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Buying things in stores is becoming more complicated. Customers demand a more convenient and pleasurable shopping experience and want it constantly and across all channels. It’s your responsibility as a store owner to meet the needs of your clientele so you can succeed in the retail industry.
Thanks to retail digital signage, customers can get a better sense of a product in person by seeing videos and photos that highlight the product’s distinctive features, benefits, or design.
Furthermore, 80% of companies that use digital signage displays claim to have seen a 33% rise in sales. Its enhanced customer experience may lead to more upselling, cross-selling, and even spur-of-the-moment purchases. That’s possible if you can quickly adapt and release influential data where and when it will have the most impact.
Shifts in Customer Experience
The retail customer experience keeps changing. Following are some trends and best practices businesses should implement.
Consumers’ Omnichannel Retail Experience
If you operate a business, it can help to put a lot of thought into the appearance of your shop, but don’t stop there. In 2023, consumers are no longer restricted to shopping at physical locations. The modern shopper interacts with their favorite stores via a variety of platforms.
You need excellent omnichannel consumer experiences (CX) to connect with customers in any setting. The idea is to provide a unified shopping experience across all touchpoints, including shoppable social media, your website, and your physical store.
Omnichannel customer experience is a rapidly growing concept in retail since it increases revenue. Online omnichannel buyers spend 10% more than single-channel buyers, while in-store purchases add another 4%.
By catering to customers’ preferred purchasing methods, retailers prioritizing omnichannel sales are more successful. Almost three-quarters of consumers are partial to making purchases through more than one channel, and half of all consumers conduct online research before making in-store purchases.
Customers Expect Highly Customized Interactions
Customers are more likely to become loyal if they believe you’ve taken the time to learn about them. Some brick-and-mortar stores and online merchants have difficulty providing helpful personalization to their clients because of insufficient data collection capabilities. In the next several years, online stores that use site personalization will gain $800 billion in sales at the expense of those that don’t.
According to a Salesforce article, 70% of customers say they’re more loyal to a brand if the company caters to their specific demands. Another 69% say the same thing about receiving individualized service. Research conducted in 2018 by Accenture supports this view. It indicated 91% of customers are more inclined to buy from businesses that address them by name, remember their past purchases, and give personalized suggestions and special deals.
Your store or online shop has to win over clients’ “hearts and minds” in order to succeed. Your team should capture consumer data across all touchpoints and provide tailored assistance at every level of the purchase process, from research to consideration and final payment.
Your business will beat the competition if your staff can anticipate its consumers’ demands thanks to the comprehensive view of their needs, which the 360-degree viewpoint provides.
Employee Empowerment
Employees who feel valued by their employers are likely to treat consumers better. Customers in 2023 want companies to go above and beyond for them, and this is only possible if workers are inspired and given responsibility.
You already know firsthand how difficult it is to hire and keep good retail employees. It’s complex, but putting more authority in workers’ hands may boost brand engagement and revenue. Businesses with enthusiastic staff report 21% higher profits and 41% less absenteeism.
While it’s true that every retail company is unique, following are some ways to improve employees happiness:
Good Leadership
Even though 92% of workers believe empathy is not valued at their firm, 96% agree it would increase employee retention. Train your managers on how to be good leaders. Drive home the point that command-and-control management structures of the past are obsolete. When making leadership decisions, it’s best to include employees as much as possible.
Technology
Do you have a minimum viable staff operating your stores? Don’t aggravate worker fatigue. Instead, it can help to provide them with tools that make their jobs easier. This could involve introducing buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) features or installing self-service kiosks for customers.
Conclusion
There is a lot of territory that has to be covered quickly by retailers to continually deliver the best retail customer experience. The first step is to define what kind of client experience you want to provide by setting relevant goals. To effectively evaluate the current state, plan for the future, and drive execution, a cross-functional team should take ownership of the process.
Customer expectations will continue to evolve while moving toward the new normal. Better results and closer customer relationships will grow for retailers who prioritize the customer experience and act quickly and creatively to improve the omnichannel shopping process.
