The customer is the backbone of any business.

While the statement has been ubiquitous in every business management handbook for a very long time, it’s only a recent phenomenon that certain brands have recognized its real importance.

Slowly but surely, businesses are moving away from the sales-focused culture and are putting customers at the core of everything they do. Embracing a customer-centric approach not only builds customer loyalty but also fosters a positive experience for the buyers along every step of their journey with the business.

Understand the building blocks of a killer retail experience

There are three fundamental elements to building a stellar retail experience. They are:

1. Consistent experience across all channels

2. Properly trained staff that puts their customers first

3. Flexible tech that simplifies the shopping journey

Brands that understand what these elements mean in the context of their business and develop initiatives and programs aligned with these aspects will stand out from the crowd and earn customer loyalty.

Build connected retail experiences

The future of retail is all about being present wherever the customer wants to engage with the brand. According to a survey conducted by Aspect Software, businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t.

Today’s customers expect more than a transactional relationship with retailers. They demand seamless and personalized experiences that reflect the context of how they shop across channels and devices. To win in this digital customer-centric era, brands must focus on personalization and making every interaction consistent across all customer touch points.

Use customer data to personalize the shopping experience

Track customer data to get a better idea of the customer journey and understand all the steps the customer has gone through before interacting with them. This will help the customer reps gauge the customer’s intentions and expectations better and approach them accordingly. Making the data available in an easy-to-understand format to the frontline is critical in order to have more personalized conversations with the customers.

Adopt a customer-first mentality

Improving customer experience is not just the job of your frontline team. It’s the shared responsibility of the entire organization – and it starts with leadership. Total buy-in from the top is the only way of enacting steady cultural change in which all members of the organization start putting their customers first. A good starting point for this shift can be incorporating customer-focused strategies as one of the business goals and changing KPIs to metrics such as customer lifetime value.

Empower teams with the right tech to refine customer experience

Making sure that customer-facing teams have the right tech to succeed at their jobs plays a huge part in delivering outstanding customer experience across all channels. However, according to a joint study conducted by the Oxford University and McKinsey & Company, many retailers still continue to devote less than 1.5 percent of revenue to developing their technology assets. The retail frontline staff is overloaded with time-consuming manual tasks. Empowering them with automation tools, predictive analytics, and personalized messaging-based communication channels will take the guesswork out of the process and improve their efficiency.  

Transforming a traditional retail structure into a modern, flexible, and customer-centric organization is not a straightforward process. It comes with its own set of challenges. But it’s this shift that will mean the difference between a retailer struggling to survive in the digital era and a retailer growing rapidly by leveraging technology.

To know more about how Statflo helps retailers engage, retain, and grow their customer base, get in touch with our sales team.