Guest Post: Understanding Digital Customer Experience in Retail Industry

This week, we feature an article by Nikhil Pereira is a Contact Center expert with 20 years of end-to-end contact center expertise. He has experience across the Contact Center spanning Hiring, Training, Quality, Workforce Management, and Performance Management. He shares how retailers can understand the digital customer experience in the retail world.

Did you know that 70% of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand following a poor customer experience? Yes, that’s true! Now, the question that arises in this digital dominant world is how retailers can understand the digital customer experience requirements. 

An experience through the customer’s buying journey is quite crucial and must be addressed by the retailers. Let’s look at some of the important factors which retailers must consider: 

• Understanding the customer’s need 

It is not only about the product or service, which channel, and in what frequency or time of the year a customer is buying. It is also about the reasons behind buying the product such as the need it fulfills, the price the customer is ready to pay, or the promotions which motivate him to fulfill the need. It helps in the identification of the right products for the targeted consumer segment.  

• Product discovery experience 

Choice overload is a real problem. Retailers need to provide contextual recommendations that have tangible benefits and advantages in simple language to make the right product purchase decision.  

• Product experience 

Right information (QR code based in the physical stores), or how the customer experiences the product (closer to touch & feel) with information, digital 3D/AR renderings in the digital space goes a long way in the consumer buying process.  

• Product buying experience 

Seamless cross-channel interactions, consistent pricing, product availability at the right source, a personalized promotion at the point of purchase, through easy purchase and payment process in the digital channel and App enabled guided store walk-through, promos at POP and queue-less, self-checkouts in the physical stores.  

• Brand care experience 

A personalized approach to customer issues, consultative product advisories based on customer needs, and brand advocacy make the post-purchase brand experience special. 

Retailers must understand that customers do not see digital channels the same way as they do. They easily bounce from one advanced channel to another as a portion of their overall customer involvement. To rise to the top in retail customer experience and make an advanced customer interface, you wish to make customized encounters that resound over all your digital media. This is often termed an omnichannel approach. Research shows that brands with the strongest omnichannel client engagement techniques hold 89% of their customers, in comparison to 33% of customers held by companies with powerless techniques. An omnichannel computerized client benefit methodology will empower you to meet your customers’ desires for ease, comfort, and speed over various computerized channels. This is influencing retail brands to look for Digital Customer Experience (DCX) solutions that take care of their customer and offer seamless customer experience across the popular channel. 

Colossal Shift in the Retail Industry

As per the Salesforce study, 82% of retailers are focused on improving customer experience. There is a critical need to develop a 360-degree view of the customer. As per Shopping Index, 71% of retailers are looking to invest in mobile apps over the next 2 years.  

IDC analysts predict by 2024, 30% of Fortune 2000 companies will harness customer, product & inventory data to deploy the next best action that drives customer demand. 75% of retailers will fully integrate order and inventory data to optimize fulfillment. This will improve conversion by 10%, customer satisfaction by 50%, and reduce the cost to serve by 25%. 

IDC researchers further state that within 2 years, 40% of the top 500 retailers will use AI-enabled decision-support to drive omnichannel retail KPIs, including Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), productivity, and profitability. Gartner analysts predict that by 2027, a quarter of Fortune 20 companies will be displaced by companies that neuromine and influence subconscious consumer behavior at scale.  

Imperatives for New Age Retail

Retailers must keep up with consumer demands for new channels, faster service, and a more seamless experience. The increasing exposure to — and use of — digital channels is driving these expectations for more connected, personalized, convenient, and timely retail experiences. Additionally, they need a more strategic and comprehensive approach to how they offer omnichannel engagement in the cloud, how they elevate customers between channels, and how they manage the customer data across all channels. 

 Contemporary Retail CX Strategy’s  

Sharing some hacks to better understand, gain and retain digital customer experience in the retail industry: 

• Develop better listeners and encourage storytelling 
• Balance the real and virtual buying experience, through a channel-agnostic, seamless experience with in-store digitization 
• Encourage social media engagement and sharing of in-store purchase 
• Encourage and support online and offline communities 

• Engage customers in DIY, product-building, and self-customization activities during the purchase 

3 Advantages of Retail CX Strategy 

 Retail Industry Leaders Game to Sustain Digital Customer Experience 

The renowned names in the retail sector – Amazon, Walmart, M&S, and IKEA have identified the nerve and tapped the apt platforms to define the future of CX in retail. Let’s have a look at how.  

The world’s largest retailer, Amazon has Go Stores with no cashiers or checkout lines. Therein, sensors in the shopping carts automatically scan items placed in the cart, and shoppers’ accounts are charged as they leave the store. Established retail chains here and abroad are now incorporating this approach. Besides, Amazon One is another “just walk out” payment technology wherein shoppers can pay by scanning their hands via biometrics. This feature is active in some Whole Foods locations.  

Did you know, that another retail giant – Walmart collects about 2.5 petabytes of unstructured data from 1 million customers every hour. By implementing the “internet of things” sensors across over 2,200 trailers to give real-time information around the quality and freshness of its deliveries, it is also currently accelerating its digitization to create “smarter stores”, with shelf scanners to monitor product volumes, robotics, and computer vision cameras to increase efficiency and contactless payment to reduce customer effort & friction.  

A leading British retailer, M&S, brings quality, great value food, clothing, and homeware to millions of customers across the globe. With the goal to personalize each of the billions of interactions across the website, mobile app, email, and social media, Marks & Spencer’s core pillar is a commitment to turbocharging growth on M&S.com. Underlying its digital strategy is a push to personalize M&S’s digital shopping experience for M&S customers across two of its largest online categories, clothing, and home, with the help of Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target. 

IKEA, one of the global home furnishing brands based out of Sweden continues to improve its customer experience, especially in the digital space. With the introduction of Augmented Reality (AR) apps, shoppers can virtually place orders for furniture. Did you know, IKEA has also acquired Task Rabbit – an online platform that connects consumers with freelancers to handle jobs such as furniture assembly?  

Defining the Future of Customer Experience in Retail

Retailers have models from the traditional In-store model to a hybrid Online Offline model. Curb-side pick of order online and collect in-store is the new normal. Retailers are consequently turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-based contact center software to become the new hub of customer intelligence, as well as a facilitator of more personalized, in-the-moment, and profitable customer experiences. 

Nikhil Pereira is a Contact Center expert with 20 years of end-to-end contact center expertise. He has experience across the Contact Center spanning Hiring, Training, Quality, Workforce Management, and Performance Management.