Headless commerce has taken the retail and consumer services worlds by storm, and the impressive growth shows no signs of slowing. The concept, which describes having a highly flexible and independent consumer-facing front-end layer on top of a company’s infrastructure and processes, has become enormously popular because it enables companies to create inviting and intuitive customer experiences free from limitations imposed by their underlying platforms.
Initially gaining prominence with content management systems (CMS), headless technology empowered companies to break free from the limitations of traditional CMS platforms, giving them unprecedented flexibility in content delivery across multiple channels. The model proved so effective that companies rapidly sought headless ecommerce platforms that enable them to customize shopping experiences, experiment more, and differentiate their shopping environment from competitors. It worked. And word gets around. Headless commerce systems are projected to become a $1.6 billion business by 2027.
Until now, headless tools have been focused on pre-sales experiences, and they’ve made exceptional contributions to conversion rates and customer acquisition. But why stop at the sale? It's time to extend these advantages throughout the entire customer journey. From enhancing customer support to increasing retention and upsell opportunities, headless customer service will create a flexible canvas for limitless innovation across every point of customer engagement.
Let's delve into the mechanics that make headless architectures potentially even more potent for enhancing post-sale customer experiences. At its architectural core, headless commerce rests on decoupling the user interface from the back-end services that power it. This separation isn't just about traditional systems like CRMs; it's especially transformative when applied to modern, microservices-based architectures. The real magic happens at the API layer. Whether you're using RESTful APIs or GraphQL, these technologies provide the backbone for a flexible, real-time data interchange between the front and back ends. The result? You can fix broken customer experiences, roll out feature updates, and optimize customer interactions without causing adverse ripple effects in your underlying systems.
Just as important: a headless layer speeds development so you can stay ahead of constantly rising customer expectations. When tech teams must find ways to manipulate multiple platforms and applications to deliver even “passable” customer interactions, the process often takes months – even more than a year. Plus, with these challenges, you need highly skilled full-stack developers who are both in short supply and probably NOT inspired by making customer-facing forms and other workflows. With headless, the underlying platforms stay focused on core tasks and processes, and the work can be done without involving your ablest and most expensive team members.
If your company faces challenges in delivering great customer experiences, it’s time to give yourself headless flexibility to build and deliver outstanding omnichannel customer experiences on top of your existing tech, no matter how complex.
As you explore options, keep these principles in mind:
- Focus on that highly flexible independent front-end layer: The key to a successful headless environment is a modular front-end that can easily be configured and integrated with relevant systems of record. By freeing it from the constraints of the rest of the tech stack, you’ll make the business more responsive, omnichannel, and agile.
- Use the APIs of your existing tools to power your front-end experience. Explore ways to integrate-once-and-reuse-in-multiple-experiences approach. Give yourself the ability to ingest data from company platforms to create personalized experiences — and flexibly collect data for your customer data platforms.
- Leverage open architecture to ensure back-end systems and workflows are accessible. That way, you’ll be able to update and add to your front-end as needed without creating silos, all while delivering great customer experiences quickly and cost-effectively.
- Build out your low-code development flywheel. Focus on design systems and core integrations needed to construct outstanding post-purchase experiences. By creating customizable templates for common post-sales use cases, you’ll speed dev cycles by adapting core assets to specific challenges and use cases.
Most importantly, learn from the companies and individual developers who have mastered headless commerce. They know where the pitfalls lie and how to build around them.
It’s time for more companies to apply headlessness to the customer experience — to add the power of headless retention to the strength of headless acquisition.
Source: Projected size of headless commerce (https://www.openxcell.com/blog/headless-cms-adoption-forecast)
