How actionable VoC helps you improve store performance

Seven best practices to deliver a superior omnichannel experience

Retail consumers today are more knowledgeable and empowered than ever, which inevitably leads to a more demanding marketplace with little room for error. Omnichannel retail is undoubtedly one of the biggest trends to hit the industry in recent years — your customers now want to engage with you through numerous digital channels.

But, despite popular belief to the contrary, physical stores are still as important as ever — with recent PwC research highlighting how nearly 40% of consumers make purchases inside a physical store once a

week compared to just 27% who do the same online. Reasons for this include avoiding delivery charges (65%), having the item immediately (60%) and seeing the item in person before buying (61%).1

This is not to say digital touchpoints are not important. m-commerce, in particular, is clearly on the rise — with Forrester forecasting that it could potentially represent 54% of all e-commerce revenue by 2018.2 But customers are increasingly seeking a holistic experience across multiple channels, with digital and in-store touchpoints working as one.

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It therefore goes without saying that brick-and-mortar locations should be integral to the overall CX you deliver. But how do you ensure a positive and enriching in-store experience? OpinionLab provides real-

time, actionable insight from omnichannel touchpoints, including web, mobile, tablet, receipt, e-receipt, BOPUS and more. Do you know what you’re missing?

• Acustomerisinterestedinbuyingaproductthatyousell.Asastartingpoint, he visits one of your stores to speak to a sales representative who offers comprehensive advice outlining the main considerations he should bear in mind. Afterfinding the perfect item and a quick search on his smartphone to compare prices, he buys in store and takes the item home that day.

• A customer goes to one of yourstores, learns that the product she

wants to buy is out of stock and uses her smartphone to order it from another one of your outlets — which she travels to on the same day.

• A customer reserves and buys aspecific product on her computer using your Buy Online Pick Up in Store program. An emailconfirmation provides all the details for pick up, which she does later that day.

To illustrate this point, customers tend to have more trust for retailers with physical stores compared to those that operate exclusivelyonline.Infact—accordingtoanAccenturestudy— 65% prefer to purchase products from the website of a brick-and-mortar retailer (versus other online stores) due to convenience, trust and security.3

Consider the following omnichannel scenarios, all of which location is integral to:

Aslightimprovementtothecustomerexperience at a typical $1 billion company can produce an additional $262 million to $272 million in revenues over three years.

—Temkin Group4

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1Are you giving

your omnichannel customers a chance

to be heard?How do you find out what your customers really think about their in-store experience? You might think they will express all their issues and problems to your staff. Or you could intercept them with a survey while they’re physically in one of your locations. But are either of these methods effective in gaining the honest feedback you need to make impactful and long-lasting changes?

Instead of relying on intrusive and low engagement methods,

successful retailers now encourage their customers to provide feedback digitally in the moment when and where they’re inspired to do so. These customer-initiated listening platforms allow you to capture customer opinion precisely when they’re ready to talk about what’s most important to them. If they feel most compelled when they’re actually in store, they can use their mobile device. If they suddenly feel compelled to tell you what’s on their mind when they get home, they can visit your website.

SolutionOpinionLab’s Waypoint solution enables retailers to collect high volume and high value feedback through their websites or mobile experiences.

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Are you mining actionable insights

about your non-buyers?

Open-ended questions are essential for capturing your true Voice of Customer and finding out what they really think about their in-store shopping experience. These provide the opportunity for you to capture VoC data with poignant and rich

context that empowers action. Use this information to make comparisons between states, cities, regions and specific locations. Use this information to understand buyer and non-buer behavior. Then make changes that drive CX improvements.

SolutionOpinionLab captures the context needed with each piece of feedback — including store location, reason for visiting store, submission time, task completion and more — to drive action.

Comments

Theme Map

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How do you make providing store-specific

feedback easier?

Today, your customers demand a shopping experience that is fast and delivers unrivaled personalization. It’s not enough for a retailer to match the status quo—it’s expected that you surpass a customer’s wildest expectations in a world of rapid

technological development. Take same-day delivery for instance. This revolutionary idea was only made possible through brilliant advances in inventory management systems, which now allow for commerce between brick-and-mortar stores

and online tools to coincide seamlessly, help ing retailers ship their inventory to where it’s needed. This progress is now expected across the board, making location-specific insights all the more valuable.

The good news is that your customers are ready to give you the necessary information. In fact, approximately 75% of consumers will allow you to use their location when asked. And if a shopperis visiting your store while on a mobile device, chances are, they’re browsing

to buy now. In some cases, 50% of customers are on a retailer’s site while simultaneously shopping in the physical store. In other cases, you can use location services to provide a list of stores available based on the zip code provided.

By i nco rpora t i ng geo- loca t ion technology in your feedback solutions, you can enable a truly cross-channel analysis that not only improves the omni-channel experience, but also keeps your customers engaged as they successfully complete their tasks.

SolutionOpinionLab’s Location Selector enables your customer to select a specific store to leave feedback about via geo-location or a simple search, making the whole process quick and easy.

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65% of customers prefer to purchase products from websites of brick-and-mortar retailers (versus other online stores)

Accenture3

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SolutionOpinionLab’s Location Dashboard enables you to easily understand, analyze and compare store feedback, leveraging integrated text analytics to highlight key trends from the verbatim free-text comments you receive to drive action.

4Can you analyze store VoC data and take action

in real-time?Analyticsandmetricsbringyourdatato life and are crucial insights into your customers’ true behavior and desires, offering a huge competitive advantage if acted upon. For instance, location analytics can provide a real-time display of your customer’s feedback across geographies with easy access to data about your specific locations – allowing you to determine which of your regions are outperforming others, and more importantly, why.

Consider a retailer focusing on the localization of goods and services in order to manage inventory more effectively, reduce overhead and boost revenue. Comprehensive analytics in this area offers a great indicator of the proper product assortments for individual stores according to local demand, which is why retailers should know and understand the importance of site traffic, conversion rates and customer repeat values. To disregard

this vital information is to leave your business at risk.

Real-time analysis of this data elevates your approach, enabling you to identify and address abnormalities as they occur. Many VoC vendors analyze data at night for reports the next day, but that time delay is all it takes to deter customers

who might be experiencing an issue before you’re even notified that it exists. In choosing a real-time analysis and reporting platform with an early warning system, complete with up-to-the-minute alerts, you can inform the right people at the right time across your store network to cultivate a solution-based VoC strategy that impacts your bottom line.

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Do you deliver real-time customer

insights to your store management?

According to a recent Gartner study,89% of marketing leaders said they expected to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience in 2016.5 This heightened desire to listen, analyze and act requires your store feedback data to be shared across your organization in an expeditious and targeted manner — from C-Suite

executives and your marketing, finance and technology teams to store staff. By sharing information in this way, you raise organizational awareness across your store network and utilize the specialist knowledge, expertise and remit of your staff to quickly diagnose and resolve issues to drive CX improvements.

SolutionOpinionLab’sReal-TimeAlertsautomatically notify key staff members across your organization instantaneously about key CX issues, which promotes fast action and resolution.

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6Are you limiting your

success by falling behind your mobile

first customers?To meet the needs of today’s consumer in the fast-paced and data-driven world of omnichannel shopping, it’s essential that you and your team have the ability, and more importantly the flexibility, to create engagement posts throughout the modern day customer journey.

As your customers increasingly seekto take advantage of innovations such as Buy Online Pick-Up in Store

(BOPUS), Mobile In-Store (MIS), Post Fulfillment and Buy Online Return in Store (BORS), you need to ensure you understand whether you’re living up to their expectations. Voice of Customer technologies empower your customers to tell you exactly what they think at each of these engagement posts, enabling you to maintain the highest standards of customer service and fulfillment and stay ahead of the latest CX trends.

SolutionOpinionLab’s Comment Cards are mobile-optimized, allowing your customers to engage with you exactly how and when you want to.

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40% of consumers make purchases inside a physical store once a week. 27% do the same online.

PwC1

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Will people know and trust that you’re

taking action?The best retailers in the digital age are leading by example, constantly engaging with customers to get their opinions on anything and everything related to their experience. They consider their customers to be miniature consultants, out in the trenches troubleshooting what isn’t working and fine-tuning what is. More importantly, the fact these customers want to engage with you in this way shows they are clearly invested in your brand and want you to improve. To

stay competitive, it’s important to ask the right questions, listen, and act on what your customers tell you.

However, taking action isn’t enough on its own. Retailers must also prove that they value the opinions and insights provided. A successful VoC strategytherefore typically incorporates a robust loop closing element to inform customers about the improvements that have made and why.

SolutionOpinionLab’s Comment Mosaic provides a dynamic motion and color-driven matrix to highlight positive, negative and neutral customer sentiment, which means displaying this around your business creates a greater internal CX focus. Drawing on extensive industry and best practice experience, OpinionLab can also advise you on the best way to communicate how and why you make CX improvements.

Sources

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1. Shoppers still prefer in-store over online shopping, Business News Daily <http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7756-online-shopping-preferences.html>

2. US eCommerce Forecast: 2013 to 2018, Forrester Research

3. 2015HolidayShoppingSurvey,AccentureConsulting<https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-highlights-retail-2015-holiday-shopping-survey.aspx>

4. ROI of Customer Experience 2014, The Temkin Group

5. Sorofman, Jake. “Gartner Surveys Confirm Customer Experience Is the New Battlefield http://blogs.gartner.com/jake-sorofman/gartner-surveys-confirm-customer-experience-new-battlefield/