The growth of retail in the business landscape is no longer news. However, there are still many challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs and professionals working in this segment.
It's undeniable that the way people choose and buy products has changed significantly in recent years—and retail is no exception. Direct contact with customers forces the sector to constantly reinvent itself and innovate.
retail in depth and develop this basic guide with plenty of content for you to apply to your business. Let's get started!
Pioneering Retail
Retail is a highly competitive market , and because it focuses entirely on the end consumer, it requires continuous and direct service. Companies in this segment must constantly be aware of changes that affect the needs of their target audience, capturing these trends and transforming them into a positive customer experience .
Companies that settle for less lose market share due to intense competition. So, if your company doesn't meet the minimum requirements, consumers will spend their money elsewhere—and that's not what you want.
One of the most frequently mentioned aspects here at Harmo is customer experience. This concept is used as a means to achieve certain goals, such as customer loyalty and the confidence they have in recommending your brand to others .
To achieve this, there are numerous ways to understand consumer behavior, from analyzing purchasing data, website or social media visits, to advanced neuromarketing . It all depends on the size of your business, your goals, and your budget.
Listening to customers is very important in retail, because by solving a specific customer's problem, you may be helping other customers with the same difficulty.
A case cited by Kotler in his book “ Marketing Management ” is that of the 3M , in which he claims that more than two-thirds of its ideas for improving products and services arose from complaints from its customers .
Which shows us another important factor: simply listening to your customer's feedback Actions for improvement must be taken.
By creating a direct channel with your target audience, you'll gain insights into how consumers research or purchase products, and you'll also learn what factors influence their decision-making.
Tips to improve the customer experience
Step 1: Feedback
Customer feedback is extremely important to your company. Besides indicating what needs improvement, it can also provide insights for your operations. The best surveys are short, with a maximum of 6 questions.
This way, there isn't enough time for the customer to get bored, and your chances of engaging customers increase.
Step 2: Empathy
I'm sure you have opinions about the products and services you use, right? Putting yourself in your customer's shoes will give you a new perspective on how they perceive your product. You'll also see how communication with your store works for them.
A lack of communication between companies and consumers can lead to problems , as the target audience needs to feel important. Furthermore, by taking your customers' opinions into account, you can create increasingly personalized service.
For example, when you visit a store and the attendant calls you by name, it's very personalized service, isn't it?
Step 3: Agility
On the other hand, it's very uncomfortable to arrive at an establishment and have no one serve you, isn't it?
Maybe you're having a busy or stressed day, and waiting for service is the last thing you want right now.
service is a differentiator that will make customers like your store and will also significantly increase the chances of customers doing business with your company again.
Step 4: Service
This department is the front line of your business, so it's crucial that they work in perfect harmony. The people who make up the customer service department are the face of your company, as they are the first point of contact a customer has with your store.
Therefore, good customer service is essential for businesses that want to span generations and maintain high visibility. Furthermore, over time, your agents can already have a baseline of customer satisfaction .
With these tips, you'll not only improve your sales but also gain more customers . This will allow you to grow intelligently, that is, in a way that strengthens your brand in the market.
Service at the POS
Companies that excel in retail sales know the importance of POS (Point of Sale) service to delight and retain customers .
It's no use just having an attractive appearance at the point of sale, and even low prices, if the consumer is not well served and leaves with a bad impression of the store .
In addition to not returning to the establishment, the dissatisfied customer may also make negative comments about the brand to their acquaintances, through conversation or on social media.
Whether at a POS or in e-commerce , personalized service is increasingly valued by consumers.
In a physical store, the salesperson should be available to the customer and act as a kind of consultant, suggesting the products or services that best meet their needs. And the establishment should provide the customer with a pleasant shopping experience , encouraging them to do business with you again.
E-commerce Service
With the growing access to social media and websites, online shopping has also evolved significantly. After adapting to the virtual world, stores face the challenge of keeping up with mobile to deliver a good browsing experience to their customers .
When making a purchase or searching, users want to have as little effort as possible , especially those using mobile devices.
That's why it's crucial for retail companies to develop tools to gather user feedback
Be where your customer is
It is impossible today to think of retail as just a set of physical stores, where customers go every time they need to buy a product.
With new technologies, multichannel retail has been gaining more and more ground , requiring retailers to make a greater effort to attract customers and take advantage of opportunities.
Today, consumers compare prices on their computers, access store apps, or make purchases on their cell phones, even researching in-store. The way consumers shop has changed, and these consumers demand that brands adapt to their habits and customs.
To give you an idea of the relevance of the union between online and offline Google survey confirms that 3 out of 4 consumers who find retail information obtained through a web are more likely to go to the physical store.
We can see that this behavior increases the consumer's decision-making power, as they have all the information they need to negotiate the best deals. Thus, the bargaining power is entirely in the customer's hands.
You then need to find the media outlets your target audience uses most and establish a presence there. For example, if your client uses Facebook and Instagram , create brand pages on these platforms, post regularly, and create valuable content for the viewer.
By doing this, you will create a much closer and more personal communication channel with your customer, generate more empathy, and your brand will gain increasing authority among consumers.
Experience at every point of the journey
Today's consumers, especially younger ones, demand a more focused in-store experience and shop with a select group of retailers who meet their expectations.
A good way to start analyzing the experience with fresh eyes is to collect feedback on customer opinion after the purchase .
Companies like Uber achieve this effectively by using a star-and -tag for each user to rate the driver after the ride. Because it's simple, this model has high response rates and allows for automatic report generation without taking up time from other activities.
Another interesting aspect of customer experience is its various integrations and partnerships with other services. For example, you can request rides and get trip information without having to open the app, making life easier and faster for customers.
So, to gain more prominence and stay ahead of the competition, invest in selling experiences . Discounts are great, but they're a short-term strategy. When you improve the customer experience, you can win fans for your brand, reducing the competition.
Sales strategies to retain more customers
So, after you know your target audience and understand the consumer experience, let's talk a little about personalized sales strategies.
Let's discuss cross-selling and up-selling in a very practical and straightforward way, and what has helped companies like Amazon and McDonald's sell so much more. So, let's get to it...
Cross Selling
Cross -selling occurs when your customer has already entered your establishment and chosen what to buy. After the consumer purchases a product from your company, the seller offers a "complement" to the merchandise already purchased.
These are suggestions salespeople make that are related to what the customer just got. It's like asking if you'd like fries with your snack, or if you'd like headphones for the cell phone you just bought.
It even happens when the gas station attendant asks if you've recently checked your engine oil level when filling up your car. The product offered isn't always in the same category as the one the buyer is already buying, but it completes the new purchase.
A common practice that works well in most retail stores is to strategically display items next to the lines. This way, merchandise from different categories can complement any product already being purchased.
Up selling
Upselling occurs when your customer already knows the category of the product they want to purchase, but may still have questions about the style, brand, or details of the device. And even if they don't seem to have any doubts, that's where the salesperson comes in.
With this technique, the seller's goal is to expose the consumer to more personalized products, and possibly add value to a purchase that the buyer is already certain they will make.
Using a common example, it's when you take your pet to a pet shop and they offer a special bath with grooming included, probably for a special price.
Another interesting Upsell tip you can apply is to increase the perceived value of your product by offering product bundles.
For example, by bundling a group of products into a single package with a small profit margin, this will attract customers' attention more quickly than trying to sell a single item. This way, people who wanted to buy just one of these items end up buying the others because they are perceived as "cheaper" together.
In short, Cross Selling offers additional products or services that complement the purchase, while Up Selling is a technique that seeks to “improve” and add to the final purchase of a product or service.
Customer Retention
In most companies, it's common to see a huge effort and investment in acquiring new customers, and often retaining current customers is left on the back burner.
Adopting customer retention strategies means thinking about the company's longevity . A loyal customer will continue to consume and generate revenue for the company for a long time. Therefore, when acquiring a new customer, you must consider consumption potential in the coming years, not just the current one.
This concept is also known as Lifetime Value (LTV) , which can be translated as lifetime value. In other words, it assesses how much, on average, your customers invest in your products or services during the period they have a relationship with your company.
To give you an idea of the values, keeping a customer is about five times cheaper than attracting a new one .
So, focusing on customer retention, thinking about their experience, listening and meeting their needs is the most efficient and cheapest way to grow your company .
There's undoubtedly a restaurant or business in your city that's been operating for over 20 years that "doesn't do any marketing" and yet makes more money than any other that invests heavily in media. What's the logic behind this? The customer comes to your store, buys, is satisfied, shares the experience with friends, and returns after a while.
Without a doubt, customer retention will bring numerous benefits to your company, offering an excellent experience and many benefits that customers likely won't find with the competition. This added value can be key to keeping your customers loyal .
How to measure customer loyalty in retail?
It's undeniable that strategies that seek customer loyalty are essential to a business's success. After all, loyal consumers buy more, provide free advertising, and reduce customer acquisition costs.
And these are just some of the advantages that can be identified in this strategy.
So, how do you measure customer loyalty in businesses where most of the purchasing steps are handled by each customer? This is the reality of self-service retail stores, which operate on a large scale.
Reasons that make a customer loyal to the store:
To measure customer loyalty, you first need to know why they prefer a particular store or product.
Customers may be loyal to a store because of its location, its specialty in a particular product, or because it provides a pleasant and complete shopping experience.
For structural reasons related to the 4 Ps of marketing, satisfaction surveys help map the characteristics that build customer loyalty. But for other, emotional reasons, the analysis needs to be done from a different perspective.
The decisive question and the Net Promoter Score®
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our store to your friends and family?
Applying an electronic questionnaire with this simple question at the end of a sale allows the company to classify the level of customer loyalty on a scale, the Net Promoter Score® .
The metric measures how likely respondents are to recommend a particular company, product, or service to friends, family, or colleagues. The idea is simple: if you enjoy using a product or doing business with a particular company, you'll want to share that experience with others, right?
Depending on your answer, customers will be divided into three categories:
- Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will continue to buy and recommend your products to others, fueling the growth of your business.
- Neutrals (score 7-8) are satisfied customers who purchase with average frequency and are vulnerable to competitive offers.
- Detractors (score 0-6) are dissatisfied customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word of mouth.
Satisfaction and experience in retail: A look into the future
Imagine how much information your business generates at all times, regardless of its size. Have you ever thought about that?
Today, we can gather data on commercial activities such as emails, marketing campaigns, strategic planning, financial data, satisfaction surveys, income statements, and customer records.
Looking at all this content in general, it's normal to feel lost, as there's no way to tabulate, cross-reference, and optimize so much data to the point of generating relevant information and knowledge to impact the consumer experience.
Global retail companies, by monitoring and translating everything they generate, leverage cognitive technology and processing power to transform data into business insights.
The goal is to have a 360-degree view of what's happening in the company and even know the future, based on internal and external data, allowing you to focus on what matters: the customer.
The way we deal with consumers becomes clearer, and we find patterns, problems, and solutions, taking customer satisfaction to another level.
When we understand the customer, intangible characteristics such as transparency, respect, security and trust enter the shopping experience, because this is what the customer really acquires.
Something fundamental to keep in mind: no matter the size of your company, technology can and should be present in your business.
There are several affordable tools that will make your business smarter and help you understand your audience.
Watch our webinar on the 4 key metrics for measuring customer experience and at what point in the journey to use them.
Conclusion
Start your journey by understanding your consumers' specific characteristics and customer satisfaction. Understanding the factors that drive purchases helps you efficiently measure all channels.
Good service is the beginning of a lasting relationship with your customers. It's the first step toward building loyalty.
From there, you should focus your efforts on keeping that customer a friend of your company, creating opportunities for them to do business with you again and even bring in new customers.
By focusing on your customers' wants and needs, you'll create a flawless experience that's likely to significantly boost sales.
As the future of retail is the combined experience, we need to pay particular attention to smartphones , after all, with each passing day, the device increases its importance in the consumer's purchasing journey .
Google data shows that mobile shopping clicks outperformed desktop as consumers made their purchasing decisions wherever they were.
Another relevant point is that through Google's research with Ipsos MediaCT and Sterling Brands , they found that 71% of consumers who use their smartphones for in-store research say the device has become an important part of the shopping experience.
mobile era brings a new approach to all businesses, including retail. Measuring and tracking customer satisfaction is crucial to business success.
By following these steps, you'll know if you're on the right track and what potential issues your store may be experiencing. Don't fall behind your competition; start using technology to your advantage !
