April - July - 2022Retail Business Review9data to be accessed where and when it's needed is often neglected. This was what most of the exhibitors at the "Big Show" were on about, and this is a big enough problem that it can practically hijack the entire discussion around retail. Fixing this kind of problem involves silo-busting between management teams, and a strong commitment from the top of the company to invest in a solid, secure, integrated IT infrastructure across functional groups. The brands that have an advantage here are new enough (or small enough) that they don't have the backlog of legacy systems to deal with, and they likely built-in customer data as a foundation to their business right from the start. So, assuming a brand is on a path to solving the storage problem, we now need a way to collect the data consistently. There are many ways to approach this, but in retail they all come down to one principle: providing a reason (value) for the customer to identify themselves every time they connect with the brand. Whether providing a discount on a future purchase (Airmiles) or a streamlined customer experience via an app (Starbucks) or an extended brand experience (Nike Run Club), or an enhanced online shopping experience (Amazon Prime's personalization and shipping) brands need to understand where they can provide real value to a customer in exchange for their data. In this sense, data is a form of currency--with the customer sharing it only when the brand provides a compelling value proposition to do so, and the promise to use the data responsibly. We still get approached by retailers who want to build an app without a clear customer-focused reason for doing so. Defining a value proposition and then wrapping it in a compelling experience is what retailers do best, and the brands that have been successful at data collection have leveraged their retail skills to get there.This leads us to our third challenge, namely how we should use the data. Customers' expectations have shifted in recent years, with "omnichannel" retail experiences becoming table stakes for most retailers. While privacy is still a concern, customers now expect their shopping experiences to be as deeply personalized in store as it is online, and expect to see no barrier between the "digital" offerings of a brand and their instore counterparts. The store, service, web, mobile and app ecosystem is simply how the brand presents itself, and it seems obvious from a customer's point of view that they should all mesh together. One of the most powerful retail applications of digital technology that we've seen is to support personalized face-to-face service. Staff can access customer shopping profiles, endless aisle, product information, delivery options, event calendars, special brand experiences, product recommendations, checkout, past purchases and special discounts, all from a smartphone. This application has been successful when it has been able to support the real-world needs of customers, and does not get in the way of the face-to-face experience. Building a system like this requires a fair amount of sophistication on the part of the brand--touching on service design and staff training the physical design of the space and the design of the digital interface and infrastructure itself. From the customer's side, they are simply receiving an elevated level of service. From the brand's side they are breaking down data silos and taking a cross-functional approach to retail experience design--and that's not easy.As I was exploring the "Big Show" one thing stood out for me. There will be one common thread that will tie together retailers' long-term success: a focus on the real-world customer experience. As retailers deal with the three big challenges around customer data--storage, collection, and end-use--the successful brands will design their entire brand around their customer in an effort to better connect with them. And this is what the best retailers have been good at all along. Customers now expect their shopping experiences to be as deeply personalized in store as it is online
< Page 8 | Page 10 >