The Future of Customer Experience? MACH Architecture

Today’s eCommerce industry is constantly evolving and finding new ways to satisfy customer needs is key to eCommerce success. Businesses must exceed customer expectations and deliver exceptional customer service to stand out from the competition.. A high-quality CX can improve conversion rates and increase revenue. That is where MACH architecture comes into play.

In this article, you’ll find out what customers expect from CX in online shopping and how MACH architecture can satisfy your customers’ needs.

How does customer experience influence commerce?

Customer experience is the driving force behind any successful eCommerce business. Let’s find out how CX influences the retail industry.

Customer Experience Statistics

In customer-centric commerce, speed and responsiveness are more crucial to your customers than ever before.

Here are some statistics from Deloitte’s “Milliseconds Make Millions“ report, proving that you’ll need to improve the CX to build a thriving eCommerce business.

• 61% of customers have stopped buying from a company because a competitor provided a better experience.

• 70% of consumers acknowledge that page load speed affects their willingness to shop from retailers.

• 59% of customers are willing to pay more for a great experience.

What do Customers Expect from eCommerce Retailers?

To create a remarkable customer experience, you need to know what your clients expect in the first place. Here are some core elements that make up customer experience in eCommerce:

• Personalized content. To stand out, brands must come up with unique experiences tailored to their clients’ needs. Customers expect individual collections, customized offers, and custom-made suggestions.

• Great mobile experience. A smooth, agile mobile experience is a prerequisite for mobile conversions. Sluggish loading times and a lack of mobile-first architecture make shoppers spend more time and less money on mobile.

• Lightning-fast performance. The probability of bounce grows by 90% as page load time goes from 1s to 5s. A 0.1s difference in load speed can influence the customer experience. Deloitte reports that speed improvement of 0.1s translates into 10% more customer spendings.

How can you meet these expectations? MACH architecture is a great solution.

What is MACH?

MACH stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless. This approach focuses on composability and allows you to build a complete IT ecosystem piece by piece, to align with business and customer requirements.‍

The fundamental idea behind MACH architecture is modularity. It lets businesses integrate new technologies without the need for a major re-platforming project. MACH allows merchants to choose the best tech on the market to create the eCommerce ecosystem suited to their needs. In MACH architecture, every element is scalable and replaceable.

Now, let’s take a closer look at each element of the MACH acronym.

Microservices‍

“M“ stands for microservices, as the MACH approach is “microservices-based.“

It implies that individual apps comprising the eCommerce system are separately developed, deployed, and managed. A specific microservice is created to play a particular role, for example, delivering product search reviews, checkout, wish lists, etc.

API-first‍

All components in the MACH architecture communicate via an Application Programming Interface (API), which enables smooth and fast data flow.‍ API is accountable for transmitting and accepting requests for the required data.

Cloud-native SaaS

Cloud-native SaaS implies that the end user doesn’t need to worry about development - the SaaS provider does that. This approach doesn’t require installation or maintenance, as updates occur automatically without downtime, sometimes without licensing expenses or other fees. Cloud infrastructure delivers refined scaling abilities to fulfill growth needs when the time comes.

Headless

A headless approach is founded on decoupling the frontend and backend layers of the system. It enables businesses to integrate different solutions to create a perfect eCommerce stack. MACH replaces legacy monolith systems with a headless architecture. There are endless opportunities for personalization and faster time-to-market that come with headless architecture.

How does MACH architecture drive customer experience?

Now that you know what MACH architecture is, let’s find out how it can help improve customer experience in your online store.

Delivering premium CX is easier with headless architecture

MACH architecture allows you to implement one change at a time. That means you can address and improve your most significant pain points straight away.

Headless commerce enriches your current customer touchpoints with more seamless processes, precise data and efficient scalability - whether it’s your eCommerce website or a mobile app.

That means you can deliver a more satisfactory customer experience and drive conversion rates and sales. And as your company grows and customer needs shift over time, headless architecture allows you to react and adapt to changes quickly, facilitating ease when adding new processes and solutions to further improve your CX.

In headless commerce, frontend is a “head“ of the whole eCommerce stack. It’s where all composable elements meet and where the entire customer journey happens. This is why you need to ensure lightning-fast, mobile-first experiences to drive your customer experience. How can you do that without spending long months on custom frontend development? Frontend as a Service is the solution.

Frontend as a Service provides eCommerce businesses with a one-stop-shop solution for building performant storefronts, using just one tool. For enterprise commerce that wants to provide a differentiating, elevated customer experience, Frontend as a Service (FEaaS) solutions like Vue Storefront enable lightning-fast page loads to achieve better conversion rates and higher revenue.

API-first approach to building software enables eCommerce businesses to be more customer-centric

The benefits of the MACH approach are not limited to performance. A decoupled frontend makes the UI layer more flexible, giving marketers, product designers, and frontend developers freedom in UX/UI design.

Today, an omnichannel strategy is essential for business relevancy and scalability. An API-based connection to the backend layer of the system allows businesses to serve the content through one default channel and distribute it to different devices like desktops, smartphones, wearables, and any “smart“ devices.

Microservices enhance CX

Microservices divide all business elements into individual micro-apps. Each element can be created, tested, and deployed individually, without causing any disruption to the wider system. When you need to apply changes to your website, the customer experience stays intact.

A decentralized development process allows you to experiment with different ideas and implement new functionality for customers before your competitors do.

The cloud-native approach speeds up the CX improvement process

Coupling microservices with an API-led and cloud-native solution strategy enables companies to be more agile, allowing them to innovate faster and prepare for future market disruptions.

Cloud technologies like cloud hosting provide the ability to scale at pace, adding new sites, systems, and functionality without slowing everything else down in the process. And as we know, speed is what customers expect in the first place.

The bottom line

Customer experience plays a crucial part in the success of any eCommerce business. Consumers expect personalized content, lightning-fast performance, and a great mobile experience. MACH architecture allows companies to build the perfect set of solutions that satisfy those requirements. MACH technology will be the best choice if you want to drive your customer experience.