Unique Customer Experience is Retail’s Holy Grail
Discussing strategies for creating more compelling customer experiences has dominated my meetings with retail executives for the past 24 months.
This topic is retail’s new Holy Grail, and for good reason. With consumers embracing social media and all things mobile, they now expect seamless, personalized and value-driven experiences whenever and wherever they shop.
In retail’s race to deliver “experience nirvana” across existing and emerging channels, leaders are tapping into a core set of emerging technologies to drive positive, consistent execution. The Home Depot, for example, rolled out 30,000 mobile devices to empower associates with enhanced, on-the-floor functionality and communication tools.
Such customer-focused initiatives have game-changing potential for differentiating your brand. Yet to be successful, they require enterprise-wide execution, with every member of your organization sharing consistent customer knowledge and an understanding of why your experience offering is unique. They then must consistently and collectively execute and enhance that experience each day.
From product-centric to customer-centric
Another must is shifting from being a product-centric to a customer-centric retailer. This starts with empowering employees with the proper tools for shared knowledge and teamwork and then recognizing and rewarding them for knowing more about your customers and proactively responding to their needs. It also includes demonstrating customer appreciation and seeking opportunities to build trust.
Spikes in store portal and messaging projects, both on-premise and in the cloud, indicate leading retailers are increasingly moving towards customer-centricity. According to a recent Microsoft Work Without Walls survey, one-third of information workers in retail/hospitality also say their company has internal social networking tools to collaborate with customers and vendors.
Pacific Sunwear, for example, recently turned to Microsoft and Microsoft partner Neudesic to help outfit its youthful employees with the technologies they intuitively understand including a web-based company portal and internal corporate social network tools which has led to enhanced employee engagement, better customer service and the ability to capture 3,400 pieces of employee and customer feedback a year. This critical information is shared throughout the organization to continually define and enhance the brand’s unique differentiating formula.
