Elly Yates-Roberts |
Ensuring a good customer experience is the number one rule in retail. When brands let this slide, they lose the loyalty of their customers and their revenue with it.
When outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia realised that using several systems across its sales channels was causing major issues for its customer experience, it knew that something needed to change.
A customer coming to a Patagonia store to pick up an online order experienced a disconnected experience where the retail associate had no way of finding any information about the original, online purchase. On top of this, the internal IT and tax teams were burdened with constantly trying to maintain these systems. To improve the customer experience, Patagonia decided to align all of its systems into one, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 was the solution. Shelley Chase, international director of tax at Patagonia, and her team worked with Vertex to implement the suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management applications to create a more connected experience for the brand’s customers and internal teams.
Chase knew that she had to streamline their systems to enable them to talk to each other. To do this, they implemented Dynamics 365 for ERP, order management and retail. Patagonia also integrated Vertex Indirect Tax O Series On-Demand with the point-of-sale system so every retail store can ship anywhere in the country, and calculate the correct sales tax on every transaction, significantly reducing audit risk.
“Because our tax solutions integrate with these Dynamics 365 platforms, and even Patagonia’s front-end Salesforce platform, Patagonia can now benefit from a single source of truth when it comes to tax,” said Arun Raghavan, Product Manager Principal, Vertex. “As the company grows, teams can save time, risk and effort they were spending on their former tax process.”
By working with Vertex, Patagonia has eliminated a significant workload that was draining its tax and IT departments. It has been able to deliver a true, seamless omnichannel experience for customers and increased efficiency, reduced costs and minimised risk.
“For Patagonia, the seamless customer experience was really the key to success,” said Arun Raghavan, Product Manager Principal, Vertex. “Patagonia customers get a full omnichannel experience whether they’re shopping online or visiting a retail store. The experience is seamless and modern, which is something that sets Patagonia apart from its competitors.”
This article was originally published in the Winter 21/22 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.