Why retailers need to break down silos and unify store and digital operations

Over the weekend I visited a toy store to collect a soft toy my girlfriend ordered online for our daughter. We were looking to buy an identical copy of her favourite toy in case something bad happens to the one she loves and cherishes.

So here I am, visiting a toy store to collect something special for my daughter. The store was amazing I began to look around at other gift ideas for my daughter while waiting for a store associate to come and help me. After 2 minutes of waiting I had the package in my hands and I was a happy customer, ready to buy more gifts in the store.

Before buying more goods, I opened the package and to my amazement found out that the toy was half the size of the original one. I asked the staff member if I could have the bigger version and pay the difference. Sadly, they didn’t have it in stock so I asked for a refund.

This is where the friction in my customer journey started. They told me that it was not possible to refund me instore, I would need to go back home with the toy and call the online customer services to understand how I could exchange the goods.

How did I feel as a customer? Not great! 

I didn’t want to buy any extra gifts, even though my daughter would have loved them. Their response just didn’t make sense. It meant I would need to take a toy home I didn’t want, send it back via post (having repackaged it and taken it to a post office), wait until they receive the returned item before I could get my money back, and then re-order the new item. 

It could have been so different. They could have just taken it, when I was there in the store, and given me a refund, back to my card. 

Sadly this situation doesn’t make sense to customers a lot of the time. But why does it still happen? Because they are organized in silos both at an organizational and system level. Online and store operations are two different teams and they are managed in different systems, and aren’t working together for the whole business to win.  

This is a perfect example of why customers are leaving high street retailers that are not quick enough to evolve and remove friction points. Retailers need to speed up in their omnichannel approach, driving their digital transformation programmes faster. 

Of course, the first step is to ensure that teams and systems work together effectively. This starts with having the right collaboration tools and technology. This makes it possible to reduce the friction and separation across businesses. Unifying on the reasons that businesses were started - to excite and delight customers with products that they will love.

The long term solution is that they need to go further and unify online and store operations. And they have to do it at speed to continue to be successful. Some retailers are almost there, some are a long way off, and sadly some had to close because the gap was too big to fill.