6 Ways to Optimize the Retail Customer Experience to Deliver Value  

Today’s turbulent economy, political environment, and customers’ shifting priorities are wreaking havoc on companies grappling with reduced consumer spending, increased competition, and a lower revenue forecast. This leads to a pattern shift from value creation to value consumption—squeezing as much as possible from their customers and employees to compensate for other losses. But it’s only a matter of time retailers will realize value consumption is not sustainable and is only harming their brand.

To thrive in retail, we must create extraordinary value in the eyes of the customer. We must commit to keeping practices they love and quickly address the challenges they raise before it’s too late. We need to stop focusing on our brand’s internal issues and instead become obsessed with our value proposition to the market and our impact on our customers.

With a sharper understanding of the retail journey your customers experience, companies can prevent churn, quantify the impact of losing a customer, focus on retention, and ultimately improve loyalty. Successful retail customer experience practitioners know their brand is only as good as the last customer interaction—and those interactions can occur across a variety of channels and touchpoints. These predictive insights offer valuable benefits to companies that allow them to act before they lose customers and revenue.

As competition continues to increase, particularly in e-commerce, delivering sustainable customer value can be a game changer and provide significant opportunities for retail brands.

6 Ways to optimize the retail customer experience

1. Deliver—and fulfil—your brand promise to your customer

When using insights to optimize the customer experience, you should communicate what your customer can expect, what you offer, the value you bring to the table, and who you are as a retailer. And deliver against that.

2. Improve the shopping experience

To manage your customers’, you must be accurate with your product listing, descriptions, images, and videos. Customers demand transparency with your product listings, availability, and the information they need to make a buying decision.

3. Personalize the shopping experience

Often perceived as virtually impossible, providing a personalized shopping experience has become a game changer for brands wanting to charge a premium price. Retailers are deploying more technology to enhance the buying experience and brand association for today’s hybrid retail environment. From the moment someone visits their store or website to make a purchase, retailers are finding creative ways to use insight to personalize every stage of the journey, from purchasing, delivery, and returns.

4. Offer free and fast delivery (when you can)

With Amazon’s influence on the way we shop, consumers expect instant, quick, and affordable shipping across their purchasing channels. Analyzing feedback data helps companies fine-tune the delivery experience and use that insight to grow their business. The key here is understanding what your brand is capable of and to not overpromise. A recent study we ran actually shows that free can better than fast.

5. Manage inventory level and supply chain issues

When you boil it down, retail is about having the right goods to sell at the right time at the right price. CX leaders must show that impact, especially when inventory affects the buyer’s journey and the value you aim to provide. CX leaders must be able to demonstrate that business impact and work with other functional teams to minimize the effect. There are many ways to do that, but the most convincing is to link insights to the bottom line.

6. Focus on action versus just scores

Understanding your brand’s customer experience performance over time, across your enterprise, is important, but it’s not enough. Actively boiling all the data down to specific action items is critical. The only constant in your customer experience delivery model should be change. Constantly trying to deliver a better, more efficient, and delightful customer experience is the only way for brands to guarantee long-term success.

For more on how retailers can provide strong CX in 2023, check out this trends report.