No matter what sector you operate in, your customer’s experience is one of the crucial factors driving your business’s revenue. This is especially true in the retail sector, where the adoption of ever-evolving shopping experiences dictate the success or failure of a given retailer. Whilst there are multiple tactics you can experiment with to improve the retail experience, these five are sure to get your customers coming back to your business time and time again.
1. Reward loyal customers
Rewarding your customers is an effective way to encourage loyalty, whilst improving customer feedback at the same time. Though point-based schemes are the most popular (with the preference of 55% of UK consumers according to
our research), rewards programs can come in a whole variety of forms, from systems that offer customers the opportunity to save money on future purchases, to non-monetary systems where points translate to charity donations or other rewards. All these programs serve to bolster customer engagement, whilst enhancing the more general retail experience. But rewarding customers alone isn’t enough to ensure customer engagement – 25% of customers stop using loyalty programmes due to a lack of personalisation. A successful loyalty reward program needs to use customer data to offer targeted promotions to their customers, just
take a look at our digital loyalty guide to find out how you can build an effective loyalty program.
2. Save your customers time
Helping to reduce the amount time that customers spend shopping in your store may seem counterintuitive, but it can be a sure-fire way to improve retail experience and encourage customer engagement. Many online stores now offer returning customers the option to use ‘1-click ordering’, whilst some supermarket chains now offer shoppers the opportunity to self-checkout. Both examples save customers precious time, which customer feedback often suggests is a crucial factor in deciding repeat sales.
3. Engage with your customers in real time
A bricks and mortar based retail business presents the perfect platform through which to target your customers with relevant offers.
Our research shows that 58% of retail consumers said that they’d find it useful to be sent offers when they’re near shops. Businesses must start taking advantage of location data to offer customers promotions as they shop. With the rise in ‘near me’ web searches, 88% of which are on mobile, it’s the perfect time for businesses to adapt to mobile-enabled, real-time marketing.
4. Be omnichannel
To survive in the digital age you need to ensure a seamless journey between the various digital and offline channels customers use to interact with your business. In the modern retail arena, businesses can use everything from SMS and Mobile Apps to Wifi beacons in order to engage with nearby customers. Using an omnichannel approach will offer you the opportunity to record this rich data on purchases and other customer engagements, then use it to inform on current or future promotions.
Take a look at how Greggs used Eagle Eye AIR to boost footfall through their mobile loyalty app.
5. Make your promotions more relevant
Our research suggests that 75% of customers are not happy to receive generic offers, but 81% are influenced by relevant promotions. Customers who receive targeted promotions will also feel a greater sense of familiarity with your business, which not only improves the customer experience, but will drive revenue – just take a look at the Netflix model.
But how can you make your promotions more relevant to you customers? All you need to do is centralise as much rich data as you can, then use it to inform against customer segments, where you can create highly-targeted promotions. In practise, this means using a digital marketing platform that works with your CRM to promote and report in real time.
Take a look at how
one of the world’s biggest car wash companies used targeted promotions to drive footfall and increase their voucher redemption rate to 47%.