Marketing convenience to customers

It's no great surprise that, as the saying (kind of) goes, "Convenience is King!"

OK, so I'm perhaps stretching the Customer is King aphorism a bit, but you get the idea, and it's backed by data. With increased pressure on supply?chains and the post-pandemic impacts on services levels – you don't have to look much further than the challenges over the half-term week at airports across the UK – 80% of customers place more value on it now than before the?pandemic.(i)

Equally unsurprisingly, those same customers are also more likely to purchase from a company with a hassle-free buying?journey and they’re willing to spend more, too.?

So why are there still so many disconnects between online and offline customer experience?

Disjointed customer journeys are still all too common through checkout, collection and delivery, so likely to result in missed?sales – 97% of consumers abandon a purchase because the process wasn’t convenient enough.(ii) This holds true across industries, from simple retail purchases to more involved buying cycles such as?luxury goods or financial services.?

For retailers, this presents both a challenge, but also a considerable opportunity. With customers interacting?with brands across a multitude of digital channels, virtual spaces and physical locations, delivering a simple?and unified buyer’s journey is not easy. But the brands that?excel in making consumers' lives easy can quickly gain an edge over the competition, helping to increase brand loyalty,?customer retention and ultimately, revenues.?

All sales are a journey, not a destination?

The pandemic didn’t just impact consumer preferences. It transformed business models, too. Almost?overnight, any brand that could move online did. Once bricks and mortar stores reopened, many?maintained their online growth, making the battle for hybrid customers across digital and physical?marketplaces fiercer than ever.?

At the same time, rising inflation and the fallout from Brexit have created a cost of living crisis that’s left?UK retailers and economists fearing the worst. At the beginning of the year, the British Retail Consortium?warned that “it will take continued agility and resilience if [retailers] are to battle the storm ahead, while?also tackling issues from labour shortages to rising transport and logistics costs.”(iii)

Against this backdrop, a convenient customer experience can be the difference between success and?survival – or worse.?

With the stakes so high, companies can't afford to consider convenience a luxury or something that?only comes to light once a customer commits to a purchase. It is now a significant selling point and?should be communicated as such.?

This means investing in facilitating faster, more flexible hybrid customer experiences (CX) and ensuring?that customers and prospects know all about them. Great examples of this are Buy Online, Pay in Store?(BOPIS) initiatives and they're proving hugely beneficial to all parties.?

BOPIS allows the customer to browse, compare and consider a purchase at their own pace, on their?preferred device, anytime, anywhere. When they're ready to buy, they arrange a suitable time to?collect the product in person, similar to Click-and-Collect. However, the face-to-face collection coupled with the actual sales interaction allows the retailer to up- or cross-sell and potentially increase sales. And it works - the International Council of Shopping Centers reports that?over 50% of adult shoppers use BOPIS, and 67% of those grab extra items during pick up.(iv)

This is just one highly effective way to turn customer convenience into sales. There are many more, from?curbside pickup and easy repeat ordering to personalised browsing, tailored offers and simply providing?timely, accurate and consistent information across all channels. The more barriers you remove from the basket, whether?digital or physical, the more likely your customers are to fill it - again and again.?

Consistent convenience breeds customer confidence

When you deliver a consistently convenient experience, you give your customers confidence. Confidence?that translates into satisfaction, loyalty and retention. However delivering this level of service requires real-time?visibility into footfall, customer behaviour and other data point metrics – the type of insight most retailers?don’t have at their fingertips.?

To bridge this gap, many turn to data experts to help them stand out in crowded markets, deliver?powerful customer experiences, and ultimately increase sales.

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Louis is Vice President, Sales, EMEA at Uberall. At Uberall we help the world’s most innovative brick and mortar businesses stay relevant, competitive, and profitable, by using digital technology to win clicks online and feet offline.

If your business needs help with any of?the above, please do get in touch on +44 20 3769 3000 to start the conversation.?

i https://rebrand.ly/x4htkqz

ii https://rebrand.ly/anmmr1n

iii https://rebrand.ly/fb8me33

iv https://rebrand.ly/bmuc38j