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5 Steps To Creating A Better In-Store Customer Experience

By Derek Dykens, Cisco

Traditional
retailers are feeling immense pressure to improve the in-store customer
experience as innovative, digital-first competitors continue to enter the brick-and-mortar
space. These disruptors are known to provide a more positive, memorable
customer journey in the physical shopping world given that they’ve already
learned so much about their customers online. Here are a few steps that any
retailer can take to improve the in-store experience:

1) Be
There To Assist In Moments That Matter

We
have all experienced this. You walk into a retail store for a simple yet important
shopping trip and you can’t find an employee to help you. Maybe you have a
quick question about a product or service, maybe you are ready to make your
purchase and the cash wraps are sitting empty. In either situation, this
frustrating experience burns a lasting memory into your customer’s mind — that
you are no longer invested in helping them when they visit your store. When a
customer walks away because you’re not showing up it becomes a lifelong
challenge to get them back. Consider leveraging technology and real-time store
intelligence to know when and where your customers need help. The more meaningful
data that you have about your shoppers, the better you can serve them.
Understanding the shopper’s behavior in real time can tell you when they are
ready to make a purchase or who has been dwelling in a specific category.

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2)
Show Your Associates Some Love

Having
an unhappy employee can quickly translate into unhappy customers. One negative
interaction with an in-store associate can make or break the relationship. And keep
in mind, retail associates have countless opportunities in the industry to work
for another retailer, so ask yourself — why are my associates working here?
Having them engaged, trained on the latest products and completing various
store tasks on time while keeping their smile might seem like the impossible. However,
don’t be afraid to leap forward with your associate mobile strategy. Deploying
the right mobile technology can provide great benefits and get you back on course
to having happy employees. Empowering your associates with tools to do their
jobs in a faster, more meaningful way can greatly increase their engagement and
loyalty to your brand.

3)
Pick Up The Phone, Have Answers

When
you call a retail store you are expecting to wait on hold. Maybe for a couple
minutes, maybe for eternity with no answer at all. Worse yet, waiting on hold
to have an unknowledgeable employee answer the phone can feel like the end of
the world. Now, what if you were to take a subset of those calls and roll them to
a contact center where employees are ready to answer any question that your
customer might throw their way? Having the technology to route those customer
calls with context from your CRM systems can make all the difference. You
answer the phone faster and you answer the customer’s questions while
potentially upselling them on other products or services. Now that sounds like
a better experience for everyone.

4)
Provide Self-Service Options

Gone
are the days of a one-size-fits-all customer journey. Self-service options can save
your store team time and will often make the customer feel like they’ve
accomplished something faster than if they were to have direct engagement with
an associate. For example, retailers are now seeing value in deploying scan-and-go
type technology that leverages the customer’s mobile device, or enabling
chatbots to answer customer questions. Keep in mind that self-service isn’t for
everyone, so this goes back to step #1 – you still need to be there for the customers who prefer those face-to-face
interactions.

5)
Keep It Simple

The
end goal should be to reduce friction. Don’t overcomplicate things or make an
experience feel over the top in an attempt to ‘wow’ your customer. When you do
this, you run the risk of having inconsistent customer experiences across your
brand. If you raise the bar too high then your customer will expect you to meet
or exceed that every time. Otherwise, they could be disappointed and might leave
feeling unsatisfied or confused by the inconsistency. Focus on effectively
doing the steps outlined above well and you will bring immediate, unforgettable
value to your customers.

The
ways of creating a better in-store customer experience don’t have to be overly
complicated. Just remember — be there, love your employees, answer the phone
with knowledge, enable self-service and try to keep it simple. You can learn
more about how Cisco is partnering with retailers to digitize the in-store customer
experience at cisco.com/go/retail.


Derek Dykens is Retail Business Development
Manager, Industry Solutions Group, Americas for
Cisco.
As a trusted advisor, Dykens is
focused on identifying ways to impact the customer experience through analytics
and technology, streamline processes within store operations, and enable retail
teams to do more with the investments they have already made. Additionally, he
can offer a fresh perspective on what other retailers are doing and the current
trends Cisco is seeing across the evolving industry. Prior to this role, Dykens
was working for Target Corporation leading key technology projects and aligning
future technology investments to Target’s digital roadmap. He also spent time
at Lexmark International as a Retail Consultant, reducing operational costs for
North American and European retailers. Dykens is based in New York City and has
been with Cisco for 3 years.

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