Most retail marketers would argue that the secret to effective sales is creating an outstanding customer experience. From investing in UX design and customer relationship management software to training customer service staff, frontline marketers know that every consumer touch point is critical to creating a compelling brand experience.
Nonetheless, all too many retailers overlook one critical feature that affects all of these touch points: comprehensive, digestible product information.
https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/why-product-data-is-key-to-superior-customer-experience/
The ecommerce industry has experienced a tremendous amount of growth in the past decade. Having jumped from 3.5% of all retail sales in 2008 to nearly 11.9% in 2018, this growth – in combination with a (still) relatively low market share – represents a huge opportunity for more innovative ecommerce companies looking to overtake their traditional counterparts.
However, in order to latch on to the ‘growth train’, these same ecommerce companies (and therefore, ecommerce managers) are going to have to put their best foot forward. In other words, they’ll need to be sure that they are providing a first-rate online customer experience. And the best way to do this is to start listening to the voice of the customer. After all, your customers can be your best resource in terms of understanding what you’re doing wrong (or right!) on your website or mobile app. So allow me to introduce you to online feedback…
https://mopinion.com/online-feedback-ecommerce-managers/
As any retailer knows, in today's society, the customer is always right; and is increasingly more demanding in terms of what they expect when making purchase decisions. The customer now wants to be able to start, continue and complete their purchases anytime, anywhere and anyhow. Our online society facilitates purchase decisions being made, verified, reconsidered, amended or reversed, in any situation and through any possible channel, or indeed a mixture of many. As a result, providing a seamless payment experience that can follow the customer along their journey across the plethora of touch points is essential for a merchant to succeed in the marketplace.
https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/why-omni-channel-is-a-must-and-how-to-make-it-successful/
Retail at times feels like it has a monopoly on press mentions for being in a state of flux and turmoil — and there's good reason for that. Yet the issues facing the retail space aren't contained there. The larger implications move across industries and they're driven mainly by the customer. We marketers often forget that customers aren't siloed; a retail shopper also stays at hotels, books airline travel, signs up for credit cards and much more.
Retailers, hotels, airlines, banks and grocers are trying to better align and overcome the challenges of providing service at scale. Here's how this can be accomplished.
https://www.marketingdive.com/news/why-brands-must-scale-service-and-experience-to-meet-customer-expectations/515940/
In a world of hyper-adoption – and hyper-abandonment – successful retailing in 2018 comes down to obsessing about your customer’s experience. It’s a tall order: Digital and physical touchpoints now must work together flawlessly – yet also do what each touchpoint does best on its own. And organizations must remove silo shackles to unify disparate data to develop deep customer insights.
Forrester’s 2018 retail predictions call out that as retailers work towards these goals, they must navigate growing their business in an ever-changing world where...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2017/11/16/why-2018-is-all-about-customer-experience-for-the-retail-industry/#573f8de67783/
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 04, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A panel of ecommerce experts will discuss how retailers can increase revenue and brand loyalty by putting customer experience at the center of their holiday strategy with a live webcast hosted by Mobify and Qubit. "Customer Experience Panel: How to Maximize Your 2018 Black Friday Revenue" will be held Thurs., June 14, 2018, at 11:30am ET/4:30pm BST. Attendees can register here and submit questions live or in advance.
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/06/04/1516055/0/en/Webcast-Mobify-and-Qubit-Customer-Experience-Panel-to-Reveal-How-Retailers-Can-Maximize-2018-Black-Friday-Revenue.html/
Almost every retailer out there will tell you they need to be more innovative, and that this is hard. Retail has long been an industry focused on buying low, selling high, and optimizing everything in between. Shifting to meet an expectation of providing content, services, experience, engagement and more – this is a big shift, and not easily accomplished. Some retailers – vertically integrated brands, or those with private label merchandise – might be good at product innovation, but that is a far cry from process innovation – and that is a large part of what retailers need right now, as they try to make the shift to be more relevant to consumers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikkibaird/2018/06/30/traditional-retailers-focus-on-customer-experience-at-the-expense-of-other-innovations/#1eb7a18f5832/
Trader Joe’s ranked first among multichannel retailers in Forrester Research’s 2018 U.S. Customer Experience Index.
Based on a survey of more than 110,000 U.S. adults, the Forrester CX Index aims to measure and rank how well a brand’s customer experience strengthens shopper loyalty. The Cambridge, Mass.-based research firm benchmarked the customer experience quality at 287 U.S. brands, including 42 leading multichannel retailers.
http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-financial/trader-joe-s-rates-high-customer-experience-reports-study/
James Geller, retail solutions director at Oracle, looks at explanations for the existence of the customer experience gap and how to close it.
The good news is that more and more retailers are starting to understand they need to focus on customer experience.
People buy into brands that have stories to tell and something that makes them stand out.
The bad news is that retailers often have to focus on sales, KPIs and maximising shareholder value, which in turn drives some interesting decisions and potentially creates a customer experience gap.
Why does the gap exist? There are four key reasons.
https://www.retail-week.com/technology-blog/three-ways-to-close-the-customer-experience-gap/7029033.article?authent=1/
Amazon, Williams-Sonoma and Kohl’s are the top three brands in ForeSee’s annual Retail Customer Experience (CX) Rankings, which are based on survey data from over 40,000 shoppers across their store, Web, and mobile experiences.
The report also examines the success of retailers by individual channel — store, Web, and mobile (See chart). Amazon, Costco, Kohl’s, and Nordstrom each took a top spot in two out of three channels, while Tractor Supply ranked No. 1 in Web.
https://www.chainstoreage.com/technology/retailers-tops-omnichannel-customer-experience/
