In today’s highly competitive business climate, being able to attract, serve and satisfy more customers is a key to success and increasing revenue. A happy customer is more likely to be a loyal one, a customer coming back to your store. By this I mean a customer who enjoys spending time and money in the store, and who looks forward to returning again and again.
Retaining them and keeping them loyal to your brand is a challenge though. Recent research shows that as many as 89% of the retail customers will simply leave after just one single bad experience (1). It shows that the experience delivered has to be not only great; it needs also to be consistent during time.
However, 86% are willing to pay more to get a better experience which suggests that investing in customer experience is a major differentiator in the market today. (2)
As competition is not only from the brick and mortar store next door, there is more to take into consideration. That the online stores are big competitors is no surprise to anyone, and they are showing huge growth numbers as well. So does this mean that you need to close the front door of your the brick and mortar stores? Well, actually no. Debenhams, the UK’s second largest department store chain has seen that “Shoppers who use the stores and websites spend more than twice as much as those who shop only in stores or only online.” (3)
So, you need to keep the experience on a high level, consistent over time and through all channels. It’s about making every customer journey special – no matter whom they are or why they choose to visit your store. Anything less means that the customer faces endless choices that wastes time for everybody and does little to promote the sale or your brand.
By allowing customers to book online, to utilize their smart mobile devices to manage their place in the queue, to self-check-in, to receive personalized service based on preferences and profile and to provide their views in real-time we make sure that both our clients and their customers and patients make the most of every meeting.
At the end of the day, it’s all about sales. The challenge is to create the optimal conditions for staff to sell and customers to buy.
Republished with author’s permission from original post by Sven-Olof Husmark
[1] 2013 Oracle CX
[2] 2010, Customer Experience Survey – Strativity Group
[3] The guardian”, April 2013