A Tale of Two Retailers

It was the best of experiences, it was the worst of experiences… ok, Charles Dickens is rolling over in his grave right about now so I’ll stop.

We are all consumers, so as a retail professional, there are always opportunities to see how retailers do what they do - inform, attract, engage, convert, and retain us. Some do it brilliantly, some do it terribly, and an awful lot of them do it just ok. I have engaged with two major retailers recently and had two different experiences which serve to illustrate what works and what doesn’t.

So let’s get personal.

In the past six months, my husband and I have achieved two life milestones: we have renovated an apartment, and have adopted two rescue dogs. In both cases, I have been a dream prospect for both DIY and pet care retailers: I am a blank slate, looking for a partner I can trust to help me navigate a minefield of tricky decisions and tell me what I should buy. If a retailer can meet that brief quickly, easily and comprehensively (a high bar, I grant you), I am theirs for life.

Like many people, I start by doing my research online. Armed with enough knowledge to be dangerous, but not enough to really know what I’m talking about, I head to the store. While my career has been spent in ecommerce, a physical place to see the product, ask questions and price compare will always be a part of my user journey. So on the DIY front, I head to one of Leroy Merlin ’s 465 stores, and hope for the best from this € 8 billion behemoth.

The first thing I notice is the overwhelming number of products, which makes me feel confident that they are likely to have what I need, but also awful because I have no idea how to find a thing. Enter: a human. And not just any human, but a knowledgeable one. And, on many occasions, a nice one - someone who actually tries to help. And here I thought an informed workforce was a relic of a bygone age, but lo and behold it can indeed exist in our modern times.

Over the course of the next three months, I have interacted with Leroy Merlin across many touchpoints:

• using their online room builder tool to build a kitchen and a bathroom, save the work, go into the store where the associate pulls it up from my online account, fixes my (many) mistakes, populates the shopping cart with even the small stuff I didn’t even know I needed (nails, clasps, etc.), and lets me pay;
• when I’ve left something in my online cart, the next day I get a phone call from a customer service rep asking me if I have any questions about the product that they can answer. While at first I found this creepy (they really are watching me, and calling to check up on me), I later found this quite useful and it converted almost all of my abandoned shopping carts into orders;
• a loyalty program that often generated many small rewards, which we know is a key part in the success of any loyalty play - demonstrate value early and often;
• an automated click and collect functionality where the entire user journey is considered from the computer to the parking lot where you get the goods. And again, these places are manned by people who know what they are doing, supported by a technology platform that makes them better at their jobs;
• a returns process that is easy and judgement-free.

Are they perfect? Of course not. They could do with a bit of IKEA-type wayfinding for sure, and a less-expensive home delivery option, but if that is what it takes to justify hiring and training the number of staff they have, it’s a premium I will happily pay.

Now onto Percy and Oscar.

We all know that an emotional customer is often price-insensitive, which is why the categories of pets and kids are practically recession-proof. And as a new owner of the most gorgeous dogs ever (Percy and Oscar, Spanish Greyhound / German Shepherd crosses), I am ground zero for a pet retailer.

As I mentioned, I start online - here’s where behemoths like Amazon and Zooplus crowd the search results. I wanted to find a multichannel option, with a store in my area, and I found Maxi Zoo , a part of the € 3.5 billion German-based Fressnapf Group. So off I went, armed with feeding instructions from the shelter and anxiety about what I’ve just gotten myself into (do you know how much two 30 kilo dogs eat?).

Again, I found both a great selection and a wonderful human, who could not have been more helpful. She walked us through a new owner bundle offer that gave us a discount if we bought one product each from a selection of five categories including food, accessories and toys - a clever idea but which I couldn’t have navigated on my own as it was all a bit too complicated to know what counted in which category.

Maxi Zoo does make an effort - they offer a loyalty program, encourage you to download the app, and personalise your home screen in a nice touch (such an easy thing to do, and embarrassingly effective, yet still not widely deployed). But, but:

• where is their subscription model? Why can’t I sign up to have my food delivered to me every two weeks? Or a big bag of pig’s ears (forgive me, PETA)? Surely this is rule number one for any food retailer of any kind;
• where is the part where they ask me about my dogs? I would happily give them their names, breeds, age, weight, etc., in exchange for personalised recommendations (STOP showing me a harness fit for a dachshund, please) and advice. This data would then allow them to follow me through their entire life cycle, keep me engaged as they suggest age-appropriate items, and earn more of my share of wallet;
• where is their followup? I have never gotten an email asking how my dogs likes the food, the beds, the treats, and every other thing we stocked up on. Missed opportunity.

I really like Maxi Zoo and I want them to be better - and it wouldn’t take much. Do it for Percy and Oscar.

The cheat sheet? Here are the recurring themes that make the difference between 3.5 billion and 8 billion euros (give or take, of course):

Investment in humans wins every time. Yes it’s expensive, and it’s even more expensive to train them. Customer acquisition and retention is expensive too. The sooner retailers understand the relationship between an empowered front line and my propensity to spend more and more with them, the less of an expense it will seem;

Use my data, PLEASE! If you take what you already know about me, and use it to make my life easier, I will be your consumer for life. It’s that simple.

Multiple touch points work. When you consider the mobile experience, online, instore, delivery and returns process and even the old-fashioned telephone as integral parts of the user journey, and optimise for every single one, you’ll see the benefit. They prove to me that you have put me, your customer, at the very heart of your business, something which so many say but so few actually do.

Jan Wejbrandt , I’m here if you need me…