It’s not easy being a consumer-facing business right now. From the uncertainty around Brexit to low consumer confidence, from Amazon to Deliveroo, and with the ever-increasing customer expectations around service levels such as same day delivery, all consumer sectors are being squeezed and are under pressure. None-the-less, there’s lots of cash being left on the table. And much of it comes down to getting some of the basics right.
Why do retailers and brands never call their lapsed customer base to ask them why they don’t shop with them anymore?
If you’re losing customers, there should only be one question on your mind: why? And that shouldn’t be something that you guess at, either. You will almost definitely have the data on your clients to contact them, so why not send an email or pick up the phone? It doesn’t have to be a grotesque, invasive survey. It’s very easy to tick a box or type an angry explanation on your phone. It might be something you’d not even thought about: a closed local car park, a change in clothing designers, a very irritable cashier. Whatever it is, make it your business to find it out.
Why do most head office retail and e-commerce teams never walk the floor and speak to customers?
You’re never too big to walk down to your stores. Get out of the boardroom and do it fast. Detachment from your customers and clientele is just asking for a mistake to occur. Don’t be Marie Antoinette: go out and chat to your workers, your customers, experience their spaces and engage with their problems. Once you’ve lost that crucial empathy for your market, you’ve lost your touch. Unless you know what your customers are experiencing, you’re shooting in the dark.
Why does everyone talk about CRM (customer relationship management), but then don’t action it? How many brands do you know that are building relationships with you?
Utilising multichannel data to understand your customers sounds like a no-brainer. So why isn’t this actioned? If a customer or client wants to feel like they have an identity with you, rather than being Customer Complaint 1091242 in a queue, that’s easily actioned through that data. If the shop assistant knows why a woman wouldn’t want to ask for the next size up, they can work out how to ensure that the sale still goes ahead through anticipating client needs. CRM allows you to fully look at your customer’s purchase history, buying patterns, profile and behaviour. All this, in a compiled form, is information gold dust. Use it. Build a relationship with the customer and see retention increase and lifetime value. Be a brand that cares and your customers will respond accordingly.
Why do most consumer-facing businesses continue to spam customers with completely generic, non-segmented, non-behavioural emails? Often daily!
If there’s one thing I will never read, it’s a random update from a store I begrudgingly gave my email to for wifi. You know that I’m an adult bloke (I vaguely remember ticking those boxes) so why on earth are you sending me information on Miss Sporty mascara clearances? That’s lazy at best and off-putting for customers are worst. Don’t spam me. You have my data, use it. You’re missing a trick here.
Why does everyone talk about personalisation (and we’ve been doing it for 20 years), yet almost no one does it?
If you’re a modern store chain, you know so much about your customers. You know how often they visit your stores. You know how they move about your stores. You know what they buy. It’s easier than ever to personalise service and ensure that they only get the bits of your service that they want and need. You need to use this in your marketing and in your communications. The days of single mass campaign advertising is over. Most people engage with advertising online and through email: make sure those algorithms are working for you. We live in a world of individualism. If you can’t work with that, your competitors will.
Why do consumer-facing businesses still measure key performance indicators that provide data as opposed to insight?
Many KPIs have their value in that they provide data, but they don’t provide insights. They give you numbers rather than an in-depth analysis and insight into what’s going on in your customer base. I would advise that the traditional KPIs you measure such as conversion rates, average order values and footfall are used as artefacts to engage with rather than finished analysis. You need input based evaluation, not simply accepting what comes out of what’s happening in the numbers. This would include ratings & reviews, net promoter scores, sentiment analysis and so on. This knowledge of what customers think will provide insight into why your more commercial metrics are behaving as they are.
Why do most customer-facing colleagues in consumer businesses have a ‘can’t do’ rather than a ‘can-do’ mindset?
There’s one thing that’s more infectious than anything else: negativity. Symptoms include pessimism, stress, low-self esteem, low brand loyalty and often a paralysis on decision making and disruption. This is everything you don’t want when facing a customer. No one likes a grumpy shop assistant or manager who doesn’t really want to go all the way down to the storeroom. There are many reasons to why this can happen: perhaps they fear getting the lash from an overly rule-guided boss, or they feel overworked or unmotivated in a ‘dead-end’ job. Cultivate a ‘can do’ culture in your company: hire people who are humble and ambitious, engage with your employees with a strong stressor on doing what is right by the customer over what is the rule, and stress that the goal is always the best possible customer journey and outcome. If a return system isn’t working, why? If a queue is far too long, what solutions can your team come up with to raise customer moods? I was very impressed in Caffe Nero a few weeks ago: extra baristas came down the line, taking orders ahead and handing out free sweets. Total cost? Negligible. Result? No customers left the store to get coffee elsewhere.
