An Analytics driven approach to delivering winning customer experiences

The famous author and marketer, Seth Godin, once said “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic”.

The implicit truth in this line is that people ultimately buy from other people, and the entire consumer journey is not just transactional, but has layers of emotions and relationships with brands as well.

Consumers have changed radically in recent times:-

• They have access to information and are very savvy about research
• They demand authenticity and quality and tell retailers when they don’t get it!
• They expect retailers to know them (their profile) and expect personalized treatment
• They also expect retailers to respect their privacy and remind them frequently (especially when they fail)

Consumers expect a superior purchase experience every time they shop, either at the retail store or through online shopping. They are ever so eager to share their experiences with their circle of friends and well-wishers through various social media channels through “likes”, “tweets” and “posts”!

Social media is now like a large, unbiased, focus group which can be tapped through Analytics to provide incredible amounts of information and insights. For instance, a luxury watch maker discovered that most of the social media conversations about expensive watches were happening not on fashion or luxury goods sites but on forums relating to Formula 1 racing! The brand used this insight to then connect with its target audience through sponsorship of a Formula 1 event.

Retailers across the world have realised the power of Technology and Analytics. In today’s digital world, the buzz word is “Omni channel”. As retail continues to confront shifting technology trends, experts argue that strong sales associates in the store are an inescapable feature of Omni channel retail. The reasons are multi-faceted. Associates further the brand’s reputation and boost the customer’s experience in store through knowledge about the merchandise and inventory. There’s a level of creativity that humans have that, so far at least, can’t be replicated. Intuitively, one would argue that technology can, at best, be an enabler and NOT a replacement!

The question now is that since providing a differentiated and “wow” experience for the customer is completely in the hands of the store employees, can analytics be used in an intelligent way to ensure that store employees can be empowered to constantly delight their customers?

•  Store employees must be provided access to rich information on a real-time basis while also allowing them to be active and accessible on the store floor.
• They should have access to customers’ order histories and personal preferences so they can provide professional knowledge and recommendations to meet customer needs. This creates a highly personalized and memorable experience for the customer.
• Improved access to information and inventory visibility allow store associates to provide personalized interactions and help retailers to build customer loyalty.

Investing in Digital Intelligence is a great way to kick-start this process. Listening to social media and other online channels helps retailers to home in on where their communities are:

• Do their customers and prospects engage on twitter, blogs, forums, mainstream news sites, or all of the above?
• Which keywords do they use most often? Maybe they are discussing “coupons”, “malls”, “stores”, “retail” or “shopping”.

Amazon is an excellent example of a retailer that does this well; it presents its customers with their order histories and makes suggestions based on past orders and searches. There's no reason, however, why a brick-and-mortar retailer couldn't be just as attentive. It takes data, and it takes arming store associates with that data.

So what are the ways in which Digital Intelligence can help retailers?

1. REACHING AND CONNECTING WITH THE CONSUMER BASE

•  Finding out who the target consumer is
• Discovering who is buying the products and building profiles for each
• Targeting niches & streamlining future sales efforts.
• Focusing and connect with the target consumers closely
  • Using social intelligence to find online communities where the target consumers spend time, including geographic location
  • Focusing the messaging & engagement accounting for regional considerations that may affect reception of the messaging.
• Discovering what they’re saying about the brand-which terms are being used in discussions about the brand? Consumers are likely to use certain keywords in relation to the Product, brand, or industry (e.g., pricing or service)-these can be used to recalibrate sales strategies.

 2. PROVIDING REAL-TIME CUSTOMER SERVICE

Retail shoppers expect exceptional customer service offline and online – And if they don’t get it, they will tweet about it.

• By listening for these conversations and helping in real-time, retailers can turn an adverse situation into a winning customer experience, and develop strong, lifelong relationships with their customers.
• Some may even become advocates for the retail brand throughout Social Media and beyond.

3. INFLUENCER MARKETING 

• By using an influencer ranking service, retailers can drill down into their data and discover the most influential social media users around their industry or brand.
• Consumers tend to trust the opinions of people they know over traditional brand marketing and advertising, making word of Mouth one of the most powerful techniques in the business.
• Identification of influential Bloggers/ Facebook users/ Twitter users/ Journalists and Forum members
• It’s important to understand which communities of interest are discussing about the retailer brand. Communities’ analysis is an important method of understanding if the brand or product’s features are being discussed by the “right audience”.

In an Omni-channel retail environment, the store sales associate is not just selling what’s available in the store but also what’s available at an enterprise level. Instant access to detailed information about inventory allows the associates to utilize their fantastic interpersonal skills instead of just their product knowledge.

Winning the battle in the customers mind requires a judicious mix of top notch selling skills, reinforced with a solid data driven consumer process to unearth deep insights about the consumer. Retailers would be well advised to mine the rich treasure of information that they have with them already and embrace newer approaches to understanding their consumers better and forging strong and lasting relationships with them.