Has customer service improved since the pandemic? Many brick & mortar retail stores have needed to focus more on the customer in order to attract people back into stores. How effective this has proved has led to conflicting solutions.
Retailers like Canada Goose are planning to double their physical footprint over the next five years, which emphasis that brick and mortar stores are still a key part of retailers’ strategies. However, other retailers are sceptical about the future of physical retail locations, including Nordstrom’s recent news of exiting Canada.
Sam Vise, CEO at Optimum Retailing, tells Digital Journal that he believes that brick and mortar stores are not going away anytime soon. He expects emerging formats such as experiential stores, shop-in-shops, and smaller storefronts, are just a few of the ways brands are shaping the future of brick-and-mortar.
However, success is dependent upon customer service, according to Vise, and how brands can use technology to innovate their storefronts and meet customer needs.
Digital Journal: Why are companies doubling down on customer service?
Sam Vise: Enhancing customer experience is a top priority among retailers and business leaders. Amid rising inflation, a looming recession, and ongoing supply chain disruption, it has become imperative that retailers use enhanced customer experience as a keyway to win back brand loyalty and ensure consumers’ needs are being met.
DJ: What role did the pandemic play in retailers’ priority to improve customer service and CX?
Vise: The global pandemic has played a significant role in accelerating digital transformation and how retailers approach customer experience – from elevated in-store engagement to reimagined distribution centres – and as a result, enhancing the customer experience has become a key trend we expect to continue to see over the next few years. Brick-and-mortar retailers, in particular, have the opportunity to redefine a new era of retail, especially when it comes to the role they play in consumer engagement and the importance of finding operational efficiencies post-pandemic.
DJ: What measures can retailers and business leaders take in order to be successful?
Vise: The first priority post-pandemic is to reintroduce a personalized, in-store experience. The retail industry changed overnight in 2020, and now brands are relearning consumer preferences, new shopping habits, and expectations. For retail brands and companies alike, this means doubling down on understanding their target audience – and their needs – how they would like to show (buy online, pick-up in-store or in person) before they even walk through the door.
Once consumers are in the store, it’s critical that retailers capture their attention by enhancing the in-store experience – personalization and localization are key strategies to make that happen. To do so, brick-and-mortar retailers need to embrace technology just as much as their online counterparts. A tech-focused store can stay competitive by mitigating risks, reducing costs, finding operational efficiencies, and improving store performance, all while engaging customers in ways that keep them coming back.
DJ: What technologies are being adopted by retailers to improve customer service and CX?
Vise: There are a number of technologies that retailers are adopting in order to enhance the customer experience in their brick-and-mortar stores – both for consumers and frontline employees.
Hyper-personalization and localization, for example. As brands adopt a mentality that shifts in the favour of the consumer, technology solutions that pinpoint personalization opportunities are becoming increasingly popular. For example, when a store launches a new campaign, this technology helps them develop the rollout based on region, demographics, type of store, time of day, and so on. These snowballed details make a big difference for shoppers that live in different cities, cultures, and even weather patterns.
Also, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in retail planning: Using advanced technology tools to collect and assess all kinds of data helps brick-and-mortar retailers localize and personalize products, messages, and campaigns, which in turn drive traffic and conversion rates. This technology has allowed retailers to put their consumers at the forefront of every strategy and go-to-market campaign that they roll out.
