemma, a pattern that holds leaders hostage to their existing, day-to-day business, limiting their ability to make space for new, innovative opportunities.
New Mindsets Accelerate Success
What are your ambitions for your social commerce and Web3 projects? What will fit with your brand and culture and what won’t? Having clear answers to questions like these will help narrow the field, align your team around shared intent,
and reduce questions down
the road.
Once the rules of engagement are understood and agreed upon, it’s time to ideate. In this stage you’re getting all the options out on the table and building a menu of projects to pursue.
Rather than jumping to a six-month pilot, start with metered funding. We recommend multiple, small tests you can evaluate as
you go. Here's some criteria to consider when designing tests:
Compare your test results based on current value, expected future value, timeframe, and potential risk to see which projects come out on top.
About 2 billion people, or 64% of all social media users, report making purchases spurred by social content or offers.
Successful social commerce or Web3 initiatives require a fundamental shift
in thinking.
Where brands have gone beyond marketing to sell products and services through social media channels
Where consumers create, share, and interact in a decentralized online ecosystem that leverages blockchain technologies, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
Establish Guardrails
1
Map Your
Innovation Portfolio
2
Test and Learn
3
What will it take to validate your assumptions?
How expensive will testing be and how long will it take?
How confident will you be in the answers the test returns?
Evaluate Test Results
4
Social Commerce
Web3
