Experience counts

With the after-effects of the economic downturn continuing to bite, looking after your customers – both those loyal to your brand and those new to it – must be a key area of focus for retailers everywhere. Customer experience is not an altruistic endeavour; executive teams should focus on it because they believe that it will help their organisation’s long-term business results. But how can retailers exploit the latest toolsets and solution to help improve the customer experience, both in-store and across multiple channels? Here, a leading panel of experts provide their views.

The industry debate about enhancing the customer experience has been going on for over a decade, but very few retailers deliver that capability. What are the key challenges and what is your company's focus going forward?

Ronen Levkovich. Today's retail world is undergoing a significant and rapid transformation, leading to multiple challenges for retailers. In keeping pace with the technological challenges retailers are trying to overcome being bound to suppliers and shift their focus to the customer. On one hand retailers are looking for solutions to help increase revenues and enhance their customers experiences. On the other hand retailers are looking to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

To meet the challenges, Retalix is providing customers with an increasing number of channels and customer-facing touch points; which empower them with more information and greater control over their shopping experience. Retalix is improving the customer experience by standardizing all channels and touch points, and allowing for transparency throughout. Retalix is using a single and unified engine, which assures the right offering by using 'Demand-Driven Retailing' for planning and management. Whereby the shopping demand is optimised with the customer, supplier, and market data. This approach provides retailers the tools to personalize their customer's experience, by focusing on loyal customers and targeting promotional offerings using behavioural driven promotions. In light of all these challenges, Retalix's aim is to put the 'custom' back into the customer, by providing the know-how and systems, which enable 'anytime, anywhere' and personalised shopping, with technological diversity.

Robert Teagle. In many ways customers are evolving their demands due to increasing competition, greater access to information and a better understanding of their own requirements. This means retailers need to raise their game to retain and expand their customer base and ensure a greater more effective relationship with their customers. There are, of course, many retailers, that can still compete and survive on the key attributes of price, availability and choice, as their customer base still demands these basic elements. However, many retailers now need to differentiate themselves from their competition outside of these three fundamentals, particularly if they have desires to become a market leader or gain significant market share. Retailers will need to address areas such as innovation, personalization, loyalty, new shopping experiences, new channels etc if they are to deliver on an enhanced customer experience.

Kate Whittaker. The key challenge is to try and understand the real customer experience in our stores. We use customer feedback to identify areas where store managers should focus on improving. To do this you need buy-in from the store managers and staff - they need to believe the feedback and understand that it is an honest view from our customers - as ultimately they are the ones who will be making the changes in-store.

What is the evolving role of technology as it relates to customer experience improvement programs?

RL. As communications technology continues to evolve and IT systems move from closed to open architectures, retailers are improving the customer experience in the store and beyond. In the store, which will continue to dominate the retail environment, technology enables the creation of multiple touch points to help customers become more informed, independent, and savvy. Wireless technologies, meanwhile, assist retailers in better targeting of their customers before, during, and after their shopping experience, by seamlessly connecting their actions to in-store and out store touch points and the central systems. Retalix assists its customers to transform shopping beyond traditional brick-and-mortar outlets to 'anytime, anywhere' retail channels such as, in the store, web, and mobile devices using Retalix's one single and unified engine.

RT. One of the first steps in developing a better relationship with your customers is to understand more information about your customers and their requirements; this suggests collating data such as spending patterns, customer information, customer preferences etc. With this process comes a significant amount of information and the ability to report, analyze and leverage it for developing a better customer relationship. Technology can play a key role in collecting, storing, analyzing, reporting and providing this information for various groups within the enterprise to utilize. As more retailers find a need for technology, we'll see it evolve over time to play a greater role in this area; at present we see the biggest evolution around the use of the internet and business intelligence or analytics.

KW. At Debenhams we have implemented a customer care measure programme that uses the medium of the till receipt to invite customers to complete an online survey. Results are then fed through to an online reporting site where the data is collated and produced into reports for each level of the business.

Which in-store tools can retailers implement to enhance the customer experience?

RL. Retailers enjoy a host of new touch points beyond the traditional POS to interface with customers. For example, Self-Checkout terminals, Self Scanners, and Area Scales provide customers with up-to-date tools for a faster, more efficient, and intelligent shopping experience. Kiosk, mobile (POS) and digital signage devices expose customers to virtually focused product and retail information, enabling retailers to better target their messages. Wireless-based tools and Bluetooth devices help retailers better serve their customers from the moment they interact with the retailer's touch points, across multi-channels.

RT. Tools fall into a couple of categories; firstly, tools to be used by the employees and secondly, tools to be used by the customers. Retailers can enable employees to develop better relationships with their customers, through providing them with access to meaningful information that gives them insight and facts about customers and their spending patterns. This can also mean improved centralised and localised marketing initiatives, empowering employees to innovate within the four walls of the store based on their customers' requirements and preferences. Tools that can be used/utilized by customers include mobile, digital media, kiosks and couponing. Many of these won't be relevant for all retailers, and in some instances retailers will need to create a demand for these services and identify which approach best suits their customers.

KW. Our stores receive a score each month on the overall customer satisfaction rating, based on staff, dressing rooms, till point and store presentation. The stores are given a benchmark of 50 percent to try and achieve - meaning 50 percent of customers are extremely satisfied with each of these areas in store. We also combine all of the scores into regional ranking and overall score. When we launched the programme our overall company score was 47 percent, which has increased to 56 percent since the project started, and the focus is to continue to improve this score.

Store managers are responsible for their own store's score and if it falls below the target of 50 percent they are challenged to identify areas of weakness and ensure a plan is implemented to improve the customer experience.

How can retailers enable profitable multichannel operations?

RL. By better understanding customer's needs and shopping habits, Retalix's one core engine allows retailers to leverage multi-channel operations, from the store and mobile devices, to the catalogue and web. Offering targeted promotions, discounts, upselling opportunities and information through multi-channels touch points.

In addition, through Retalix's 'Demand-Driven Retailing', retailers can act and execute more effectively at both the store and central office levels. Take, for example, Retalix Store Replenishment (DAX), which optimises market and supplier data that is generated during shopper interactions at multiple retail touch points. Retalix Store Replenishment (DAX) enhances inventory management and facilitates data sharing between suppliers and retailers. Retalix's one core engine for sales and store operations synchronises activities across all outlets through one accurate source. As such, retailers enjoy lower hardware and maintenance costs and greater control over customer experiences and operations.

The Retalix approach is to offer centralised applications in order to improve retailers' operational efficiency and decision-making effectiveness. For example, centralisation reduces total cost of ownership and the time to market by reducing costs by utilising the availability of online data. The decision to centralise less critical applications is straightforward, but centralising critical applications requires satellite locations or other backup means to ensure near-100 percent availability.

RT. Most consumers operate across more than one channel, and if retailers can get it right, moving from one to many channels can provide significant profit, through greater economies of scale. The key for retailers is to provide an environment, which allows customers to operate in many different channels with seamless integration. Retailers need to be able to adapt their technical, and if necessary organization, to operate in multiple channels without requiring customers to change their spending patterns too dramatically. Therefore, if old technology or significant organization change is required, moving to a multi-channel approach can be a considerable ask, therefore, retailers will need to prioritize which channels are most important.

KW. The challenge is to ensure that a consistent customer experience is given across all channels as customers expect the same high level of customer experience online as they do in-store.

After customers have completed the customer experience online survey they are directed to Debenhams' website. We are also signed up to our supplier's Facebook application GoRecommend - so customers that leave positive feedback in the online survey are given the opportunity to go to the GoRecommend application, which enables them to document their positive brand experiences on Facebook and recommend Debenhams to their friends. This is an effective way of spreading positive 'word of mouth' brand experiences to thousands of customers and potential customers via social media.

How can retailers leverage real-time analytics and demand forecasting tools to drive customer-centric planning effectiveness and execution efficiency?

RL. Understanding shopper's demand at different levels of aggregation, from the single customer to the entire chain, is essential for making intelligent decisions. By focusing on the shopper, Retalix strives to drive, optimise, and execute real time decisions - from promotions, through pricing and assortment, to replenishment.

Retalix's 'Demand-Driven Retailing' balances the retailer's buy and sell sides, by leveraging shopper demand signals. We accomplish this by providing system interfaces that enable data collection from multiple touch points, analysing data to gain customer insight, and tailoring our offerings to meet the customer needs.

KW. Employees at any level can log into the reporting site and receive 'real time' data on Debenhams' overall performance or the performance of individual stores.

Head Office level get feedback on product range, store layout etc. and have used the reports to identify that store presentation could be improved. This led to further in-depth work at head office level to understand what customers wanted from the store layout and will ultimately change the way that Debenhams presents its mannequins and display mats.

Store managers also receive immediate feedback on outstanding service so they can congratulate individual members of staff, as the survey asks customers if there was a member of staff that went above and beyond their expectations. If a customer answers yes, they are then asked who the employee was and why the customer experience was exceptional. This is known as a 'customer wow'. This initiative helps raise the profile of the project within our organisation by focusing and motivating store staff.

The survey can also recognise when a customer is responding negatively and the customer is given the option of being contacted by the store manager to help resolve their issue - these are called 'customer rescues'. This allows store managers to identify unhappy customers, and to react and respond to them in a timely basis. On average we receive 12,500 responses a month.

Biographies

Ronen Levkovich joined Retalix in 2000 and has filled various roles; in January 2010, he was appointed to EVP of the International Business Unit. Prior to his employment in Retalix, he held project management, sales and marketing, business development and operations management positions in various organisations.

Kate Whittaker is the Strategy Manager at Debenhams.

Robert Teagle is the IT director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Starbucks Coffee