We all love our digital devices, and as they proliferate throughout our homes, autos, offices, and even clothing, retailers have to figure out how to help customers engage, buy efficiently, and remain loyal. From mobile, to the cars we drive, to the digital wearables we fashion, to our smart homes and cities, we are engaging constantly with our favorite brands, games, content, and people in more and more complex ways.
Retailers need to find ways to offer new, different, and valuable services, products and experiences. Leading retailers need to find ways to drive valuable shopping experiences, deliver engagement strategies that help the customer journey, streamline the ease and ability to spend more time and money on a retailer’s app or site, and drive shoppers to physical storefronts.
Along with today’s tremendous and growing retailer pain points to increase revenue, deepen loyalty, create trust, increase conversions, and decrease returns, a critical new pain point is top of mind: increase value to get more mindshare on digital platforms.
So, how can retailers think about and implement truly valuable offerings and services to consumers around the world? They need to stop guessing and start knowing what customers do, how they act and interact, and how to give them value that keeps them coming back.
Understanding customer journeys and sophisticated experiences: four pillars
Creating valuable customer experiences is critical as consumers engage with digital platforms -- the first step is knowing what they do when they engage.
Here are four ways in which retail customers use Scuba Analytics to understand the customer journey.
Attract
Retail customers use Scuba to figure out ways to attract new shoppers to online and mobile stores, and re-generate interest with previous shoppers that may have abandoned their carts along their journey. They know that the lifeblood of the business depends on a steady stream of new users visiting to make purchases.
Engage
They also use Scuba to continually experiment to figure out new ways to engage loyal shoppers, interact with them, and keep them “curious-to-click.” They can entice customers to follow specific paths, or tailor their journey options based on what they know about customers’ profile, preferences, and propensity to buy.
Convert
With Scuba, retail customers can focus on converting occasional shoppers into regular paying customers as soon as possible, in order to increase purchase rates and create additional streams of online shopping revenue.
Retain
Scuba helps retailers do everything they can to retain regular shoppers for as long as possible. A loyal customer is likely a happy customer, and happy customers will evangelize your brand to friends, which leads to gaining new shoppers -- and the cycle starts all over again.
Achieving goals by knowing customer interactions at every turn
When retailers fully understand the customer journey, they can reach their goals faster and keep their shoppers coming back.
Let’s look at how retailers use Scuba to create engaging customer experiences.
Optimizing content
One use case we often see within retail is content optimization to educate shoppers on particular products and provide details about items that customers might like. Nothing fights against attracting new shoppers more than bland, mediocre content. No one will click an ad that is not appealing or does not interest the shopper. Poorly-thought-through content can cause potential shoppers to turn away, and not even shop at all. On the other hand, high-value content placed in front of high-value super-shoppers can exponentially increase profits and revenue -- it piques their interest in a particular item, and it can be easily shared on social media channels, giving a boost to a brand or sale.
Innovating product
Our retail customers focus heavily on innovating website and mobile app shopping experiences through developing product features. By understanding how potential customers are using their web store or app, they customize and tailor the entire shopping experience to make it easier, faster, more valuable, safer, and more engaging, which is valuable to create loyalty and trust. Sometimes, product teams need the freedom to experiment and test new ideas; they need to understand the shopper and know which features work BEFORE they commit money and resources to build and ship.
Making customers successful
Retail customers use Scuba to commit to the success of their patrons. Satisfied shoppers come back consistently, place more items in their carts, buy more, and spread the word to others. These customers also strive to inspire their super-shoppers in new ways, since inspiration moves toward higher degrees of loyalty, commitment, and trust.
Reducing customer headaches
Retailers use Scuba pretty consistently to proactively find issues or problems that shoppers encounter and then resolve them fast in order to minimize negative impact or risk to the overall experience. Engineering and operations teams typically use Scuba for performance analytics and troubleshooting. Scuba also allows them to shorten release cycles. By getting their latest and most valuable features out to shoppers faster, they not only stay ahead of the competition, but they also please shoppers with new points of value in the shopping experience.
Democratizing data
Retail customers are using Scuba to democratize data, to provide real-time answers to team members, corporate-wide. With fast answers on hand, companies can achieve their goals through data, not gut feeling. They obtain a much higher value of customer attraction, engagement, conversion, and retention because more business professionals are thinking and understanding more about customers journeys and experiences. Therefore, self-service analytics is critical in order to move fast, scale quickly, and truly understand all of their shopper’s actions, interaction, and transactions.
Build and maintain loyalty & trust
Retailers need to create as much loyalty and trust with their customers as possible -- it is critical to revenue generation. Nothing beats repeat business from loyal customers who trust you, your brand, and your services.
Create repeatable value
Creating repeatable value that customers appreciate and want to return to -- keeping them coming back to your store or mobile app again and again -- is the magic in the world we live in today. Gone are the days where you can afford to deliver basic online shopping experiences. Instead, you need to continually present shoppers with new and fresh experiences that keep them coming back, which gives you more opportunity to upsell or upgrade.
Increase revenue
At the end of the day, retailers, and every business, need to make sure shoppers are placing as many items in their cart as possible and then clicking the “BUY” button to gain profits -- the more the better, of course.
Reduce costs and lower risks
Reducing risks and lowering costs of operations is always a must. Keeping the lights on, and employees paid, is a necessary part of running any successful business.
Gaining more mindshare, engagement and revenue
In order to offer truly valuable services and products in today’s device-driven world, retailers need to understand the customer journey along every step, from what first attracts customers to what keeps them coming back. With Scuba, retailers can attract, engage, convert, and retain shoppers by committing to the customer experience.
Mindshare, engagement, and revenue all stem from knowing the customer journey and increasing value along every step. If you give value to your customers by crafting engaging experiences, they will return that value by coming back to your business -- and the cycle continues.
Ready to get started? Check out this comprehensive guide for improving customer experience at your organization today!
