Today the interaction of a tech-savvy customer is complex, convoluted and non-linear, traversing multiple different channels and touch points. To adroitly interpret customer preference and provide holistic customer experience, retailers are left with no choice but to stitch together customer data and more importantly customer interaction data spread across different channels. Today, most retailers’ channels operate in silos both organizationally and from a systems standpoint. Therefore it fails to project homogeneous single-entity brand awareness, upto-date information and a unified look and feel, which disappoints customers.
By TimeTrade
Today the
interaction of a tech-savvy customer is complex, convoluted and non-linear,
traversing multiple different channels and touch points. To adroitly interpret
customer preference and provide holistic customer experience, retailers are
left with no choice but to stitch together customer data and more importantly
customer interaction data spread across different channels. Today, most retailers’
channels operate in silos both organizationally and from a systems standpoint.
Therefore it fails to project homogeneous single-entity brand awareness,
up to-date information and a unified look and feel, which disappoints customers.
Retailers
acknowledge that they need to understand their customers’ individual
experiences on a continuous basis as they interact with their organizations
both on and off net. This puts retailers in the best position to manage all the
touch points that can affect the customer experience, including the web site, call
center, mobile app, retail store, kiosk, etc.
Today
retailers’ goals should not be restricted to just creating loyal customers.
They need to aspire to go beyond that and create active advocates by creating a
more personalized relationship with their customers that are context-driven in
nature. In today’s social media-aware age, consumers have the power to make and
break a brand. Retailers thus need to build an emotionally weighted
relationship with each customer. Hence, providing a superior in-store
experience is an effective way to drive a more personal relationship with
customers, as well as a means of gathering more information for a customer
profile which allows for more personalized offers and consistent service across
all channels in the future.
Not so long
ago, when these social channels did not exist, a customer of a service or brand
could communicate their positive or negative experience via word of mouth to an
average of seven people; in today’s social media age, the same customer can
reach out to thousands of people in a matter of moments. The more positive that
relationship, the more trusted the retailer becomes and the more successful the
retailer is likely to be at keeping the customer’s business, selling the
customer further services over time and encouraging the customer to promote the
retailer and its products to friends and associates.
Bridging the
cross-channel silos that exist today to create a combination of unified touch
points that together creates a seamless customer experience should be a
critical step in their quest to deliver on a superior customer experience.
Unifying cross-channel customer experience is an evolutionary process.
Retailers need to strategically embark on such a unifying effort with adequate
planning. Consumers today have never had more channel options. They continue to
expect more seamless interactions that build brand experiences and boost
loyalty and retention. So it becomes a necessity for retailers to offer a
robust cross-channel experience that delivers against customer expectations.
Every touch point must enrich the shopper’s experience, and every interaction
must be viewed as pivotal in the customer’s purchasing decision.
In order to
standout, retailers must make sure they are providing customers with the right
knowledge while keeping in mind that the majority of TimeTrade survey
respondents prefer shopping in stores so they can touch and feel things.
Retailers can enhance the in-store experience through prompt service and enable
a smart hands-on experience that helps customers with their final purchasing
decisions. Adam Silverman, a Principal Analyst at Forrester, who covers
in-store commerce technologies, comments:
Forrester
believes that, “in the future, retail stores that drive convenience, service,
and relevant personalized experiences through the use of digital store
technology will succeed. Why? Because today, customers shows an affinity for
digital store technology more compared to previous years. In fact, 66% of
luxury apparel customers are more likely to shop with a digitally-enabled associate.
Those retailers who wait on the sidelines are at risk of maintaining the status
quo and may only grow marginally.”
According to Sheryl Kingstone's Report titled - "Blurring the new 'digital divide' between the mobile and in-store experience", The industry needs to transition from a merchandising point of view
to a customer-centric point of view. The shopping journey has changed more in
the last 5 years than it did over the past 150 years. As a result, there can no
longer be a divide between digital and brick-and-mortar. It’s important to meet
the new consumer behaviors and expectations that doesn't think among
organization silos still rampant in today's retail industry. Hudson Bay agreed
that it’s essential to break down barriers across e-commerce, m-commerce and
in-store across the mobile journey. It’s not about channel, but content; whether
that be an app, mobile web, e-commerce or store. The entire company owns the
customer journey, not the channel.
Natasha Baker
of Forbes recently wrote an article “5
Tech Trends That Will Hit Every Retail Store By 2020.” The following is a summary of the technologies
and trends that Baker lists:
1. Beacons:
Sensors placed
around stores that communicate information to smart phones—will track information
such as which products customers linger around. The beacons can then push
information on those products to customers’ mobile devices, allowing them to
order from their devices and have merchandise shipped to their homes.
2. More Intelligent
Devices:
Stores will
use devices that can determine the demographic information of customers as they
walk by, and target ads to them through a video console, similar to smart
shelves being developed by Mondelēz International.
3. Store
Associates Can Focus on Customers:
Retailers will
be able to take advantage of managed infrastructure at the edge. This is a
vitally important enabler because having to add relatively expensive IT staff
can make deploying new technologies in retail environments cost prohibitive. Of
course, sales associates will not disappear. Rather, with many of their routine
tasks automated, they will be able to focus more on building relationships with
customers while increasing sales and affinity for their employers
4. Analytics:
Brick-and-mortar
stores will use analytics to map where people walk and what they pickup so they
can better position products in the store or track shoppers at the device level
to target promotions to them. This data will be used to understand customers
and increase sales.
5. Technology
as Sales Assistant:
Technology
will increasingly automate a lot of routine and mundane processes that happen
in retail stores. Whether it is more self-service check-outs, in-store mapping
to make it easier for customers to self-navigate around stores, or beacon and
NFC technology for greater self-education on products, technology will play a
greater role in automating the retail experience.
Conclusion:
Retailers must
keep in mind that through the digital first touch all the way to the in-store
purchase, it is all about the customer’s path and how to provide the best
service across all these touch points. Creating a high-value, personalized
interaction will lead to a more satisfying experience for the customer.
Millenials are
looking for products and service that is very focused on the individual, while
Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have done much research and want purchase validation
from an honest and transparent retailer. Though all have different shopping habits,
what they all have in common is disposable income as retail sales continue to
grow.
In order for retailers to survive and retain
market share, they must be progressive in how they create the in-store
experience, using modern-day technology while providing prompt service, all the
while knowing a customer’s needs before they even enter the store. Though this
seems like a tall order, leading retailers are doing all of the above and are
aware of consumers ever changing needs.
Publication
Details:
This article
is extract from a report titled –“State of Retail 2015” which is
licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License by the
Original Publisher “TimeTrade”. Download
the Survey Report - LINK
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