5 reasons why customer experience needs to be a top focus in the retail industry

Do you thank your customers often; respond to customer service complaints in a couple of hours; offer a seamless checkout experience to your customers? If you answered a "Yes" to all these questions, you are following the right customer experience strategy.

During this ongoing COVID-19 crisis, connecting with customers frequently, leading with empathy, and addressing their concerns promptly can improve customer experience in retail to a great degree. Retailers are facing a challenging situation today, on the one hand the have to ensure an effective crisis response and ensure safety of customers, on the other hand they have to grapple with issues like dwindling store footfalls, supply chain disruptions and a negative cash flow. Against this backdrop, managing customer experience has taken a whole new meaning. Let us have a look at why customer experience needs to be a top focus in the retail industry.

#1. Improve customer retention

Businesses need to revamp their customer experience strategies and aim at offering a seamless, engaging, and convenient customer journey across all touchpoints. With rising customer acquisition cost, customer retention becomes an all-important focus area now for retailers.

#2. Gain loyal customers

Providing the best customer experience is an excellent way to get repeat business from existing customers and convert them into loyal customers who are the bedrock of any retail businesses. In today's competitive business environment, you cannot retain customers only based on price or product; a seamless in-store experience needs to be a quintessential ingredient. If you cannot keep up with their high expectations and are unable to offer them an experience that are looking for, then you will be faced with a high customer churn.

#3. Improve brand equity

Brand equity in simple terms means your brand's value in the eyes of your consumers. Delivering on promises, providing goods and services of high quality and being receptive to feedback are all important factors in creating a positive brand equity. Businesses with a good brand equity will attract word of mouth recommendations and experience an increase in profitability.

#4. Enhance customer lifetime value

Personalised campaigns help a lot in growing a client's lifetime value. Look for simpler ways for your shoppers to find their favourite items in-store and help them feel like you understand their pain points and it is up to you to solve their problems. The avalanche of data that gets generated in your store can unlock actionable insights on your customers and the overall spend patterns. Several of our merchant partners are using the Analytics product we have and doing just that.

#5. Increase conversions

An existing, happy consumer has a greater probability of buying than a new prospect. Retailers must therefore focus on building a lasting relationship that can help convert existing customers into long-term customers which ultimately results in higher profits.

At Pine Labs, we understand the importance of providing a seamless customer experience and help merchants like you with best PoS solutions that can help you offer the best value and experience to your customers. Explore our range of offerings like Loyalty Solutions and Affordability Solutions to get more from your point of sale payment infrastructure.

If you are looking to implement any of these solutions and enrich your customers' shopping experience, do reach out to us.