Winning the Retail Revolution

Retail is going through a revolution and those retailers who embrace this revolution and invest in customer engagement, team member growth, and innovative technologies will emerge as the dominant forces in the industry.

There has been much reported recently about millennials, their shopping preferences and how currently they still prefer to shop in brick and mortar stores. While this may still be technically true, it is also true that foot traffic is dropping at an alarming rate and brick and mortar stores are closing by the thousands.

Think about it. Why would anyone want to go into a retail store?

Is it cheaper? No.

Is it more convenient? Not with overnight and same day delivery.

The reality is shoppers have two choices:

Choice One: Sit at home, browse on-line, undisturbed, and purchase with a simple click.

Choice Two: Get in their car, fight traffic, find a parking spot, dodge the mall walkers and end up in front of a frustrated sales person who is likely feeling the stress of hitting their sales goal.

So why does anyone still shop in stores? They do it for the experience. Customers want to see the product, to touch it, to feel it, to try it on, to lie in it, sit on it and to listen to it. And, for the human experience. They want the opportunity to connect, to be heard, to be helped and to be understood.

To thrive in the new retail world being created, retailers must create such compelling experiences for their customers that going to the store becomes entertaining, enriching and fulfills our basic human need for human interaction.

How?

By creating the ultimate customer experience:

• An experience where the customer feels an emotional connection with the store and the people in the store.
• Where the sales people can anticipate the customer’s needs
• Where customer’s issues are dealt with quickly and to their satisfaction.

Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience: The economics of creating the ultimate customer experience are simple. Happy, emotionally connected customers buy more, buy more often and act as your best form of marketing.

• Ask your customers: Customers are very willing to tell you how they feel and what they want. There are many simple ways to ask customers how they feel, from on line surveys to focus groups to social media. Retailers simply need to ask the questions and they will get the answers.
• Respond to your customers: Take the time to respond to every customer. Thank those customers who give positive responses and encourage them to advocate on your behalf. Reach out to those unhappy customers and make it right! Nothing is more damaging to a business than an unhappy customer with social media savvy!
• Transform your business: Take the customers’ feedback and transform your business model by putting the customer first. Listen to your customers, change your policies and empower your teams.

People Drive Results: Build enthusiastic, highly motivated, customer focused teams that emotionally connect with your customers and drive results.

• Pick the right people: Hire team members for who they are as well as for what they know. Hire coachable individuals who exhibit the soft skills and character traits critical to your business. Skills such as common sense, empathy, optimism, and strong work ethic are very difficult to teach. Hard skills can be taught to just about anyone if the team member is willing to learn and leaders are willing to teach.
• Grow and develop: The teams in your stores are the lifeblood of the company, the brand managers, the problem solvers and the customer service agents. Invest in their growth and development by creating comprehensive training programs, performance metrics, robust rewards and recognition programs. If the team believes in the company so will the customers.
• Connect with the customer: The goal of every retail organization and every team member in that organization should not be, to simply make a sale, but to build a relationship. The goal is to create such positive experiences for the customers that they would never shop anywhere else. By gathering information about your customers and putting that information into the hands of your sales teams you give the teams the power to connect with the customers on an entirely new level. A well-trained sales person that knows the customers previous purchase habits, other products they have purchased, the customers special occasions, family connections and even social media posts becomes a tremendous advocate for the customer and can truly create the ultimate customer experience.

Leverage Technology: CRM systems, Clienteling, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of things (IoT) and a myriad of other innovative technologies are truly the catalyst driving the retail revolution. Understanding, investing in and leveraging these technologies is the key to connecting with the customer at all levels of the organization.

• Do your homework (but do it quickly): Moving too quickly or too slowly when it comes to investing in technology systems can be devastating. Move to quickly and businesses often end up with very expensive systems that don’t solve their problems. Move too slowly and by the time the technology is implemented its often outdated. Be pragmatic but be diligent.
• Involve the end users: The best technology won’t yield results if no one uses it. Be sure to involve the end users in every phase from scoping through implementation. Be sure to include a robust change management process in any roll out that includes extensive communication, comprehensive training, user adoption metrics, reporting and incentives.
• Be agile but be disciplined: What you think you want today will change tomorrow. Be agile by setting adjustable and realistic timelines, be willing to adjust scope (within reason) and when possible utilize a phased rollout approach to reduce risk. Be disciplined, hold teams accountable to delivery dates, stay on budget and guard against scope creep.

Bottom Line: Winning the retail revolution is all about adapting to the new ways of doing business. Those organizations who continue to follow the old strategies of cutting payroll, eliminating training, lowering margins and cutting service to their customers are doomed to failure.

Winning the retail revolution is all about creating the ultimate customer experience, building dynamic teams and deploying technologies that bring it all together.