CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT                 

Customer Engagement Strategy 

BJC have always strived to meet the daily needs of all customers, evident from the corporate value Customer at Heart, which includes commitments to treat customers first, go the extra mile to exceed expectations and to provide the best value & quality with efficiently outstanding services and speed. The commitment derived from BJC’s recognition of customers influence as a fundamental driver to BJC’s success, which enables long-term and sustainable growth for BJC and relevant stakeholders, therefore a strong relationship with customers, formed through effective customer engagement remains to be a key component of BJC’s operations, despite the many challenges faced throughout the years of operations.

Through BJC's operations, it continuously faces new disruptions caused by various economical, sociological and environmental influences, the business-as-usual approach to engage with customers is no longer effective and limited through various safety and lockdown procedures to control the spread of the virus, and shifting customer behavior and expectations. In order to manage this change, BJC have since increased the reliance and utilization of digital technologies, forever redefining business processes and customer relationship management strategies.

BJC also acknowledges the actual and potential negative and positive impacts on the economy, environment, and people, including impacts on their human rights to no discrimination. Should BJC fail to effectively manage customer engagements, it risks facing a chain of negative consequences, including loss of customers, negative reputation and ultimately revenue, while a well-managed customer engagement will result in positive benefits such as customer loyalty, increase customers, and brand awareness to name a few. Despite the challenges presented from the evolving customer demands in the new market environment, BJC remains committed to continue fostering a robust customer relationship engagement, through active and customized customer management services to meet all customer’s everyday needs, and become a top-of-mind brand amongst customers.

Customer Engagement Approach

BJC deals with many forms of customers throughout the different supply chains, including both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customers (B2C), with the largest proportion of customers being B2C from the modern retail supply chain, where Big C operates. For this reason, B2C customer engagement is selected as the primary customer engagement procedure.

Evident from BJC’s mission to serve customers’ personal needs based on customer-centric and data-driven culture, BJC have longed prioritized a strong relationship with customers. Doing so comes with various challenges, as both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) customers and consumers continue to evolve according to the market environment. To effectively manage this, BJC complies with the Customer Relationship Management Process, a corporate-wide guideline developed by the Big C Marketing Department, overseen by the Big C Customer Relationship Management Department. The process provides BJC with a clear and comprehensive guideline to manage all customer complaints.

Customer Satisfaction

Big C have evaluated customer satisfaction since 2017, through the Voice of Customer (VOC) Program, collecting customer data using QR Codes, printed at the end of all customer shopping recipes or through a aonnection to Short Messaging Service (SMS). Providing customers with easy access customer satisfaction survay on their smartphones. When Big C recived notification of a dissatisfield customer, this infomation is passed on to the responsible department in order to identify the issue and improvement opportunities, which are conducted through a close-loop feedback service, where relevant department communicates with the customer in question to inform them that the issue is being investigated accordingly. BJC utilized this data as a primary method to consolidates data and analysis customer's needs in each supply chain, enabling BJC to developed high-quality products and services which meets the needs to all customers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Note: Data coverage 100% of consumers surveyed                                                          

BJC interprets the results of the 2022 voice of Customer (VOC) by analyzing four key criteria's 1) Staff, 2) Product, 3) Price and Promotions, and 4) Facility, with a total of 33 sub-matters. Furthermore, the analysis also onsiders both positive and negative customer perspectives, where BJC aims to improve the negative, while it maintains and improves the positive to go beyond customers' expectation. The 2022 results indicate that 90% of all customer are satisfied with the current products, services, and overall experience at Big C. The results found that most customers expect BJC improve in four key areas including; to develop and improve the speed of services at the cashier point, offer more benefits for members, increase the varieties of shops in the plaza area and maintain sufficient products stock on shelves.

Cascaded from BJC Big C's continued emphasis to meet customer expectation and commitment to deliver high product safety and quality beyond expectations. This is implemented through categorization of identified issues into short-, medium- and long-term improvement plans, depending on the type of issue, duration of work and budget requirements, such as development of service training of store employee and improve member benefits and improve all Big C branches through renovations. 

Over the past year, short-, medium- and long-term improvement implemented such as improved accuracy of cashier's staff in transactions, reduced number of out-of-stock products, as well as improved quality of fresh food were met with positive responses from customers, compared to feedback from previous years. Yet, BJC remain committed to continue its improvements to meet the shortcoming in the past reporting year, which has caused the VOC result results to lag from previous years. 

Customer Complaint and Grievance Management

Regardless of the changes in the market environment, BJC remains committed to serve all customers and consumers with the highest products and services which are safe and of high quality as possible, and respects the view and opinions of all customers, recognizing this feedback as an importance source of information which enables BJC to better meet the customer daily needs. 

For this reason, BJC continue to utilize the various established transparent and inclusive grievance channels for customers to voice their views, and opinions and report any safety and quality concerns, questions or suspected violations regarding BJC's products and through the provided channels, which will be promptly identified and remediated by the quality assurance department or accountable department in accordance with the complaint.

Beyond this, BJC also established a clear and transparent Grievance Management procedure, guided by BJC's value to the views, opinions, and feedback from all customers. In 2022, through the analysis of customer feedback consolidated through various channels, BJC found that customer are reporting complaints related to, customer service of employees, product labeling add price tags, and location and branch facilities. All complaints are sent to relevant branch managers to remediate within an appropriate timeframe, and in collaboration with relevant customers (if applicable), to elevate BJC Big C products and services and meet customer needs. 

Big C Shopping Online

Online Business: The online retail market has grown significantly in the last year as a result of the Covid19 situation at the start of the year. Subsequently, customers’ purchasing behavior has changed. Customers who were already shopping online increased their purchases, while customers who have no prior online shopping experience started to purchase consumer goods through the online channel. Hence, the Company has been working continuously to develop Big C online platform, increase the amount and types of products offered, connect every purchase channel through Big C stores, and scale the benefits of online retailing.

1. Big C Online highlights its selling point—“Easy order and fast delivery. Everything you need.”  making it stand out from its competitors. The Company focuses on selling the same products at the same price and promotion as the Big C Supercenter through its website, www.bigc.co.th, and Big C application which acts as a digital hub combining online shopping functionalities, Big Points, and Big Wallet together. Big C Online leverages Big C’s physical store network, which is spread across the country, to deliver products to its online customers. Customers can choose to pick up their orders and complete their payments at a branch near them using the “Click-and-collect” service. On the other hand, customers may also select the “Home Delivery” service to have their purchase delivered to their home all at once. Big C Online offers over 47,000 products for its customers, ranging from fresh foods, household products, furniture, electronic appliances, and products from Pure Pharmacy. Last year, Big C Online expanded its home delivery service to 60 more provinces with Big C stores. Additionally, customers in Bangkok and the greater Bangkok area may choose to use the “Express Delivery” service to have their purchase delivered to their home within an hour via motorcycle; a method that matches the customer’s busy lifestyle.

2. Marketplace Platform Big C has sale channels on Shopee and Lazada, which are marketplace platforms with the highest number of users in Thailand, to facilitate customers in purchasing items from Big C anywhere and anytime. Customers can shop for consumer goods and electronic appliances from Big C and have the items delivered to their home. Moreover, Big C works with HappyFresh, Food Panda, and Nasket. In addition, the Company also offers services through Grab Mart during the year to provide express home delivery service, providing year another channel for Big C customers to satisfy their shopping needs.

3. Cross-Border E-Commerce Platform: In December 2021, Big C has piloted the selling of products to Chinese customers through its storefront in the WeChat application, China’s super app with over 1.2 billion users. Chinese customers can shop for best-selling healthcare and beauty products, pay via WeChat Pay, and receive their package of purchased items sent directly from Thailand. Therefore, Chinese customers can trust that products from Big C are authentic.

4. Social Commerce through Call-Chat-Shop service. Covid-19 situation made it inconvenient for consumers to shop at Big C in usual manner. As a result, Big C launched the Call-Chat-Shop service to enhance customers’ safety. Later on Big C found that customers still prefer to shop through this channel even after the situation got better. Therefore, Big C extended its service to every one of its branches, including Mini Big C, Pure Pharmacy, and wholesale. In addition Big C also sells products via Facebook Live to make it more entertaining for customers, each branch will invite customers in their area to purchase products with a great promotional deal. Furthermore, in December 2021, Big C arranged a TV shopping program, “Show, Seize, Shop”, where customers can watch the program and make their order immediately through Big C’s Facebook messaging. This approach provides a new seamless sale channel bridging the offline and online platforms together.

In 2022, Big C Online won the Best Use of AI in CX at the RESHAPE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AWARDS 2022. This award honors the marketing initiative that demonstrates the most effective use of AI and/or machine learning to drive real-time individualization and provide a tailored customer experience.