Digital CX: How Metacask is digitalizing the drinks industry

Customer centricity is a strategic approach to putting customers at the heart of everything a business does. To achieve this, many businesses digitalize systems and processes to make their operations more efficient and their experiences more engaging.

This kind of digital transformation is key to customer centricity, but now a new generation of disruptor brands is taking it a step further, using digital innovations to turn an entire industry on its head. One of those brands is Metacask, an online marketplace for trading the physical assets of premium spirits whiskey casks and tequila bottles.

Metacask is digitalizing the global trade in premium spirits, allowing investors to buy, collect and trade casks securely and instantly using digital deeds and even cryptocurrency if they wish. For good measure, they can also collect NFTs. But it will not end there: the company is also looking at how to digitally authenticate, take ownership of and trade any physical product.

There are many analogue equivalents to this business model, and they are not short on delivering returns with the global market for whiskey casks alone currently averaging returns of 12 percent per annum. However, Metacask has listened to investors to create a fully digital trading platform that delivers on security, peace of mind and convenience.

In this interview, CX Network catches up with newly appointed CEO Rob Hollands to find out about his hands-on approach to experience management and the state of digital CX.

CX Network: Metacask is essentially bringing digital transformation to the spirits industry. Tell us more about your business model and how it meets the needs of your customer base.

Rob Hollands: Metacask is revolutionizing the way that consumers own and trade luxury spirits and whilst we are focused on that industry today, we are really interested in ways that users can digitally authenticate, take ownership and trade any physical product.

This transformation is occurring through two platforms, our Metacask marketplace and Trakr, our new inventory management and asset tracking Software as a Service (SaaS) solution.

We are doing a lot of work behind the scenes in the supply chain to deliver trust to consumers and Trakr works with manufacturers and suppliers in the spirits space to digitalize the products at point of origin. This is often referred to as ‘digital twins’ and means a product can be authenticated and traced right back to its origin.

At any time, the owner of the NFT can exchange their digital ownership for the physical asset and everything has been built on the blockchain so there is a transparent and immutable record of the product's journey and ownership overtime.

In terms of the marketplace itself, we have created a secure online platform for shoppers to own and trade premium spirits. This is in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and each of these smart contacts of ownership corresponds to a physical asset. In our case this might be a cask of whiskey, located in the depths of Scotland, or a ‘connected’ bottle in a consumer's home.

Consumers want genuine products, trustworthy experiences and transparency and they want it through a fast, frictionless and fully connected customer journey. Metacask aims to deliver that.

CX Network: What have been the core components of Metacask’s CX strategy to date and, as the newly appointed CEO, how do you plan to build on that strategy?

Rob Hollands: Metacask has a world class team behind it and we are transforming the industry with truly brilliant products and services. Alongside many roles, one of my key focus areas is to match our products with the very best experience of our services, be that a consumer trading whiskey on our marketplace, or a corporate client implementing our Trakr platform.

In rapidly growing start-ups, the simple power of writing down and regularly communicating a clear company purpose and promise can get lost in the pace of the day-to-day. I have moved quickly to establish these pillars and our aspirations for customer experience live from this purpose and promise.

CX Network: How will you measure the success of Metacask’s growth?

Rob Hollands: Across our products we are still at the learning stage where we are constantly gathering very high quality feedback from our customers by simply speaking with them.

We are also building in the discipline and tools to constantly measure against our growth metrics which include revenue, loyalty and satisfaction, with a focus on net promoter score and how likely consumers are to recommend us.

In terms of the products themselves, we want to deliver the best, most efficient and enjoyable user experience and we are monitoring performance as the platforms are being used. This includes looking at speed to complete tasks and transactions, task success rate, number of clicks, drop off points, user errors, conversions, comments and shares.

CX Network: CEOs do not usually lead on CX! Why have you taken the hands-on approach? Do you expect to create an experience management department or team as the company grows?

Rob Hollands: I believe that a customer-centric CEO builds a customer-centric culture and getting immersed in every stage of the journey allows me to rapidly spot the friction points and the opportunities. For me, customer experience can be a big differentiator in this space and is one of the ways we will maintain competitive advantage.

At our current stage we are all about finding product and market alignment and that is all oriented around the customer. My goal is that we create a product that delivers so much value to customers that they are willing to buy it and even more importantly, recommend it.

Alongside the product experience, we want every stage of the overall journey to be incredible, and on the ground we will deliver that through a combination of customer experience and successful teams. With the latter more focused on ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes.

CX Network: To deliver digitalized experiences, organizations need robust back-end systems and tech capabilities. Tell us how operational capabilities have been refined to deliver on the secure digital transactions that Metacask promises.

Rob Hollands: Our CTO, Nimantha Siriwardana, is one of the best technical minds I have met and he has laid the foundations for a secure and scalable platform and organization.

Our product is built on the blockchain – an often misunderstood and overly complicated technology. Essentially it is like a shared database, which stores data in linked blocks. Alongside the transparency that comes from visible and irreversible data, a fundamental benefit lies in blockchain’s security, which can significantly enhance customer trust. Customers can have an immutable record of their transactions, ensuring authenticity and provenance of the products they purchase.

From both a corporate and consumer perspective, everything we do is focused on driving trust and transparency, we are building tools that put control back into the hands of the community and reimagine product ownership.

Organizationally, we are working with a number of industry bodies in the spirits space and we are building in the security and compliance foundations to deliver our vision. We are well on our journey towards SOC 2 Type II and ISO2700 certifications, the leading standards for technology and data security in our industry.

CX Network: Using blockchain and NFTs, Metacask has simplified how collectors can buy and invest in spirits through digitalization, therefore meeting customer demand for secure and fast transactions. But looking at the wider CX space, how would you assess the adoption of technology for customer engagement and experience?

Rob Hollands: We have worked hard to implement blockchain and NFTs to verify provenance, authenticate the product and confirm ownership – efficiently and securely.

These are still emerging technologies and within the Web3 space there is much work to be done to improve the usability of the tech itself. The solutions have not always been easily used by consumers but we are now seeing the ‘best practices’ from Web2 being adopted. A good example is the way we are integrating familiar solutions to log-in such as social sign-in, alongside newer digital wallets and keys.

After an initial hype in the customer experience space, I believe the high volume of activity has been replaced with fewer but more meaningful deployments. We are starting to see the sometimes questionable use-cases (all part of the learning curve!) replaced by meaningful experiences.

The technology is evolving, awareness is growing and whatever comes next, there is no doubt that the benefits of the technology align with the evolving expectations of consumers for seamless, secure and connected experiences.

CX Network: In your opinion, what will the biggest CX trend in 2024 be and how should businesses respond?

Rob Hollands: The rate of technological change and innovation is faster than ever and the companies that innovate, invest and take some considered risks, will win.

Some may yawn at yet another year of personalized CX dominating the trends write-ups but well-timed, intelligent and hyper-relevant customer experiences driven by the technologies that have emerged over the past few years will lead the way.

We will see technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3 (including blockchain) being combined to create empowering, optimized and hyper-relevant experiences for consumers. These technologies, alongside genuine use cases, will help deliver exceptional customer experience and real-business value.

The increased consumer demand for transparency, control and ownership of data will drive the adoption of technologies across organizations.

This will be woven into the delivery of great experiences and services and we will see less (I hope) of the technology itself. Truthfully, consumers care about great products and services, brilliant experiences, honesty, trust and transparency. They rarely care about the underlying technology, which should just be an enabler of the very best CX.