Let’s Get Personal: Using Technology to Improve In-Store Customer Experience
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There’s comfort in knowing your regular barista will start making your go-to beverage as soon as you step foot into your neighborhood coffee shop. You drop by every morning to order the same thing and your loyalty pays off in the form of enhanced service, friendly smiles and the confidence that you’ll be getting a consistently high-quality product. In turn, you keep coming back day after day.
This type of customer interaction is ideal: delivering benefits for both merchant (repeat business, loyalty) and customer (a seamless experience, a sense of value and familiarity). While the unique dynamic between a barista and an everyday customer may seem difficult to replicate in other types of retail businesses, the reality is that business owners now have the tools and technology at their disposal to foster personal rapport across almost any industry and create an in-store customer experience that’s worth returning to time and time again.
Here are a few tips to help you integrate technology into the customer experience:
Related: 3 Ways to Retain Loyal Customers By Going Above and Beyond
Empower employees with information to close the sale
In the last few years, mobile has played an important role in the purchasing cycle. For the first time, shoppers have the ability to compare competitors’ prices on the spot while in-store. To seal timely sales, employees must be able to access equally valuable information, such a customer data and product availability in real time. Tablets are a relatively inexpensive way to empower an employee’s ability to personalize interactions in the moments that matters most, converting weary shoppers into confident buyers. Device in hand, employees have the ability to match prices, order products that are out of stock and even make offers based shoppers’ unique proclivity.
Enhance operations with customer analytics
Powerful backend analytics also allow merchants to determine their most popular products and shift sales accordingly. And at the checkout, merchants can bring up a customer’s purchase history and suggest similar products either at register or through digital coupons.
Engage on social media
From Facebook to Instagram, social media not only lets merchants share information but also engage with customers on a personal level, continuing interactions outside of their regular business hours. Merchants can now open the conversation to a larger audience and have the capability to poll customers, hear direct feedback and encourage user-generated content. These capabilities give small businesses greater access to their customers that fosters stronger, more meaningful bonds.
Technology and data can play an invaluable role in enhancing your business, and the benefits are there for the taking, but don’t lose sight of the folks behind the numbers.
There’s comfort in knowing your regular barista will start making your go-to beverage as soon as you step foot into your neighborhood coffee shop. You drop by every morning to order the same thing and your loyalty pays off in the form of enhanced service, friendly smiles and the confidence that you’ll be getting a consistently high-quality product. In turn, you keep coming back day after day.
This type of customer interaction is ideal: delivering benefits for both merchant (repeat business, loyalty) and customer (a seamless experience, a sense of value and familiarity). While the unique dynamic between a barista and an everyday customer may seem difficult to replicate in other types of retail businesses, the reality is that business owners now have the tools and technology at their disposal to foster personal rapport across almost any industry and create an in-store customer experience that’s worth returning to time and time again.
Here are a few tips to help you integrate technology into the customer experience:
Related: 3 Ways to Retain Loyal Customers By Going Above and Beyond
Empower employees with information to close the sale
In the last few years, mobile has played an important role in the purchasing cycle. For the first time, shoppers have the ability to compare competitors’ prices on the spot while in-store. To seal timely sales, employees must be able to access equally valuable information, such a customer data and product availability in real time. Tablets are a relatively inexpensive way to empower an employee’s ability to personalize interactions in the moments that matters most, converting weary shoppers into confident buyers. Device in hand, employees have the ability to match prices, order products that are out of stock and even make offers based shoppers’ unique proclivity.
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