Best Practices

You’ve done it! You’ve selected and implemented a platform, compiled your data, applied advanced analytics, and now you have a great set of informative insights that have the potential to really better your customer experience (CX).

This victory is definitely one to be celebrated, but while the finish line may be in sight, discovering insights is not the end of the road. In fact, this is where the real CX revolution begins for your organization. From here, you have the incredible opportunity to make informed changes based on these insights and create the systematic practices that actually impact the business.

To get there, you need to share your new learnings throughout your organization—but how? Here are five ways to socialize customer intelligence with everyone from front-line employees to the movers and shakers of the C-suite.

1. Create a CX Cross-Functional Team to Share the Responsibility

A CX cross-functional team is a team made up of people from across your organization who oversee your company’s customer experience. It’s important for these individuals to be from multiple departments so they can discuss the customer journey from multiple touchpoints and perspectives. The meetings should be a forum where the customer is at the center; new insights and plans to act on them should also be part of the agenda. This team should also be able to make CX assignments, hold other members accountable, and report on progress.

2. Enhance the Insights to Make it Relevant to the Audience

Relevance is key to the success of CX efforts, so it is important to understand that an insight that is relevant to one department won’t necessarily concern other departments. To understand relevance, break down what is important to each individual stakeholder (whether it’s specific problems or issues they face, or outcomes that determine their success directly) and then enhance the value of insights by tying CX and business data together in a way that directly impacts that stakeholder. That way, you are putting these insights in a language that will speak directly to the people who are in the best position to act on them.

3. Leverage the Insights You Have

Sometimes you already have the answers you need. It is important to go beyond the scores and metrics in your data and utilize the unstructured data, such as comments and reviews. Combine this with real-time detection abilities and you can uncover relevant stories that can lead you to root cause (the holy grail of insights). From there, you can leverage your most valuable resource, your employees, to tie up any loose ends and solve root cause.

4. Use Emotion to Tell the Story

I know it can be a difficult thing to do, but try to shift focus away from scores or issues. When it comes down to it, people aren’t driven by numbers, but by emotions. Instead, focus on specific comments that can provide the “why” behind the emotions that drive those scores and issues. You can even introduce technology that specializes in measuring customer emotions. You can also utilize employee emotions and introduce motivators such as rewards and recognition programs to increase CX ownership.

5. Create a Proactive Communication Plan

This may be the most important of all five of these tips, because socializing requires pristine communication. One characteristic of the best communication plans is that they share insights promptly and regularly by utilizing automation. They also use a variety of methods, whether it’s meetings, emails, alerts, or other tactics. Communications should emphasize internal successes and empower data-driven action and accountability. The plan should also involve program champions from all departments, so that everyone is updated on the latest insights and initiatives.

When you spread customer intelligence across every department of your organization, something amazing happens: a CX centric company culture. With every employee doing their part to make your customers happy, you will find that customer loyalty will skyrocket—alongside your business metrics.

To learn more about how to unlock your customer data, check out this white paper on the danger of data silos.

When you’re searching for a customer experience management (CXM) platform, going from vendor to vendor can be overwhelming, so when you finally select one, there is definitely a sense of excitement. Implementation is ultimately full of possibilities: for your business, for your brand, and for your customers. This process can also be a lot of work, but with the right tools in place, you can realize these possibilities.

As an implementation specialist at Pearl-Plaza, I help clients implement new CXM technology within their organizations. While every client and implementation process is different, I have found three key elements that deliver the most positive experiences and successful outcomes.

Key #1: Establish a Relationship

Successful implementations are built upon a relationship between the program owners and the implementation team. It’s important to remember that this process is highly collaborative and therefore, it is foundational for there to be a respectful partnership where both parties not only appreciate the work and technology, but also the people involved. When you have that relationship in place, teams communicate more effectively, expectations are clearly set, and the CXM solution is inline with promises and expectations.

Ultimately, building valuable relationships works to a mutual benefit. In order to build this relationship, program owners and implementation teams should schedule time for team building activities. As you start on your implementation journey, think about the following questions:

• How can you connect with the vendor team you are working with?  On-site, in-person meetings are ideal, but may require effort due to geographical constraints.
• Do you know anything about the team who is leading the vendor execution? By establishing a relationship with your main point of contact, you stand to better benefit from that relationship. This can help stakeholders become acquainted with the personalities and communication styles involved, as well as the business culture.

Setting aside this time opens up the channels of communication for both teams and makes for positive experiences for everyone involved.

Key #2: Identify the Critical Elements of the Program

When you first set out to find a CXM solution, there was probably some discussion of program goals. Whether you have clear ideas of functions your platform needs to perform or a few areas you would like to focus on, it is absolutely imperative to let your vendor know about these as soon as possible.

Some specific points you may want to clarify are the technical functions your organization requires from its CXM solution. From there, you can set goals such as specifying the KPIs you will track to measure program success and value. Having these mapped out ahead of time allows you to send a clear message of expectations and desired outcome to your implementation team so you can develop a goal-oriented strategy together.

Key #3: Stick to the Timeline Whenever Possible

Once your goals and strategy are clearly outlined, it is possible for you to craft a reasonable timeline. This timeline is essential because it helps manage expectations and also gives both parties time to prepare for program launch. The implementation team is then empowered to meet deadlines. Additionally, the program owner is empowered to prepare the organization for the new CX program by setting up guidelines for data use and plans for how insights will be leveraged for business impact.

Failure to stick to the plan can undermine confidence in the solution as implementation often functions as a “first impression”—and as we all know, bad first impressions can be tough to overcome. On the other hand, meeting deadlines sets you up for a positive working relationship with your vendor. Even more, when stakeholders see that deadlines and expectations have been met, they can become program champions that further a customer-centric culture within your organization.

Implementation ultimately sets the tone for your entire customer experience program, so being intentional about collaborating, goal setting, and timeline creation right off the bat will help you kick off the process with confidence!

If you’re still exploring CXM vendors, check out our Buyer’s Guide for Customer Experience Technology!

Most brands recognize that customer-listening programs add value to their overall experience. However, almost all struggle to move beyond the basics of satisfaction scores and net promoter scores (NPS).

This has left brands rescuing unhappy customers, rather than preventing negative experiences in the first place.

What does it take to pursue true customer experience (CX) transformation that provides value beyond metrics and triage? The key is to give new value to the voice of the customer.

Whatever a brand’s current level of commitment to learning more about consumers may be, all companies can benefit from an increase in the volume of finely tuned feedback they get from customers. Customer voices provide crucial business intelligence that makes it easier to improve every business unit and every employee across a company.

This shift in how brands include customers in success equations is no longer just a nice-to-have. It’s essential.

The Three C’s of a Great Customer Experience

In most cases, poor customer experiences are not the result of a lack of care or interest on a brand’s part. In fact, most organizations recognize, as Walker Information has predicted, that the customer experience will be their key differentiator by 2020. Nonetheless, companies struggle to determine what people like or dislike about their customer journeys (and to what degree they like or dislike those things). And they try to find ways to elevate insights from buzzwords into actionable next steps.

The companies that are winning with CX have established clear business disciplines around the endeavor and bring a customer-obsessed mentality to every decision-making conversation. To create pervasive change like this, here is a look at three factors that brands should consider before undergoing an organizational transformation: capacity, competence and capability — the three C’s of great customer experience.

Capacity

Capacity is an organization’s overall framework and what it is as an entity. Much like a container, an organization’s capacity defines clear boundaries — both where the company can find future success and what is off limits.

To think through capacity, stakeholders might ask questions such as these:

• What’s our ideal marketplace and business environment, and what do customer segments look like there?
• How will changing landscapes (political, economic, socio-cultural) impact our ideal marketplace?
• Do we have a documented brand identity? What are our brand promises?

Before tackling CX transformation, it’s important to get a read on your organization’s overall level of customer-centricity. This reveals where the business can drive and create growth with consumers and where it’s not following through on its promises. Interviewing a cross section of stakeholders on questions like these will quickly reveal an organization’s capacity. Employees should share a vision for who the company is, and mission statements and values should be common knowledge.

Competence

Competence includes the knowledge, skills, attributes, mindsets and behaviors an organization offers. In the world of CX, an organization’s competence directly relates to how well it can leverage these traits to create competitive CX advantages for users.

Here are some starter questions to determine competence:

• Do we have leaders committed to alleviating customer concerns and innovating CX strategies?
• Are our front-line employees armed with the skills required to meet 21st-century customer expectations?
• Can we respond to diverse client needs and preferences with a smart strategy every single time?

Without the right combination of competencies, it’s unlikely that organizations will achieve success with their intended customers. Stakeholders will find it much easier to drum up internal and external support when people trust what a brand brings to the table.

Capability

Capability focuses on what makes a brand unique, or what the brand is known for when it’s at its best. For most organizations, this boils down to the execution of internal processes and systems that help customers in ways that competitors cannot.

Uncovering capability starts with queries like these:

• Do we use any collective resources to achieve high performance in areas like CX? What about legal compliance? Sustainability?
• Are we clearly communicating our uniqueness to people?
• Does what makes us special now solve for future requirements as a company?

To clarify, capability is more so how people perceive an organization, while capacity is how an organization perceives itself. The more unique and high-performing a brand is, the greater its capability.

Taking stock of these three factors opens brands up to better CX transformation programs that are capable of responding to a myriad of customer expectations. Over time, brands can build upon where these characteristics converge. Expanding these three areas together promotes CX as a universal and complex business discipline that all departments should be eager to support.

Getting Started With CX Transformation

Once you have accessed the three C’s of great customer experience, it can feel daunting to turn the lessons learned into large-scale CX improvements. But there are many strategies brands can use to identify gaps and generate early enthusiasm around the initiative. They include thinking holistically, building awareness and promoting CX awareness.

• Thinking holistically. It’s important to make time for asking questions about CX. This means both assessing where team members are with CX and providing opportunities for people to raise their own concerns. Benchmarking current capabilities gives all employees the same springboard for tomorrow’s CX conversations and points organizations toward their next opportunities.
• Building awareness. Creating and socializing a CX transformation framework goes a long way toward enabling more employees to get on board with improvements. Adding a layer of CX consciousness encourages people to think in terms of their customers and moves conversations from conversions to experiences. Positive messaging from the top down positions CX as a responsibility all team members should be committed to, and may even pave the way for the emergence of new CX champions and ideas.
• Promoting CX narratives. Creating rituals and telling stories about CX successes evokes positive emotions at all levels of the business. People need to hear inspiring stories, whether they’re about overcoming a challenge or doing something really well the first time. Becoming a customer-centric organization also involves a simple showing-up factor. More brands are starting to talk about CX metrics and stories at front-line meetings and are developing new company narratives to include CX language.

What’s most important is coming together now, as an organization, around the goal of operating in more customer-centric ways. Making the right CX transformation cannot happen if stakeholders don’t first take a hard look at how customers are already experiencing a brand. Then companies can build upon these insights to develop CX strategies that delight customers and better highlight their unique capacities, competencies and capabilities.

For the past four years, Pearl-Plaza has conducted an annual study of CX trends. This yearly exercise has become a great opportunity to examine where brands and customers are aligned in their expectations, where there are disconnects, and what we can do to create more innovative and valuable customer experiences.

This year, we previewed the 2018 CX Trends Report with an on-demand webinar in partnership with CustomerThink.com. In the webinar, Brennan Wilkie, Pearl-Plaza’s SVP of CX Strategy, and I had the opportunity to discuss five trends for 2018 and what they mean for customer experience professionals.

An overarching theme of the report was memorable experiences — both good and bad — what goes into making them, and where brands and consumers sync and diverge.

As a part of our research, we asked consumers if they had a positive, memorable experience with a brand in the past year, and we asked brands if they had indeed created memorable experiences for their customers.

The results were both inspiring and also set a few alarm bells ringing. Approximately 68% of customers said that they had a positive, memorable experience, a fact that is probably music to the ears of anyone invested in the customer experience. The alarming news? Brands believed that they were creating memorable experiences 84% of the time.

While the confidence behind this statistic is admirable, it presents a few dangers from a long-term CX standpoint. There is an almost 20% difference between these two factors, which means that at least a portion of the time, brands believe customers leave with an indelible happy memory, when what they’re actually delivering may elicit a feeling more along the lines of “meh.”

So what’s the big deal? In today’s hyper-competitive environment, a satisfactory experience just isn’t good enough for long-term success. Memorable experiences are especially powerful because they are highly personal, grounded in relationship, and influence future behavior. When your customers feel an emotional tie to your brand, it impacts their future behavior; their relationship with you will inspire them to keep coming back.

This emotional aspect of a memorable experience increases the probability that if you invest in your customers, they will invest in you. This is really a story of good to great. “Good” will get you a bump in metrics, but great experiences are what keep customers coming back, spending more, and advocating on your behalf.   

The other problem with this nearly 20-point disconnect is that it indicates that brands aren’t fully tuned into to their customers. If they were truly listening, they would be a little less confident and a little more careful. Hubris is always a risky proposition because it prevents you from hearing the full story, and puts you in a defensive posture when less-than-rosy accounts emerge.  

In short, good doesn’t equal great, and 20 points isn’t really that close. While brands are accomplishing a lot, there are still many opportunities to understand customers even better. Brands that deliver positive, memorable experiences have identified why customers love them and what makes them special. In the age of the customer, this deliberate distinction is what will separate tomorrow’s leaders from brands that sputter and fail.

Since e-commerce sites have exploded onto to the retail scene, they have gained an incredible amount of traction. Online retailers such as Amazon and Zappos have been so popular that in the past few years, they have posed a serious threat to the success of brick-and-mortar locations.

It’s true, many customers today are skipping their trip to local stores and buying their everyday items online. Perhaps this is because of the convenience, but another major differentiator for online retailers is the generally superior customer experience. In fact, Pearl-Plaza’s recent Retail Trends Report stated that online-exclusive retailers boast the highest customer satisfaction score of 54%.

These numbers can definitely be intimidating, but should traditional retailers run for the hills or keep looking for ways to compete with these online giants? Luckily, there is another option: complement, don’t compete.

One of the key factors of a great customer experience is making sure customers have a unified experience with your brand. Normally we think about unification in the context of the buying process, making sure that the experience is consistent from greeting to check out, but this is also relevant when it comes to where your customers shop.

Whether they’re walking through the front door or opening up your home page, a customer should have a clear idea of who you are as a retailer. This means that it should be as easy for them to make a purchase in store as it is online.

With this philosophy in mind, I would argue that the introduction of online retailers has been good for brick-and-mortar locations in that it has inspired them to step up to the CX plate and thus, better their business. In fact, a recent study saw that in 2017, there were more new store openings than closings, and that store openings will likely exceed closures through 2021.

It’s clear from these numbers that physical locations aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so it is more important that brands learn to unify their in-store and online experience so they complement one another.

Amazon is doing this exceptionally well. The brand is typically known as an online-only retailer that provides enviable customer experience and convenience, but this week, they will be making a major change. The retailer is opening their first brick-and-mortar location, Amazon Go, where shoppers can pick up ready-to-go meals, groceries, and chef-made meal kits. The best part? No check out. Simply open the app on your phone, pick up your items, and walk out the front door.

In opening a storefront, Amazon may be making a major change, but they are keeping their customer experience consistent; it still offers the convenience that the company is famous for (such as no lines, for example), but they aren’t sacrificing personable customer experience either: Amazon Go will be staffed with knowledgeable employees who can help customers and suggest new items.

There are many other great examples of how in-store and online experiences can complement one another to further brand success. This forward-thinking attitude can make the difference between providing an experience that is merely mediocre and one that is truly optimized for long-term loyalty.

To keep up with the latest CX developments and trends, check out Pearl-Plaza’s 2017 Retail Trends Report!

Every organization in the healthcare industry knows that there is a lot to gain when they improve their patient experience, but achieving this goal is easier said than done.

As with any goal, there are many obstacles and pitfalls that can greet you on the way to success. If you set out immediately with no plan of action, your path will undoubtedly be more difficult. That’s why I always suggest to clients, regardless of their industry, that they prepare heavily and intentionally before they launch their customer experience (CX) program.

A vital part of preparation is identifying which areas to focus on within your company. This can be done by reflecting on areas of concern that are already known to you, but it can also mean reassessing existing customer data for insights that may have yet to be surfaced.

This step can be time consuming, especially for the healthcare industry. In order to help you prepare for any new CX effort you may be launching, I am going to list six areas of patient experience that healthcare organizations and providers can focus on to provide their patients with valuable, meaningful experiences.

1. Quality of Care

This may seem like a given for anyone in the healthcare industry, but quality of care encompasses much more than ensuring a patient’s health. Where patients mostly utilize healthcare services when they are ill, they don’t just want to be treated and steered toward health, they want to be treated with respect and compassion.

As revealed in our latest eBook, research shows nurse and doctor empathy are two of the top three factors that matter most to patients, with procedure outcome coming in fourth place. This proves that when assessing their quality of care, healthcare organizations and providers need to consider not only the patient’s health outcomes, but also if the patient felt genuinely cared for.

2. Availability of Services

Another major area of concern for patient experience is how available healthcare services are for patients. If a patient is sick or otherwise in need of care, the last thing they want to hear is that the next available appointment is in weeks or even months. This is why is it crucial to be intentional when scheduling providers. Customer experience analytics can provide you with insights to help assess what times are most popular for patients to book appointments, making it easier to optimize scheduling to avoid frustration.

3. Environment and Facilities

Having a clean, comfortable environment can make a major difference to patients. Longer waiting times are common when waiting for healthcare appointments, so creating the best environment possible is vital. Something as simple as keeping reading materials or beverages in the waiting area can put them at ease and pave the way for positive experiences.

4. Safety and Infection Issues

This point closely relates to the previous area of focus, but it is important to emphasize cleanliness and adherence to safety precautions in the healthcare industry. Failure to keep surfaces clean and keep certain supplies stored appropriately can have serious consequences. Not only is there a higher risk of infection and other injuries, but the impression of uncleanliness can seriously affect a patient’s confidence in their healthcare provider.

5. Billing Cost

One of a patient’s biggest deterrents from scheduling an appointment with their healthcare provider is price. Even insured patients are afraid of being being over-billed for services rendered, and no matter how much they may need to see a professional, this fear can keep them from coming in at all. This is why it is especially important to be vigilant and purposeful when billing insurance companies. It can also be helpful to take the time to explain the billing to patients so they understand the necessity of each item on their bill, especially because keeping the patient informed is the second most important factor in positive patient experience.

6. Return Visits

Encouraging patients to return after a period of time for a follow-up appointment can help improve patient experience for multiple reasons. Firstly, it is a great way to ensure outcomes improvement and keep a close eye on any condition or recovery process. Secondly, it demonstrates to patients that you are invested in their health. This knowledge alone shows an excellent quality of care and can make a big difference in how the patient feels leaving their appointment.

Planning a CX program can be complicated, but when you have predetermined areas of focus, you are better armed with ideas on how to address each area. That being said, getting leadership to actually commit  to improve patient experience is half the battle. If you know any decision makers who are still on the fence, check out our newest eBook, Three Reasons Health Systems Should Invest in Improving Patient Experience.

It’s safe to say that New Year’s resolutions have become a popular cultural practice. It seems you can’t scroll through social media toward the end of December or at the beginning of January without seeing several commitments to be more active, healthy, or proactive in the new year.

I think the reason resolutions are so popular is that with the dawn of a new year comes the opportunity to be better than before, which often means we need to do things differently. Perhaps this is one reason why many businesses make major changes in the way they allocate their budgets each year.

If we’re judging by the latest research, it seems that the majority of CMOs are placing customer retention at the center of their New Year’s resolutions. According to Gartner’s 2017-2018 CMO Spend Survey CMOs are spending more on customer retention over customer acquisition by a ratio of 2 to 1. Spending on customer experience in order to retain existing customers is an incredibly wise investment as a 10% increase in customer retention results in a 30% increase in company value—and a 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by up to 125%.

These numbers don’t lie: Customer retention is profitable, so it’s no wonder that marketing budgets are putting more money into the analytics that encourage existing customers to keep coming back.

Gartner expands on the reasoning for this spending, explaining that the shift is “grounded in CMOs’ understanding that analytics is central to delivering customer experience, identifying, understanding and growing customers, and measuring and optimizing marketing performance.”

As a CX technology company, there are quite a few things about this latest research that excite us at Pearl-Plaza. Firstly, this shows that Forbes’ 2015 prediction that customer experience would become a vital part of marketing is coming into fruition. Secondly, it means that companies are taking to heart more and more the fact that a customer experience focus is a key driver of business impact. As businesses recognize this, we are seeing more brands than ever invest in CFM tools, like Pearl-Plaza, that don’t just collect VoC feedback but also provide advanced analytics, giving marketers insights as well as data so they can make informed business decisions.

With so many companies expanding their marketing budgets for advanced analytics, there is no doubt that they will be considering several customer experience solutions as possible investments. With so many options available, choosing a platform can seem like a daunting task, but it helps when you know what you’re looking for.

If your business resolutions for 2018 include optimizing customer experience, check out the “Customer Experience Buyer’s Guide: What to Know Before You Buy Software Promising to Improve the Customer Experience.”

Customer experience leaders in financial services (FS) need to create a frictionless experience for clients that doesn’t run the risk of being impersonal. Without this balance, FS providers can fail to create client loyalty, ultimately resulting in dissatisfied customers who are quick to take their business elsewhere.

With a successful balance of technology and personalization, providers will be well placed to outperform their competitors, both in terms of revenue and their ability to supply highly differentiated, individualized experiences.

THE CHALLENGE: CREATING A BALANCED EXPERIENCE

Financial services clients expect interactions to be seamless, timely, and integrated from beginning to end. For providers, this means constantly monitoring all touchpoints and channels and responding immediately around the clock.

The obvious strategy to meet this expectation would be through automation and new technology, but relying solely on this solution could be dangerous. Foregoing traditional, in-branch interaction could mean missing the opportunity to create a genuine interaction and relationship with clients.

Brennan Wilkie, our SVP of customer experience strategy, said, “Every interaction with a customer is a chance for a FS brand to surprise and delight — or a missed opportunity to do so. By tailoring the brand experience to each contextual user journey, FS can unlock the ability to enhance loyalty with customers, and because personalization is about establishing individualized brand relationships, early leaders tend to lock in customers, heightening the barriers for those that try to follow.”

Studies are also showing that clients are expecting their experiences to be as personal as they are frictionless. According to a Janrain Online Personal Experience study, over 74% of online consumers get frustrated when they are presented with content that is not relevant to them or their interests.

If this trend continues, financial institutions will continue to find it harder to attract, grow, and retain consumer business unless they take steps to engage customers in ways that can truly make their brand stand out.

THE APPROACH: EMBRACING NEW TECHNOLOGY

Financial services providers have begun to tap the potential of personalization by providing customers with the ability to download apps, watch research videos, and redeem individualized offers. Additionally, they have introduced click-to-chat features on their websites. These methods may not always take the form of another transaction or product, but they definitely succeed in enhancing relationship.

As mentioned in our recent global banks CX infographic, Avidia Bank launched “Cardless Cash,” which allows customers to draw money from ATMs and branches using their smartphones. To amplify the buzz, the bank hosted real-time ATM versus Cardless Cash battles on Periscope. This unusual tactic captured significant consumer attention, which allowed Avidia to identify and join the ensuing conversations on other social networks. For Cardless Cash, Avidia saw engagement rates as high as 10%, resulting in a 13% increase in adoption.

Another way FS providers are embracing technology is utilizing the rising popularity of virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. Gareth Gaston, head of omnichannel banking at US Bank, said, “Voice technology is going to be central to the future of digital interaction. We’ve all become accustomed to speaking to our devices for simple things like getting directions to a restaurant or placing a call. Now, voice services such as Amazon Alexa are making it easy to check an account balance or hear a payment due date without picking up a phone or logging in to internet banking.”

THE BENEFIT: CLIENT LOYALTY

When account holders feel both that they can conveniently access their accounts via technology and that their financial services providers truly care about providing them with a positive experience, they are more likely to become loyal customers. Still, such a differentiated customer experience cannot happen on its own. It’s up to FS providers to create an environment and culture in which client relationships can be fostered and flourish.

It’s one of the most popular and controversial topics in retail today: Will automation and digital disruption push people and brick-and-mortar retailers out of the picture?

While there are many advocates for either side of the debate, here at Pearl-Plaza, we believe that the in-store experience is just as relevant today, despite the digital age we live in. In fact, in our recent Humans v. Robots webinar with CustomerThink.com, Brennan Wilke, senior vice president of customer experience at Pearl-Plaza, and Tyler Saxey, director of customer experience for Foot Locker, discussed the reasoning and research behind our opinion.

Based on findings from Pearl-Plaza’s 2017 Retail Trends Report, our presenters shared several great reasons while the in-store experience still plays an important role in the retail industry:

1. Immediate Gratification

For customers, one of the biggest draws to a physical store is instant gratification. They can walk through the doors, see the selection, grab something off the shelf, and buy it.

With an in-store purchase, customers can enjoy their new items the moment they walk out the door. This type of satisfaction is simply not possible for the digital-only customer, who needs to wait for shipping and processing even after the transaction is complete. For the eager customer, brick-and-mortar retailers are still the way to go.

2. Previous Good Experiences

Another advantage for physical retailers is that they can build upon previous positive experiences. If a customer has gone to a store and has had an employee go above and beyond for them, they are more likely to make the trip again. Why? Because their previous experience made them feel important and valued; who wouldn’t like that?

If retailers are able to empower their staff to provide good experiences for customers, they can essentially guarantee customer loyalty.

3. Perceived Quality

In our research for the 2017 Retail Trends Report, we found that retail customers tend to perceive the quality of in-store goods to be greater than that of items bought online. Even though the items may be the same and in the same condition, the ability for clients to see, touch, and hold the items in their hands assures the customer that the item they are buying is exactly what they want.

Online retailers can’t provide the same sort of assurance, so when customers are especially concerned with quality, they are more likely to make the trip to a physical retailer.

4. The Human Element

The final and most important reason why in store retailers have an edge in their industry might be the most obvious: their people. The fact of the matter is that as social beings, we still prefer and value quality, interpersonal interactions.

When a customer speaks with a sales associate, they get to check items off their shopping list and connect with someone who will help them find what they need. This gives a sales transaction a priceless social element, and as I stated previously, it’s those personal relationships and experiences that keep customers coming back for more.

In light of these key in store differentiators, it’s clear that brick-and-mortar locations still have their place in the retail industry. In this case, it is important not to solely focus your efforts on digital resources, but instead to think about how you can use technology to empower your people.

Every culture has its popular myths: Bigfoot, the abominable snowman… the list goes on. However, when we think of these mythical monsters, we think of stories that are believable but generally acknowledged to be untrue when examined closely.

In terms of myths, retail culture is no different. With rapidly changing technology and evolving customers, many myths about the future of retail have surfaced. In Pearl-Plaza’s 2017 Retail Trends Report, we were able to debunk a few of these retail myths and find the truths beneath them. Check them out below!

Myth No. 1: Convenience is King.

Fact: Convenience has its place, and it’s not always first.

Today’s customers favor instant gratification, so it’s no surprise that digital-exclusive retailers are performing the best in terms of customer satisfaction. If convenience was king, it would mean that these ecommerce giants would take the retail crown, but our data shows that brick-and-mortar retailers can still serve an important and distinct role through customer experience.

A physical location provides customers with the opportunity to touch and handle items before purchasing, something that is simply not possible for digital-exclusive retailers. For example, you wouldn’t want to buy a new pair of shoes without trying them on first; brick-and-mortar stores give you the opportunity to do just that.

Even more, consumers perceived product quality to be higher when they buy from a brick-and-mortar retailer, proving that while convenience is great, it isn’t everything.

Myth No. 2: Automation will replace employees.

Fact: Technology can enhance, but not replace, human interactions.

While automation may make it easier for customers to complete purchases, it is not capable of creating empathetic and positive customer experiences in the same way your employees are. Your employees are the face of your brand, an irreplaceable asset, so instead of pitting technology against them, retailers would be well advised to think of ways to use automation to support their employees.

Myth No. 3: Personalization means targeted campaigns.

Fact: Personalization must be authentic.

Targeted campaigns are great strategies, but personalized interactions generally mean more to customers than personalized messages; customers value moments more than advertisements. Brands must leverage sales and service touchpoints by enabling their employees to build relationships and deliver value to their customers. This effort will translate personalized marketing efforts into authentic and effective campaigns.

When thinking about the future of your retail CX efforts, don’t be tempted to change course because of these myths. Instead, stay focused on your customers and what they need, then go from there!

If you’d like more context on retail trends and the direction retail customer experience is heading, download the full 2017 Retail Trends Report!