Customer experience vs convenience
It’s not uncommon to hear doom and gloom about the high street; about offline stores losing market share to online. But if you’re a shop that relies on physical visits from customers, there’s plenty you can do to adapt.
Physical shops can’t compete — or focus too much — on convenience anymore because online has stolen convenience in nearly every vertical.
How offline businesses can stay relevant
If you’re bricks and mortar and can’t see a clear way to online, while you’re trying to figure out how you go digital, make sure you’re focusing on customer experience offline.
Athletic couture (that’s fancy speak for ‘sportswear’) brands build everything around experiences and don’t just rely on selling you your latest kicks or running tights with minimal contact. They seek to make the online shopping experience frictionless but they constantly strive to thrill their community with vibrant events and memorable brand encounters. If you’re a sole trader on the high street, you’re probably not going to get Serena dropping in to excite your audience, but there’s plenty of small surprise and delight moments you can brainstorm to make customer interaction that little bit more special. Something they’ll tell their friends about.
In short, give extra value.
Here are some thought starters:
Go the extra mile by taking the time to listen to your customers’ problems. Then, craft unique, considered sales solutions to serve their exact needs. When you ditch the generic, one-size-fits-all robo-experience that leaves customers cold, you’ll likely gain a lot more brand advocacy (and can probably amend your prices to boot).
Make your customers feel happy about the in-store experience. They’ve taken the time to come visit you, so how can you reward them for getting off the couch and venturing in-store? A discount on their next visit perhaps? Exclusive package deals? Something exciting that can only be fully appreciated in person?
Make your customers feel welcome. Build a sense of community by making them feel a part of the club with a token that’s relevant to your offering.
Even a small gesture can bring big smiles.
Giving extra value in your customer experience can be the difference between thriving and struggling
Why focus on customer experience?
It’s easy to understand why many scramble to get their Customer Acquisition Cost as low as possible. Ad spend in an increasingly competitive market remains a focus because it’s a highly visible outlay. But in reality, Customer Lifetime Value is a far more important metric as it represents the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend with your business, or on your products, during their lifetime. Customer retention should be your primary focus, not customer acquisition.
As human marketing specialist Joey Coleman preaches, it’s been proven time and again that just a 5% improvement in customer retention can yield a 25 to 100% increase in profits. Even more alarming, there’s just a 5 to 20% chance of making a sale to a new customer, versus a 60-70% probability when selling to an existing customer.
Of course, that probability is helped massively if the customer has a strong affinity for your brand and what you stand for. Defining your company identity and what you stand for is something that any company can do — should do.
Offline businesses
If you’re a mostly offline business there’s more you can do alongside strong branding and improving your offline customer experience. You can still find great ways to build community online. You can create a strong website with the right content that increases your reach, and you can start to use social channels to connect. Social has a lot of misconceptions but used properly it can be a wonderful way to find your brand’s community. And we truly believe that every company should have a website that marries seamlessly with its human experience IRL (“in real life”, if you’re not down with the lingo). If you’re not sure where to start with your website or social approach, chat to us.
Online businesses
On the flipside, brands that are digital first should keep convenience front of mind. Given the transactional nature of online (especially on mobile), it’s important to deliver quality content that directly meets user intent. Equally, that everything on your website is as easy as possible to find. A great understanding of what your audience — your potential community — is searching for is a start. You should be analysing Google searches (aka doing keyword research) and seeing what your competition is ranking for. If you’re ready to take this next step and really want to learn how to improve in search results, get in touch.
Whether you’re an offline business that wants to improve customer experience and know how best to market online, or you’re an online business seeking more prominence, the long and short of it is that there’s always more you can do. Building community and, ultimately, strengthening your business is a marathon, not a sprint. If you need a helping hand, that’s what we do. Whatever your challenge is, we’d love to hear it.