Why Talking to Customers is So Important in the Post-Covid Reality

Over the past two years, retailers have faced unprecedented challenges to ‘business as usual’. As stores closed and consumer buying habits shifted online, retail brands had to quickly adapt to a new digital-first reality. Even those retailers with mature e-commerce strategies in place had to double down on making sure they were meeting customers where they were, while navigating new challenges related to supply chains and staff shortages.?

The latest data from research firm McKinsey & Company show that, even as the world continues to gradually re-open, there are new problems to confront. While physical stores are seeing a boost? in foot traffic as people emerge from lockdowns, an economic downturn looms. Inflation is also eating into consumers’ purchasing power: the US inflation rate reached nearly 9.1% in June 2022 , the highest it’s been in over 40 years.?

But there are positive signs. Consumer spending remains strong . Retailers have faced major challenges before, and lessons from the past can help us face the current moment with determination. Winners in a crisis are those who can effectively balance risk with innovation. The brands that come out on top don't just stick to the status quo; they choose where to invest and they do it wisely.?

With this in mind, a top priority for brands should be making sure they are talking to their customers. This may seem obvious — but many brands still treat this crucial activity as an afterthought.?

Retail resiliency depends on engaging with customers

Resilient organizations are equipped to weather challenges, no matter what form those challenges take. For example, investing in breakwater infrastructure improves a city’s resilience against the threat of flooding; similarly, investing in digital infrastructure (such as automation tools) improves retailers’ resilience against decreasing revenues by lowering costs, improving efficiency, and making it easier to connect with customers across all touch points.?

There are three things I’ve learned over the course of the pandemic about what retailers need to do to stay competitive in the years to come. I’ve watched our customers take challenges in stride, and I’m highlighting shining examples of how they’ve used conversations with their customers to become better brands. If you’re a retailer wondering exactly how you can position yourself today for an uncertain future — and how you can make sure you’re connecting with your customers — borrow from this playbook.?

3 key learnings for weathering a storm

1. Have empathy for your customers and create experiences they can relate to.

It’s important to understand that in many ways, helping is the new selling. When retailers are available for customers and actively working to understand how and why they engage with their brand, connections are built and customer loyalty grows.?

A lot of Heyday's customers come to us with one mission: they want to make sure every customer feels heard and cared for. And they want to do this without burning out their teams. Several years into a pandemic, this can be a huge challenge. This is what Heyday client Bestseller set out to achieve with us. “We were looking for a chatbot to extend our customer service coverage, because our CS department is only open during working hours,” said a Bestseller Canada employee. By rolling out a retail chatbot to meet this need, both efficiency and engagement improved, fostering deeper loyalty with customers.?

2. Data and AI are key to growing revenues, lowering costs and improving CX at scale.

Today’s customers treat every digital channel as a point of connection with a brand and expect brands to be responsive and helpful, whether by email, web chat or on social media. The only way brands can meet the challenges of communicating with thousands of customers in real time, 24/7, is by leveraging automation tools—and the data generated by these interactions at scale.?

After brands have gathered data showing how their customers behave, it can be used to create strategies for growth, marketing, CX and customer service. For example, art supply store and Heyday by Hootsuite client DeSerres leveraged insights from customers to identify a blindspot and roll out important changes to their website: “Many people asked about the depth of our canvas frames; they could see the dimensions online, but that one answer wasn’t there,” a DeSerres team member explained in a case study . “Once we had our centralized Heyday inbox, we could see the question, and it was easy to fix on the website.”

3. Creating a seamless experience across all touch points is essential to maintaining and growing market share.?

Brands need to be sure their customers enjoy an engaging and responsive experience no matter what channel they choose to connect on. When shoppers realize they can trust a brand to be “on” across all touch points, they will happily return again.

When sport and fitness retailer Decathlon UK saw a major spike in customer inquiries on Facebook Messenger, the company acted quickly to ensure that customers received the same high-quality service on the social media channel as they did at other touch points, creating a unified experience. The results speak for themselves: Ninety-six percent of customers reported being satisfied with their experience.?

Connecting with customers using conversational AI

Top brands have found that the most effective way to address the three critical concerns described above — empathizing with customers, leveraging automation to scale up, and creating a unified CX across touch points — is through the use of conversational AI .

At the end of the day, this is why we founded Heyday: to help retailers be there for their customers, 24/7, in good times and bad. We do this by helping them improve CX, lower costs and boost sales — and together we’ll keep improving the retail experience, no matter what challenges we face now or in the future.?

What are your thoughts on retail resiliency and staying engaged with customers? Have you taken any approaches that you’ve found to be effective? Share your thoughts in the comments.