Maxis officially unveiled its brand new concept store at The Gardens Mid Valley on Tuesday, featuring a new design language and personalised digital experience for customers.
I missed the launch proper but happened to visit the new store the day before. I must say I found the experience refreshing and cool. I like the new look—a lot less corporate, much younger with a “hipper” vibe to it.
The moment you step in, it feels more of a retail store than a conventional telco service centre. There are no rows of counters or terminals, aside from a single cashier terminal. Maxis personnel are mobile and roam the store to serve customers. This is possible with the use of MPOS (Mobile Point-of-Sale) and wireless biometrics, I discovered. It instantly reminded me of the Apple Retail Store.
I’m greeted and ushered by a Maxis personnel to a large vertical digital screen where I’m prompted to scan a barcode to launch M.I.R.A or Maxis Interactive Retail Assistant. It’s a first-of-its-kind web app that gives me a queue number and also displays Maxis promos, customised offers and more.
The app also showed me the details of the Maxis personnel who would be serving me, which I thought was pretty neat.
The customer service counter, if you could call it that, looked more like a chillout café, even with a barista. I was at the store to get my SIM card changed to an eSIM, and I was done in about five minutes.
I hung around the store for a bit though. I noticed a gaming area with Razer hardware and accessories.
There’s a demo area for smartphones and they’re cable-free. This is possible through RFID-based wireless security. There are voice-activated giant screens where Maxis personnel can share comparisons of different devices available in the store. I’m told that it’s the first retail store in the world with a combined giant LED screen and 11 units of 98-inch screens all in one setting.
The concept store uses retail analytics tool to help Maxis understand customers better—to deliver more personalised engagement, including customer demographics and sentiment, customers’ time in-store, customer journey and zonal engagement.
Maxis said the store was built to be modular, so it can be scaled and interchangeable, to cater to the evolving needs of shoppers.
“Our brand new concept store is an important part of our long term ambition, which is built around three key focus areas – our ability to cater to the evolving digital lifestyles of everyone, providing a differentiated and unmatched personalised experience, and evolving our culture towards higher levels of innovation and efficiency. With our relentless innovation and deep understanding of our customers’ needs and behaviours, this store not only sets benchmarks for the telco industry, but for the entire retail industry in Malaysia. This is a game changer, and we are proud to be building something valuable for all our customers. We are really excited to unlock the potential and possibilities of an Internet-enabled life, with a new experience that compliments the digitally-empowered customer,” said Gokhan Ogut, Maxis’ Chief Executive Officer at the official launch.
A game changer indeed. Ultimately, it’s about delivering a digitalised, personalised experience to the customer, and which helps the brand to stay competitive as well as catering to ever evolving consumer trends.
