Nowadays, every business is customer-centric, with the retail industry rapidly transition to online sales, how exactly should brands cope with this change and provide a one of a kind customer experience; build a customer-centric sales model? How should brands predict and analyze consumer behavior, also, to map out a business strategy that adapts changes and stays competitive among competitors?
Back then, the retail workflow is pretty straightforward, a product is born with internal design, development, packaging, and distributed to retail channels. Every step was carefully calculated by the company to control and influence the customer’s preference. Brands now have to integrate a customer-centric strategy in their sales process to ensure consumers are satisfied. From the store ambiance, website design, and product ethical to after-sales service, the customer experience is highly valued by brands. Brand customer experience is a differentiated experience that your customers recognize as unique to you, and it greatly defines the brand.
With the popularity of the internet and smartphones, consumers have relied more on product reviews and do product comparisons based on price, spec, and more. Sometimes, the smallest factor could make a consumer change his/her mind, and purchase from your competitors.
Although online shopping has managed to offer high autonomy to consumers. However, the benefits offered by a physical store could not be replaced, which means that brands have to strengthen the bond with consumers, understand their needs and pain points to optimize the service, nonetheless, to drive sales.
Research has shown, almost 68% of interviewees prefer to shop in a physical store, but 32% of them say if they are satisfied with the products they bought, next time, they will consider buying online. This does not mean online stores will replace physical stores by any means, what it really indicates is — Physical display is important to customers and would affect their purchase decision.
Some might think, to build or improve customer experience could be costly with no effective sales performance. However, we’ve listed three examples of how brands successfully improved their operational efficiency and sales revenue by improving customer experience.
3 Examples of Brands With Brilliant Omni-Channel Experiences
UNIQLO O2O Strategy
UNIQLO, the Japanse casual wear retailer that operates in Japan and several other countries. When a customer enters the store, the coupon value dynamically increased, and shoppers are treated with smart shop assistants and speedy in-store checkout. When shoppers scan a product, a webpage will push up with detailed info on the product’s fabric, price, style, and how many stocks are left in each branch. Unlike other retailers, UNIQLO encourages its shoppers to take out their phone and learn more about the products they’re interested in buying.
Consumers will also be redirected to UNIQLO’s official Line account, where customers can get the latest news of the brand and get recommendations on styling and so. Also, customers get to accumulate reward points when they purchase either from the website or in a physical store, to get a discount on their next purchase.
IKEA
Furniture is not items people would generally buy online, due to the cost and the uncertainty of whether the piece would fit in the space or not. Furniture shopping can be tiring and intimidating, but somehow, IKEA made it fun. The big warehouse serves a purpose other than storage: All products are on display. They also have showrooms with different sizes, where they literally built an impressively compact but fully-loaded home with all their products. IKEA gives customers an intimate dive with the products they’re selling. And helping the customers to experience and feel. The beauty of the IKEA experience lies in consistent. By the halfway of shopping, if the shoppers get hungry, they can stop by at IKEA’s restaurant to get low-priced but delicious food.
Once the consumers have checked out the furniture they intend to buy, they can take it home on the spot or order it online, and pay a standard shipping fee.
IKEA is a great example of how a physical store could offer, and they have done it brilliantly.
HiWalk Egg Rolls
Hiwalk egg roll is a signature souvenir for visitors to Taiwan. The snack is typically made hollow like straws, and famous for its crunchy and crispy taste
The company has revolutionized this traditional snack buy creating unique flavors and add fillings inside. Other than the original flavor, they also made chocolate, sesame, peanut egg rolls and more. Each roll is made with fresh eggs, butter from New Zealand, and the filling of your choice. HiWalk started their business online to avoid cost on rent and other expenses. Once the business is steady, they opened the first physical store in Tamsui, a famous tourist site in northern Taiwan. And slowly expand to other locations in Taiwan. For people who are hesitant to buy online without knowing how it tastes, the physical store offers free sampling on all flavors, and shoppers can later buy online. Which is especially convenient for people who are sending these as gifts.
Once the shopper made the purchase, whether it’s online or offline, with SHOPLINE’s O2O Solution, merchants can integrate members data on SHOPLINE Kiosk. Which give the opportunity for merchants to do customer segmentation, and create tailored marketing strategies or messages accordingly for remarketing and build customer loyalty.
Personalized Service Is On the Rise, Adapt to Stay Competitive
It used to be that customers could communicate with companies in only three ways. They could visit the business in person, write a letter or call customer support. Then came faxing, and then email. Today there are even j more ways customers connect. They use Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and more. And, when customers do connect with you, they expect to be known and served “on-demand” regardless of the channel they are using. The company may define its brand promise, but it is the customer who decides whether or not the company delivered on its promise. There’s a lot riding on delivering positive customer experience. You hire and train good people, but you must also give them the tools they need to deliver a CX that not only meets the customers’ expectations but makes them want to come back. Be there for them – no matter how they reach out to you – be consistent, and build your brand through satisfied customers.
Conclusion:
SHOPLINE has launched its O2O Solution earlier this year to support brands to grow. Through O2O solution tools, merchants can integrate all member data from both online and offline channels, and do customer segmentation for precise remarketing. And take care of every detail of the shopping journey to ensure customers are satisfied. Learn more about our O2O solution to enhance your sales performance and build strong customer relationships.
Marketing Associate at SHOPLINE. A digital marketing nerd and a podcast fan. You can find her out in the woods once in a while but most of the times she’s glued to her laptop screen indoors.