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Mapping the Ideal Omnichannel Journey: How Retailers Can Delight Customers Across Touchpoints

omnichannel retail customer journey

Today’s consumers expect seamless shopping experiences engaging with retail brands across devices, channels and physical locations. Crafting and optimizing a successful omnichannel retail customer journey is difficult, but can be a solid revenue driver for your retail organization.  Companies that can deliver superior omnichannel customer engagement realize a 9.5% yearly increase in annual revenue.

Yet mapping and optimizing a unified omnichannel journey is complex for retailers. This article will help you map out and optimize a superior omnichannel journey for your customers.

Conduct In-Depth Journey Mapping

Your retail brand can gain a granular understanding of all touchpoints and customer pain points through:

  • Creating detailed omnichannel customer journey maps from the user perspective across web, mobile, in-store, social media and beyond.  If you want to get started creating a customer journey map for your retail brand, this link has a great primer.
  • Performing observational research and usability tests to uncover gaps and friction points in key journeys. Monitoring users as they navigate your website and other digital presences (such as your mobile app) can help uncover issues that are slowing or stopping the flow of the customer along the purchase journey.
  • Surveying shoppers on difficulties experienced and desired improvements in their omnichannel journey. Ask shoppers where they hit a ‘snag’ in the buying process. Most often, a shopper can identify an exact point that triggered a decision to end purchase consideration. Use this valuable feedback to improve the flow for all shoppers.

Journey insights help your retail brand design a customer journey that flows with little or no bottlenecks.

Bridge Platform and Channel Gaps

Eliminate transition friction across digital and physical by:

  • Enabling tight integrations between platforms to maintain context. Allow moving activities between channels seamlessly. Crafting a seamless experience is the name of the game. The shopper should view the journey as one process, they shouldn’t be able to notice when they move from one device or location to another. If they do notice, it’s because their experience changed, for good or bad. Try to eliminate this so the experience is consistent across all touchpoints.
  • Providing consistent commerce capabilities like buy online pickup in-store or return in-store. This is a convenient that modern retail shoppers demand. Allowing customers to buy and return in a more convenient fashion results in higher sales, customer loyalty and satisfaction.
  • Sharing customer data and history across channels to enable personalized, contextual interactions. Don’t silo customer history, make it equally accessible across all devices. Tie to the customer account, if possible.

Frictionless cross-channel experiences feel unified and that leads to more convenience for the shopper, which increases the number of purchases as well as loyalty and engagement.  Starbucks does this well, the brand allows ordering ahead via app, picking up in store, earning and redeeming rewards across channels. Messaging is integrated in its app for real-time support. All of this provides a consistent experience from app to in-store.

Design Consistent Branding and Messaging

Inconsistency across channels causes confusion. Consumers expect and demand a brand that gives them a consistent experience across channels and touchpoints. Maintain alignment through:

  • Auditing each touchpoint to ensure visual identity, voice, tone and terminology are aligned.You are looking for a smooth flow from one touchpoint to another. Try to identify ‘breaks’ in voice and branding, and correct those snags so that the flow continues.
  • Creating knowledge bases, style guides and templates for human and automated engagements. This not only provides more value and convenience for the customer, but it also meets an anticipated need: Some customers will visit a website, for example, needing support moreso than product information. By giving customers access to both product information and material for self-support, you are meeting two potential needs at once.
  • Monitoring across channels frequently to rapidly address inconsistencies. Keeping a close eye on customer flow through every channel helps you quickly identify potential problem areas. These can be corrected and a smooth customer flow can be maintained.
  • Coaching associates and optimizing AI chatbots to represent the brand appropriately. Remember that the point of AI isn’t to replace the human connection that your brand has with its customers; It’s job is to enhance it. Leverage AI to provide more convenience to customers, but it shouldn’t be obvious when its a human or AI helping you. Consistent branding, voice and tone is paramount.

Consistent experiences build familiarity and trust as shoppers traverse channels.

Personalize Intelligently

Leverage data to tailor experiences across the journey, Analyze the data you collect from the journey your customers take, and apply it to improve the process by:

  • Individualized content recommendations based on interests, purchase history and browsing behavior. Offer customers a unique content experience based on their interest and behavior patterns on your channels.
  • Omnichannel promotion consistency:  For instance, offer discounts synchronized across online and in-store. Customers should see no break in the promotion flow just as they wouldn’t expect it for other forms of content.
  • Contextually relevant assistance like help messages at decision points. Track user patterns and note where visitors abruptly leave your website. See what triggered their decision and attempt to correct by giving them access to additional content that meets their needs.
  • Recommendations aligned to buyer lifecycle stage based on past purchases and activity. Promotion of complimentary products is appreciated, if relevant.

Personalized journeys can help the customer feel appreciated and lead to higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty.

Drive Mobile Experience Excellence

With mobile dominating, relentlessly optimize mobile apps and sites through:

  • Streamlined navigation, minimal data entry, and contextual help for seamless completion of key tasks. Keep in mind that mobile apps are primarily used when the customer is mobile, or on-the-go. Factor that in when considering how the customer will be using the app and in what environment.
  • Core functionality availability offline for convenience. Give mobile app users the ability to access basic functionality when offline or mobile coverage is inconsistent.
  • Location awareness bridging digital with nearby physical interactions like in-store pickup prompts. Additionally, add in-store signage to encourage app usage. Making customers aware of the convenience of a mobile app helps drive adoption.

Optimizing the mobile app experience leads to a more dynamic and profitable customer journey for your retail brand.

Orchestrating seamless, personalized journeys across an exploded digital landscape is complex yet invaluable. We hope this article provided insights into excelling at networked omnichannel experiences that powerfully differentiate your brand.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Another Elon Misstep, Instagram Still the King of Influencer Marketing, YouTube Adds AI Tools for Creators

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s the first official full week of Fall! My favorite time of the year! I hope you are ready to have a productive week, here’s a few stories that caught my eye over the last week:

 

I started to spin this story into its own post, and probably will at some point soon. Elon is floating the idea of charging ALL Twitter users a fee to use his platform. This is the first time in my 16+ years of using Twitter that I am seriously considering if it is time to leave the platform. Working on the Power Lists for Technology, Retail and Tourism (with Restaurants debuting on Weds) has been an eye-opener. I had always heard peers claim that there was a mass exodus of professionals from Twitter when Elon took over, but I just assumed that was overblown. It’s not, at least not in the four industries above.  Pros from technology, retail, tourism, and restaurant are absolutely more active right now on LinkedIn than they are on Twitter. In reviewing hundreds of Twitter accounts over the last month, I lost count on how many pros hadn’t tweeted in 2023, who were active on LinkedIn. I’ve been hearing ‘Is Twitter dying?’ for at least the last 10-12 years. This is the first time I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

 

Companies working with influencers are still spending more marketing dollars on Instagram than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s simply a desire to be contrarian, but I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for a certain brand to partner with the right influencer and create some momentum on Snapchat? Sometimes it pays to go in the opposite direction of the herd.

 

Social media platforms continue to integrate AI as a way to aid creators. LinkedIn has done it, Elon is working on an AI alternative to ChatGPT that will no doubt be integrated into Twitter/X, and now YouTube is doing the same. I think we will eventually see a time very soon where video platforms like YouTube will allow you to create a video on the fly from a simple prompt, using AI. An additional app YouTube announced is YouTube Create, which is a standalone app that is geared toward mobile creators, giving them simple editing tools to use on the fly. I actually think it will be a big hit with smaller YouTube creators.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. On Thursday, I will have a new post on tourism marketing. But tomorrow the debut edition of The Restaurant Power List will launch, so be sure to check back here to see who ends up #1! Hope you have an amazing week!

 

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Unlock Sales Growth Through Social Sharing: The Retail Marketing Playbook

social sharing retail

Driving recommendations and organic social sharing has become imperative for forward-thinking retail marketers. Over 14% of retail sales were online in 2022, representing over one trillion in total sales. That’s a massive market that’s only growing every year. Your retail company can greatly accelerate its growth by giving your more passionate customers the tools they need to share content about your brand quickly and easily.

This article will explore 6 proven tactics to facilitate digital and social sharing that accelerates awareness, consideration, and sales.

Conduct Social Listening Research

It’s vital that you understand the online conversations happening around and about your retail brand. Here’s a few important considerations:

  • Monitoring social conversations for motivators like unique products, quality, brand affinity and customer service. Both positive and negative brand mentions should be escalated to the appropriate team and given a response ASAP. Don’t simply react to negative comments and ignore positive ones. Just as negative comments need a quick response, so do positive comments from customers. The quicker your brand can respond appropriately to a positive account, the more likely that customer is to create MORE positive content around and about your brand.
  • Tracking patterns in sharing by geography, demographics and other factors. Look for trends that indicate customer behavior. Once you’ve identified behavior patterns, it will become even easier to respond quickly and appropriately to customer feedback.
  • Identifying brand advocates and influencers driving significant word-of-mouth. These are your MVP customers. They are the customers who are consistently driving positive word of mouth, and you want to create and build a relationship with them. We’ll talk more about how to do this throughout this article.

These insights inform a targeted approach to activating consumers.

Incentivize Customers with Loyalty Program Perks

Loyalty programs present a prime mechanism to directly motivate social sharing and recommendations. Here’s some mechanisms to keep in mind:

  • Award points or discounts for shares, UGC, tags, and reviews. Prioritize which behavior is most beneficial to your brand and structure your customer incentives to encourage that outcome.
  • Develop tiered rewards based on volume and authenticity of advocacy. Structure rewards so the best rewards are given to customers for engaging in the behavior that’s most beneficial to your brand.
  • Recognize top brand ambassadors and evangelists through VIP badges and perks. I’ve talked before about rewarding the behavior you want to encourage. Identify your best advocates and loyalty participants, and put the spotlight on them. Think of it as modeling to your other customers what the ideal behavior is that you want them to engage in.
  • Promote social sharing pathways and benefits clearly across program touchpoints. Focus on encouraging social sharing via the channels that are most beneficial to your brand.

Leveraging loyalty initiatives turns customers into promoters and salespeople for your brand.

Launch User-Generated Content Campaigns

User-generated visuals like product photos or videos, store experience captures, and creative use cases provide customers the opportunity to sell your brand directly. Prompt UGC creation through:

  • Branded hashtags – Encourage customers to tag posts with your campaign hashtag. This helps with monitoring and attribution to track ROI.
  • Integration in on-site experiences – Provide signs, props and tools to make sharing in-store fun. Place prompts in high traffic areas and around products that are driving organic excitement and attention.
  • Contests – Build UGC volume through prize incentives tied to creative challenges. Lean on your existing loyalty program for implementation and ideas.
  • Spotlights – Repurpose compelling user content across your social channels when permissions allow. Use the most effective UGC to not only drive awareness but to also serve as an example for other customers of the type of UGC you would like to see them create as well.

UGC activates customers while expanding your original content library.

Simplify Social Sharing

The easier you make sharing, the more it will be embraced. Best practices include:

  • Add social sharing buttons prominently on product pages, blog articles, in-store and across all platforms. Make sure that sharing buttons are attached to the content that you want to see shared. Low-hanging fruit should always be taken advantage of.
  • Give customers examples of content they could create, such as example tweets or posts. This helps simplify the content creation process for customers.
  • Develop shortlinks, custom URLs and QR codes to make links highly shareable and trackable. This gives you a better sense of what content from which customers is generating more or less traction.

Seamless social functionality entices more participation.

Partner With Micro-Influencers

Work with real customers with engaged niche followings rather than celebrities. Micro influencers have smaller followings, but typically are far more engaged with their networks. Ideal alliances:

  • Offer free product and insider access in return for organic promotion to their networks. Never overlook the value of special access. True fans of your brand will see the value in getting special access that the average customer does not have. For example, bring customers on-site to engage directly with key executives involved in product marketing, design and rollout. Fans will see this access as a true perk, and view it as compensation.
  • Develop exclusive collaborations and products with unique codes for them to share. Whenever possible, always make sure every piece of content that every influencer you work with creates has tracking attached to it. Unique codes are perfect to attribute shares and traction to a specific influencer.
  • Seek advocates who genuinely know and love your brand over one-off sponsors. Multi-touch relationships amplify impact. If an influencer already loves your brand, they will likely already be working to help you build your brand via their content creation. On the other hand, if an influencer has no affinity toward your brand, then that influencer will be working to build their personal brand, not your company’s brand.

When followers view an influencer as a peer, their advocacy drives action. Micro-influencers have a smaller following, but that allows them to have tighter connections with that smaller following. They reach fewer people, but they can more easily have an impact on each individual person as a result.

Analyze and Continuously Optimize Social Sharing Among Your Retail Customers

A data-driven approach ensures social activation delivers measurable impact. Track:

  • Share of voice vs competitors on digital and social channels. Compare and contrast your results versus those of other companies in your space. Identify what’s working for the competition, then determine WHY it’s working, and decide if you can apply the same or similar principles to improve your own efforts.
  • Web referral traffic, account creation and sales derived from shares. It’s vital to know which channels and which customers/influencers are driving shares and ultimately sales. Address laggards as well as your best performers. Identify what’s working and attempt to replicate those results across all channels and shares.
  • UGC content engagement rates and user sentiment. Track content creation volume as well as engagement rates and response rate. Track the types of engagement and prioritize the types of response that are most desired.
  • If sharing incentives lead to a boost in participation rates among customers. Track which incentives lead to changes in behavior that are beneficial to your bramd.

Continuous optimization and creativity sustains momentum as tactics mature.

Activate Advocates Authentically

Channel the influence of delighted customers and brand advocates through innovation and ingenuity. A comprehensive plan to encourage social sharing will lead to customers driving online word of mouth, and sales. Prioritizing one high-potential tactic builds foundation for a scalable sharing ecosystem.

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The Retail Power List for September

Welcome to The Retail Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the retail industry. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Power List for Retail! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

There’s two main reasons why I decided to do The Power List:

1 – I wanted to help give exposure to people who are doing a good job of using Twitter in a corporate environment. It’s damn hard to build a following and even any semblance of traction on social media for an account while also doing your core job functions. I wanted to build out The Power List as a platform to help give more exposure to others, and make it just a little easier for them to build a following and engagement around their content.

2 – I wanted to highlight the best use of Twitter, and use that as a way to show others how to improve their own use of Twitter. The Power List will become a way to showcase the best of the best, and also show all of us how to learn from the best of the best and improve our own efforts.

 

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for the Power List for Retail. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Retail sector, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space.

1 – As with the Power List for Technology, I noticed a LOT of retail pros have left Twitter over the last few years. One of the rules I had for inclusion in the Power List is that you must have left at least one tweet in the year 2023. That rule zapped a LOT of candidates. I lost count on how many retail accounts I saw with a last tweet in December of 2022.

2 – Pros in the retail industry love LinkedIn. I saw so many candidates that weren’t on Twitter, but were on LinkedIn.

3 – Much smaller candidate pool for the Retail Power List than Technology.  I’ve already started working on the Power List for Tourism for next week, and its much easier to find candidates for it as well. Finding candidates for the Retail list was simply brutal at times. Please nominate yourself or a peer if you work in corporate retail!

 

The Retail Power List for September:

1 – Lou Dubois, Senior Director, Content and Creative – The Home Depot, Power List Score – 92. Lou is #1 with the highest score so far on any Power List. Lou is very active, and his profile has a good mix of personal and professional content. Well done indeed.

2 – William White, CMO at WalMart, Power List Score – 85. Purely looking at posting frequency, William probably has the best profile I’ve seen so far on any Power List. He’s averaging a new tweet every 5-7 days like clockwork. The only slight downside I saw is his content is 100% corporate and focused on WalMart. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think if he wove in a few ‘behind the scenes’ types videos of what a ‘Day in the Life’ of a WalMart CMO or employee is like, I think that content would really help round out his profile. Nonetheless, he has a really good profile.

3 – Hal Lawton, CEO of Tractor Supply, Power List Score – 83. Hal has a pretty solid profile. Decent frequency, a lot of reposts and pointing toward content others have created that tell the Tractor Supply story.

4 – Emmalee Smith, Social Media Manager at Kroger, Power List Score – 79. So I struggled a bit with where to rank Emmalee’s profile. She’s fairly active, but her content is far more personal than focused on Kroger. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She does have some interesting thoughts on working in corporate social media that I think a lot of people in the space can relate to.

5 – Sumit Singh, CEO of Chewy.com, Power List Score – 75. So from this point forward, all profiles left on this edition of the Retail Power List will have some serious frequency issues to address. Sumit’s last tweet is May 4th, and up till that point he was doing a pretty good job with his profile. Hopefully he will return to the same frequency he had earlier this year, and his score will rise considerably if he does.

6 – E. Blake Jackson, Global Communications, WalMart, Power List Score – 74. I struggled a bit with where to rank Blake’s profile on this list. His frequency is not bad, especially for this list. Almost all of his content is personal, there’s very little about his employer. I think if he upped his frequency about 20% and had that additional content be focused on WalMart and some behind-the-scenes info, that his profile would really take off.

7 – Keith Daily, Group VP Corporate Affairs, Kroger, Power List Score – 73. Keith is sharing decent content, just not much of it.  Only a few tweets so far in 2023. I checked and he’s far more active sharing content on LinkedIn, I think if he could post some of that content as well on Twitter, it would help build his following there as well.

8 – Dan Bartlett, EVP of Corporate Affairs, WalMart, Power List Score – 72. Very little content from Dan, it is updating us on what’s happening at WalMart, which is nice. But I would like to see more.

9 – Keegan Shoutz, PR, Best Buy, Power List Score – 71. Very little content so far in 2023. I hope that changes.

10 – Tony Lemma, Regional VP, The Home Depot, Power List Score – 70. Same thing, very little content in 2023.

 

One final note: Notice that 3 of the members of The Power List are from WalMart. I looked at almost every major website for a company in the retail industry over the last couple of weeks. WalMart was the only one I found that clearly listed the social media accounts for each member of its executive team.

So that’s the first Power List for Retail! Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Power List for Retail, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Retail? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

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Introducing the Twitter Power Lists!

When I started my first standalone blog in 2006 (I began blogging in 2005 as writer/editor for an advertising recruitment firm in Atlanta), one of the first things I did was create a list of marketing blogs that I read daily. This was in the days before Twitter and Facebook hadn’t really broken past campuses at this point. I created a list of marketing blogs to read because I wanted to keep up to date on the space, but I also wanted to help develop community on my own blog.

At first, I started out with the big names at the time like Seth Godin, Kathy Sierra and Guy Kawasaki. But I quickly discovered dozens of really good, but lesser-known marketing blogs. My list of favorite marketing blogs grew longer and longer, and over time I realized that I was spending more time reading the ‘lesser known’ blogs than I was the ‘popular’ ones.

And this began to irritate me. It began to irritate me because I knew that so many people would just read the ‘popular’ blogs and wouldn’t make an effort to find the really good blogs that weren’t quite as popular, but that were often just as good, sometimes even better!  I began to think about ways that I could help these lesser-known blogs build awareness.

Around this same time, the college football season was about to start. I noticed the polls started releasing there Preseason Top 25 polls. An idea hit me: What if I did my own poll of the Top 25 marketing blogs? That would be a great way to drive exposure to many lesser known marketing blogs, and it would also be a fun way to keep up with the space and build engagement with my readers.

So a few days later, The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs was born.

The Top 25 Marketing Blogs went on for several years and became quite popular, driving a lot of traffic and awareness to a lot of deserving blogs.

I wanted to try something similar now with Twitter accounts. There are four main industries I write about here: Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant. I also keep up with professionals in these 4 industries on Twitter. If you regularly use Twitter, you know how hard it is to build a following. If you also work in the corporate world, it’s doubly hard because you have even less time to devote to building a brand and following on Twitter.

I wanted to see if I could help with that, and at the same time give others a good list of solid professionals to follow in each of those 4 industries.

So starting next week, I will start the Twitter Power Lists for each of those four industries; Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant.  Each week there will be a different industry, and I will rank the Top 10 Twitter accounts in each space. Technology will be first, and it will debut next Tuesday.

Over time, the methodology for who is or is not included will be altered, and it’s very possible that I will expand the list to a Top 20 or maybe even Top 25. The goal of each list is to drive exposure and followers for the people on the list, and to give people that want to follow those industries a good list of professionals to keep up with.

If You Work in the Technology, Retail, Tourism or Restaurant Industries and Want to Be on the Twitter Power List, Here’s What You Do:

1 – First, follow me on Twitter.

2 – Please clearly list in your Twitter bio the position you hold and the company you work for. That lets me know which list you should be on.

3 – If you don’t have that info in your Twitter bio, after you follow me, please tweet me and let me know your position.

 

That’s it! If you work in one of those 4 industries, you will be added to the appropriate Twitter list for your industry.  Here’s the lists so you can go ahead and start subbing to them now:

Technology

Retail

Tourism

Restaurants

 

So please, follow me on Twitter so I can get you added to the appropriate Twitter Power List.  Even if you don’t make the Power List here, simply being on those lists on Twitter will bring more exposure to your Twitter account, and will help you build your following.

So What’s the Criteria for Being Ranked on the Power List for My Industry?

Good question! So the rankings, at least at first, will most be a judgment call on my part.  As the lists grow, I may move to a more formal ranking system.

For now, here’s some of the areas I will look at:

  • How active are you on Twitter? If your last tweet is from December 2022, you probably won’t make the list.
  • How ‘interesting’ is your content? Mix it up a bit, don’t use your Twitter account to simply reblast press releases
  • When you promote your work, are you giving us unique content we can’t get anywhere else? For instance I just saw a tweet from one of the members of one of the above lists who tweeted out a picture of their work desk. I like seeing content like that, and so do others.
  • The Twitter Power lists are only for professionals working IN these industries. If you work in media or consulting and cover or service these industries, you won’t be on these lists. Only people who are working for companies and organizations in these industries.

Now there is one important caveat to these lists: Insanely popular accounts will NOT be included in the rankings. For instance, Elon Musk will never make the technology list. There’s a couple of reasons why: First, if he was added, he would start at #1 and stay there for as long as I did the list.  Second, the goal of these lists is to drive exposure to accounts that need to build awareness.  Everyone is already following Elon, he doesn’t need any more exposure. Many people would suggest he needs less!

Each industry Power List will be updated once a month.  Any changes in rankings from the previous list will be noted (For example, if an account moves up or down 2 spots on the list, that will be noted).  The main goal is to drive exposure to professionals that make the list.  But along the way, everyone will be able to pick up some tips and strategies for building their own following on Twitter.

So if you want to be considered for the Twitter Power Lists, please follow me on Twitter! Then let me know which industry you work in, and your position.  Good luck!

 

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Your Guide to Delivering Consistent Omnichannel Customer Service Experiences in Retail

retail omnichannel customer service

Today’s consumers expect seamless shopping and service engaging with retail brands across devices, channels, and touchpoints. Orchestrating unified omnichannel customer service presents immense challenges for retailers. However, the rewards can be sizeable when done correctly. Research has found that companies who have a strong omnichannel strategy realize a 89% customer retention rate, compared to a lowly 33% for companies with a weak omnichannel strategy.

This article will explore several proven strategies and best practices retail executives should leverage to optimize omnichannel customer service experiences across stores, ecommerce, mobile apps, and new emerging channels. If you have questions about optimizing or improving your retail omnichannel customer service strategy, feel free to leave a comment, or you can email Mack directly for private feedback.

Conduct In-Depth Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping is the process of visualizing the steps that a potential customer goes through in order to complete a purchase. Here’s some of the ways that customer journey mapping can be helpful:

  • Identifying friction points from the user perspective. By visualizing the purchase process, you can see the flow that the customer goes through on the way to a purchase.  And it SHOULD be a flow, if not, the customer could get ‘stuck’ in one stage, and that could easily lead to frustration and abandoning the purchase.
  • Conducting shadowing research and customer interviews to uncover unmet needs and grievances. This allows you to hear directly from the retail customer and learn how the purchase process worked for them.
  • Auditing support metrics across channels; such as wait times, resolution speed/quality, CSAT, NPS, and sentiment. This will further help identify areas for improvement in the process.
  • Analyzing contact topics and types to identify knowledge gaps to address. This helps suggests information that can be provided to the customer to help them self-diagnosis and possibly even resolve issues themselves.

These insights help inform an omnichannel optimization roadmap tailored to your customers’ needs.

Architect Seamless Cross-Channel Experiences

Today, customers expect unified service across in-store, web, mobile, kiosks, chat, social and more. A consistent experience across all touchpoints is expected. You can deliver this by:

  • Defining optimal channel roles based on their strengths to simplify choice. This helps direct the customer to the channels that are best suited to provide the experience the customer needs at that stage of their purchase journey.
  • Enabling tight integrations between channels, such as store finders, click and collect etc. Also pay attention to how customers will use channels differently. For instance, when on your app, customers are often away from home, and looking to complete or pick up a purchase. When at home, they are more likely to be on a laptop and doing research before deciding on a purchase. Factor customer intent into the integration of your retail omnichannel customer service experience.
  • Allowing pick-up purchases and returns across any channel. This should be a priority for mobile devices and apps in particular.
  • Transferring customer context and histories between channels/agents. There should always be a way to track the history of a support issue so that a handoff improves the experience, instead of resetting it.

Contextual, personalized omnichannel experiences satisfy customers and improve efficiency and increase customer loyalty among retail customers.

Equip Employees with Mobile Technology

Allowing retail employees to have mobile devices while interacting with customers allows them to give a higher level of service and support. Here’s some examples:

  • Retail employees can access customer purchase history and loyalty profiles anywhere to personalize interactions.  This allows employees to immediately get up to speed on the customer’s purchase and support history.
  • Assist customers with inventory lookups, pricing, recommendations on the salesfloor. This allows the employee to stay present and engaged with the customer, while also speeding up the support process.
  • Check in customers remotely via mobile POS to reduce lines.  This gives the customer more control over initiating the support process and it creates more speed and efficiency.
  • Resolve issues, answer questions, and schedule appointments on the go.  By letting employees have mobile access to customers, they can interact with customers in a way that’s convenient for both parties, which speeds up the overall process and increases satisfaction for the customer, and productivity for the retail employee.

Giving retail employees the right technology to deliver mobile support ensures a higher level of customer satisfaction.

Expand and Enhance Self-Service Options

Let’s be honest: Many customers would rather handle a support issue themselves, if they can. So it pays to give customers the resources to self-diagnose problems and potentially solve on their own. In addition, it take stress off your CS team, and also creates a cost-savings. Invest in channels like:

  • Intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants on website, apps and messaging. Chatbots in particular are having a revival of interest due to the rise of easy-to-use AI tools. Look for use to expand over the coming years.
  • Interactive kiosks in stores for product research. These should be placed as close to the actual product as possible. Give customers a way to do last-minute research as a way to make the final determination on which product to purchase.
  • Enhanced help centers with improved search, content, and community forums. These are more frequently used by customers who are still in the consideration phase of the customer journey, so feel free to give them access to more in depth product information.
  • Allow access to customer ratings and reviews. This ties in with the previous point, as customers are doing research, they are narrowing down the list of products they are interested in. Once they have narrowed their consideration pool down to an acceptable number of products, they will want to check customer reviews for each product. This will help them narrow their list down even further, or it could convince the customer which product they should purchase.

You can also drive utilization through promotions, associate referrals and in-journey prompts.

Continuously Improve Through Testing and Innovation

Omnichannel retail customer service must continually adapt and improve. Recommended approaches include:

  • A/B test new features and channel integrations to optimize performance. Test internally, and also offer testing to select customers. This can be offered as a perk to loyalty program or community forum members.
  • Monitor service innovations from leading competitors and brands. Always keep up to date on the latest news and case studies to identify opportunities to improve your own retail customer service.
  • Survey customers directly on desired improvements. Ask customers what is working for them, and where the problems are. Over time, you can identify trends and isolate areas for improvement.
  • Pilot enhancements, measure impact, and iterate. Leverage customer feedback to roll out new features, and make sure customers know they helped contribute to the improvement. This will encourage customers to become even more engaged in the feedback process.

There are always opportunities to optimize and evolve your omnichannel customer service experience.

Achieving Omnichannel Customer Service Excellence

Orchestrating seamless retail customer service across expanding digital and offline touchpoints is challenging yet invaluable. Brands that have achieved successful omnichannel customer engagement have realized a 9.5% growth in annual revenue.  Additionally, a solid retail omnichannel customer service experience can result in a 7.5% decrease in cost per contact.

With the right strategy and planning, the payoff of a focus on retail omnichannel customer service can be immense.

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5 Loyalty Program Hurdles That Retail CMOs Must Overcome

retail loyalty program

Loyalty programs have become ubiquitous in retail, with brands large and small launching initiatives to incentivize repeat purchases and gather customer data. But even as adoption grows, retail CMOs grapple with lingering concerns around cost, complexity, sustainability, and more that come with implementing a productive retail loyalty program.

Let’s take a closer look at the Top 5 concerns that CMOs have about launching a retail loyalty program, and find a solution for each:

1 – Concern Over High Costs

Rolling out a loyalty program requires significant upfront investment in the underlying technology infrastructure and integration needed to run the program, track activity digitally, and surface data insights. Ongoing costs also pile up for funding rewards, customer service, marketing and other program elements. Especially given slim margins in retail, proving a positive ROI can be difficult. Still, the average ROI for loyalty programs is approximately 10%, and roughly 80% of companies with a loyalty program are planning to up their investment in that program over the next 3 years.

Strategies to Address Cost Concerns:

  • Start small and scale program complexity over time rather than overinvesting initially before proving value. The reality is that whenever any new marketing initiative is launched, mistakes will be made at first. And mistakes cost money. Launching your retail loyalty program with a more limited scope allows you to lower the initial investment, while more easily proving ROI. This will make it easier to justify a greater investment to scale out the program as it grows. One company that utilized this strategy in launching and growing its retail loyalty program is Walgreens. The retailer rolled out its loyalty program in select markets first, then scaled program aspects to the national level, after worth had been proven.
  • Offer tiered benefits aligned to reasonable repeat purchase levels rather than overextending perks. Remember to balance rewarding customers for purchase behavior they are already engaging in with trying to encourage new purchase levels. If customers can see the benefits from additional purchases as being helpful, they will pursue them.
  • Leverage lower cost digital rewards like free shipping, exclusive content, early access along with discounts. For example, Publix’s Club Publix loyalty program gives members a sneak peek on the weekly ad. Every Tuesday, members can access the new circular that will publish the following day. This not only gives a tangible benefit to members at very little cost to Publix, but it also makes members feel appreciated to get early access to upcoming sales.
  • Closely track attributable lift in purchase frequency, order values, and margin impact from the program. Keeping a closer eye on what’s working (and what isn’t) for members allows you to be more engaged and flexible in pursuing incremental improvements to program efficiency.

2 – Anxiety Around Execution Complexity

Well-planned loyalty programs require tight integration of technology systems across channels, extensive employee training, setting program policies and architecture, significant customer education, and complex point tracking and redemption procedures. That’s a mouthful of a sentence, and it can easily become a headache for the retail CMO that’s trying to take a loyalty program from the drawing board to implementation.

Here’s Some Ideas For Simplifying Rollout:

  • Conduct pilot programs with small customer segments to refine operational processes before full launch. Recall the example of Walgreens above, it selected individual markets to test run its loyalty program before going national. This process helps give your retail brand tighter control over the process at launch, and lets you make ‘smaller mistakes’, before a more grand rollout.
  • Invest in user-friendly program management software and automated tracking to streamline administration. Employee training will be key and help create a smoother launch.
  • Create detailed protocols for customer service teams to easily explain program policies and procedures. Integration is key, when a customer contacts your support team, they need to understand all aspects of the loyalty program so they can give the same level of support as with all other areas of your business. A consistent experience across all brand touchpoints is vital to customer satisfaction, and creating customer loyalty.
  • Minimize complicated tier structures and redemption options that create friction. Prioritize easy enrollment.  Target has simplified its loyalty program down to just Target Circle, which allows for digital registration. This greatly reduces signup friction and gets members onboarded and in the program quicker.

3 – Fear of Diminishing Engagement Over Time

Even successful loyalty launches see attrition as customers initially excited about perks and benefits lose interest when the novelty wears off. This is because poorly designed loyalty programs build loyalty to a particular offer or sale, not to the brand. You build loyalty AFTER the purchase, not before.

Strategies to Keep Members Loyal to Your Loyalty Program:

  • Continuously add new benefits and offers rather than remaining static after launch. If the majority of the perks of your loyalty program are tied to short-term sales, members will lose interest once those sales expire. Find ways to tap into existing behavior and encourage more participation.
  • Provide surprise bonuses and value-adds at random to reengage lapsed users.
  • Remember that your loyalty program will work best when it is rewarding existing behavior, versus attempting to incentivize new behavior. If the member views the perks of your loyalty program as a reward for activities they are already taking (such as purchases), this encourages them to continue to engage in those activities.
  • Mine your data and determine where you are losing members. Find the churn points and work to eliminate them.

4 – Concerns Around Data Privacy and Security

Collecting customer transaction data, contact info, and purchase patterns raises obvious data privacy considerations. Ensuring data practices are transparent, securing sensitive information adequately, and avoiding misuse are top-of-mind for your program’s members, as they should be for you.

Best Practices for Data Protection:

  • Provide easily accessible and understandable privacy policy explaining data practices. Clearly explain what data is collected, and how it will be used. Also, make sure your loyalty program’s data collection policy is easily accessible to all members.
  • Allow customers control over data sharing preferences and opt-out abilities. This will help alleviate concerns over your data collection policy, and help establish trust.
  • Limit internal data access to essential personnel, with air tightsecurity and usage protocols. Safeway ensures that only key decision makers have access to member data.
  • Any member data that is stored in conjunction with your retail loyalty program should be secure and encrypted.

5 – Questioning Long-Term Program Sustainability

If your program’s benefits focus heavily on discounts or giveaways, margins can easily erode. An additional problem will be that members will become more loyal to the giveaways or discounts than the brand itself. And if stringent requirements make points redemption difficult, perceived value diminishes. Achieving optimal behaviors to drive growth long-term is an elusive balancing act.

Steps for Building a Lasting Retail Loyalty Program:

  • Structure rewards aimed at driving incremental visits and purchase rather than discounting. Remember, we want to reward members for behavior they are already engaging in, instead of trying to incentivizing new behavior. Remember earlier I mentioned how Club Publix members get a sneak peek at that week’s sales. This is a simple way to give a tangible benefit to members that ties into existing behavior without trying to force the member to do something new in order to get a ‘treat’.
  • Measure cost per point redeemed and adjust accrual rates and caps to maintain profitability.
  • Monitor program analytics closely to identify perks and behaviors with highest ROI. Likewise, identify the activities that aren’t producing, these could actually be contributing to member churn.
  • Continually experiment with reward types and messaging to refine most value-driving features.
  • Ask members for feedback! Regularly survey members and find out what features they like and dislike, as well as any suggestions they have for additional perks or benefits. When you can add a member-suggested feature, make sure to communicate this to members. Letting members know you are listening and implementing suggestions as you can is a great way to build trust and…loyalty!

 

One Final Note About Building a Successful Retail Loyalty Program

Whenever I first begin working with a client on structuring a retail loyalty program, I remind the client that there must be a clear benefit to both the retailer AND the member for participating. As long as the member can always easily understand how the program benefits them, they will stay a member. So have that in the back of your mind at every stage of planning, development and execution; How will this change benefit the member?

As long as you can consistently ask and answer that question, the potential for success for your retail loyalty program will always be higher.