Developing a customer-centric mindset in retail

The customer experience has been amplified, and retailers that don’t prioritise creating and delivering tailored experiences run the risk of being left behind.

That’s why being customer-centric has never been more important. By placing your customers at the heart of every decision you make, you can better meet their unique needs, ultimately helping you deliver better CX and foster long-term relationships. But how do you become more customer-centric?

Anticipate your customer’s expectations

Today’s buyers spend more time online and can easily access a range of options when deciding which retailer best meets their needs. With so many options available at a touch of a button, it can only take one bad experience with your brand for a customer to switch to a competitor.

That’s why you need to make sure your online storefront is ready to go past the buyer journey and continue into the customer journey.

You can improve your online storefront by:

• Building an attractive website – 40 per cent of users abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load, so that first impression counts
• Engaging on social media – replying to customer comments, running giveaways and posting your latest offerings allows you to connect on a personal level with current and potential customers
• Taking care of your customers – there’s no better promotion than a satisfied customer. With 68 per cent of consumers willing to pay more for products and services from a brand known to offer good customer service experiences, excellent CX will make your customers more inclined to spread the word about your business

Alternatively, if you’ve several ideas in mind but you’re unsure which option is best, just ask your customers. Even the leading retailers won’t always know what will work every time, so it’s important to keep your customers in the loop.

Create a single customer view

Customers move across your organisation, which can quickly create data silos if you’re teams are using different tools. For example, your sales team might be using HubSpot, while your customer support team answers tickets on Salesforce. Both of these platforms have their own data and analytics reports, leaving you with the predicament of working out how to gather all of that information together.

A customer relationship management (CRM) system allows you to create a central hub of data inside your organisation, where you arrange customer touchpoints and information in one location.

A CRM system helps you to:  

• Create more personalised customer experiences – customise your customer journeys based on an individual prospects buying behaviour. For example, you can run more targeted marketing campaigns depending on their actions
• Boost team productivity – centralised data means less time spent looking for information and more time attracting leads, nurturing them and closing deals
• Sell smarter – features such as relationship health notifications help your sales team proactively flag “at risk” deals and keep them on track
• Gain valuable customer insights – for example, highlight trending issues raised by customers which have been logged by your customer services agents, helping you improve your lead nurturing process

Provide an omnichannel experience

Today’s customers want a seamless experience where they can script their own journeys across multiple channels and pick up where they left off, regardless of the device or channel.

For example, if they reach out to your customer-facing teams on social media and then switch to a different platform such as email, they want to have their issue resolved without having to repeat themselves multiple times.

There are several technology solutions that can help you manage your different channels, such as:

• Commerce solutions that can connect your storefront and back-end, helping you providing a seamless customer experience across all your go-to market channels
• A product information management (PIM) system that can ensure all your product data remains accurate, helping your customers make more informed purchasing decisions
• A content management (CMS) system that helps enhance your website so you can deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time

Put your customers at the heart of everything you do

Now more than ever, building strong customer relationships is the key to long-term business growth. In our report, produced in association with Business Reporter, we look at the internal and external impacts of digital transformation and how it connects to customer experience. Download it today by clicking here.

By James Moses, Head of Commerce Projects, Columbus