Why Retailers Are Missing The Mark With Shopper Experience (And How To Get It Right!)
By Rob Maille, CommerceCX
As retailers look to improve the shopping experience for customers, a top priority is removing friction while delivering on quality. In the past, many brands thought this meant going mobile, but mobile doesn’t always level up the shopping experience. It works well for a lot of retailers (case in point — Amazon), but self-service is not the only way people want to engage and make purchases.
Great experiences are about using tech, or digital innovations in general, to remove friction and exceed customer expectations. In some cases, this might mean a customer can easily shop online or order via mobile, but in other cases this could mean making the experience in brick-and-mortar stores more seamless, engaging and enjoyable.
Consumers want frictionless experiences, but brands are still struggling to understand the best way forward in delivering this. How come? Let’s explore this further and how brands can deliver frictionless experiences to shoppers, regardless of how they are shopping.
In a recent survey from RSA, a key finding discussed how although prior studies have proven that personalized experiences increase user engagements and purchases, insights gathered from those surveyed by RSA showed the opposite. Findings revealed that consumers don’t think companies can offer better, more personalized products and services by having more data.
These sentiments aren’t surprising. As more data becomes available, businesses across industries are leaning on customer insights to stay competitive. A major problem in this pursuit is that brands end up asking for too much information from customers — some of which is not relevant for personalizing the experience. Because of this, customers feel overwhelmed and in turn, brands likely aren’t getting the insights they need.
The approach to collecting customer data and how brands use technology to appeal to each individual consumer needs to change. Instead of capturing as much information as possible by asking an endless stream of questions, companies should look at the kind of experience their customers want to have with their brand and ask questions that are relevant to those specific journeys. In addition to asking a tailored set of questions, using tools that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence makes it easier — and more secure — to deliver personalized shopper experiences by analyzing behavior, rather than simply collecting customer data.
All too often brands struggle to differentiate what is and isn’t important to each kind of customer they may engage with. As a retailer, companies need to understand how to approach each engagement with a customer and how to prioritize the different ways we shop — from in-store to online to mobile to subscription services and beyond.
Another missing piece is that brands often fail to maximize on the opportunity to have a more unique, one-on-one conversation with their customer. This is a big miss because these kinds of exchanges make the shopping experience feel like a conversation with a trusted friend for the customer. This type of engagement builds trust in the brand, which keeps the customer coming back beyond just one purchase, while also opening the door to options the consumer may not have been thinking about.
We’ve seen some successful efforts along these lines happening lately, with Microsoft and Kroger’s recent retail-as-a-service (RaaS) product serving as a good example. It shows how big box stores are embracing digital as a way to better engage with customers and enhance the shopper experience while they are in-store. On the flip-side, Walmart’s struggle to be successful with its own grocery delivery service shows there are still some serious disconnects between brands and consumers when it comes to meeting consumer wants and needs and delivering on good shopper experiences.
A lot of businesses are still trying to treat all customers the same no matter how they are choosing to engage. Understanding customer priorities and preferences in any scenario that they choose to shop is mission critical for providing shopper experiences with the right amount of personalization — and being successful in these efforts.
Rob Maille is Head of Strategy and Customer Experience at CommerceCX, as well as one of the co-founders. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and CX expert with over 25 years in digital strategy, enterprise application development and user experience. Maille’s primary role at CommerceCX is to inspire, create and define digital solutions for clients.