4 Tips That Transform Holiday Shoppers Into Loyal Customers

0
14

Share on LinkedIn

Challenge: Tis the season for customers to think “sale.” However, while customers are concentrating on transactions, companies need to think beyond the holidays. We hope the following 4 tips will help you move beyond “quickie transactions” for the 2013 holiday season to creating relationships for 2014 and beyond.

1. Understand the journey customers take with your company, from prospect to loyal customer. Know what each customer segment requires and deliver on your brand promise at every stage of their customer journey. See our previous article DM News Spotlight Article, The Sales Funnel is Dead.

2. Be a Holiday Shopping Resource.

Consumers will be receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of sales offers. By asking them to tell you about their needs and then helping with personalized solutions, you will cut through the clutter and create a competitively differentiating shopping experience.

3. Be Multi Channel.

Showrooming is not a threat, it is a reality. Showrooming occurs when shoppers are at a retail location and use their mobile devices to research prices or terms at competitive online merchants. More than three quarters of shoppers have examined merchandise in a brick-and-mortar store and ultimately purchased that merchandise at a lower price, online, according to new data from CFI Group’s Holiday Retail Spending Survey.

Additionally, a recent survey conducted by Deloitte found that two-thirds of smartphone owners planned to use their phones during holiday shopping, to find store locations, compare prices and look for product information.

Therefore, make it easy for customers to interact with your company effortlessly, via the media of their choice.

4. Be consistent across channels.

During holiday shopping season customers and prospects are doing a lot of research. Make sure you are providing a consistent multichannel experience, not multichannel frustration. A frictionless experience is key for customers who will give up on your company when information is different across media, or difficult to find;

» Walmart is partnering with online resources such as Google to enable shoppers to not only search for a product, but also find out if it is available in their local store. Stephen F. Quinn, chief marketing officer at Walmart explained, “Google will tell you if your local Walmart has Weber grills in stock, and it will tell you that store’s location.” Walmart started experimenting with this process earlier this year and has increased its efforts for the holidays.

» And, most retailers are taking to Facebook for ads and Pinterest to setup online showrooms. Target and many other retailers, are using Pinterest, which Casey Carl, president of multichannel at Target says they are using for holiday-party-planning boards for their Red Card holders. Pinterest itself is starting a new “Holiday Gift” category that will not only offer shoppers gift ideas but will give retailers another display window for their items.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Ernan Roman
Ernan Roman (@ernanroman) is president of ERDM Corp. and author of Voice of the Customer Marketing. He was inducted into the DMA Marketing Hall of Fame due to the results his VoC research-based CX strategies achieve for clients such as IBM, Microsoft, QVC, Gilt and HP. ERDM conducts deep qualitative research to help companies understand how customers articulate their feelings and expectations for high value CX and personalization. Named one of the Top 40 Digital Luminaries and one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here