Modern Stores are Personal

Personal retailing is the third of the five essential elements of creating modern store experiences. In a world where online shopping is increasingly the norm, personal retailing enables modern stores to stand out and provide value to customers beyond just a purchase transaction.

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Today’s Shoppers Value Individualized Store Experiences

In today's digital world, customers still value the human interaction and personal touch provided by physical stores. They appreciate the product insight and personalized attention provided by knowledgeable store associates.

By offering highly personalized service in stores, retailers can create more immersive and meaningful shopping experiences, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Moreover, personalized retail experiences increase the value of physical stores for modern shoppers, encouraging them to visit frequently and spend more.

Engaging Customers Anywhere in the Store

At the heart of modern retail is the need to provide personalized store experiences. This is only possible when store associates can easily access customer and product information anywhere in the store. The flexibility of mobile solutions in stores provides this capability, enabling associates to tailor engagement and provide expert advice. This adaptability allows for personal greetings, individualized appointments, product recommendations, purchase guidance, and more, making stores more responsive to customer needs.

However, many retailers miss out on the opportunity to identify their customers before checkout, which is too late for an associate to build a meaningful relationship or influence a purchase decision. Mobile customer engagement capabilities solve this issue by empowering associates with the information and tools to personally support customers anytime in their buying journey and anywhere in the store. This not only enhances the customer experience but also fosters a sense of enhanced customer connection to their favorite retailers.

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Empower associates with personalization insight and tools at their fingertips, anywhere and anytime in the store.

Outcomes of Engaging Customers Anywhere

Improved Responsiveness

When associates can easily access real-time data about customers, products, and more, they can respond more quickly and precisely to customer inquiries, improving their store experience.
Elevated Service

With a comprehensive understanding of the customer and their unique buying journey at their fingertips, associates can provide a more personalized service, thereby elevating the store's service.
Enhanced Convenience

Mobile customer engagement solutions help associates optimize customers' time in the store for value-add interactions, which results in enhanced customer convenience.

"86% of shoppers say they have a better store experience when store associates are equipped with the latest technology, including mobile solutions, to assist them while shopping."

Zebra

Personalizing with Rich Customer Insights

Modern retail stores aim to enhance the customer experience by providing tailored interactions that exceed customer expectations. Achieving this requires store associates to adeptly use rich customer profile, including history and preferences to personalize interactions. With easy access to customer insights, store staff can greet customers personally, show appreciation for their loyalty, and confidently answer their inquiries.

However, simply having access to customer information is not enough. It is equally important for associates to have the tools to foster stronger relationships. For instance, updating customer preferences, taking electronic notes, and maintaining wish lists can greatly enhance personalization across all sales channels.

By providing associates with the necessary insights and tools, modern stores can offer exceptional, personalized services that build enduring relationships with their customers.

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Personalize insight helps to build enduring customer relationships.

Outcomes of Personalizing with Rich Customer Insights

Increased Sales Conversions

Enabling associates to personalize customer interactions using customer insights creates greater customer trust, confidence, and goodwill, leading to higher sales.
Improved Customer Loyalty

Personalized interactions position stores as a channel offering unique customer services, driving repeat store visits, and strengthening customer loyalty.
Enhanced Data-Driven Insights

By capturing insights during customer interactions, stores can better understand customer preferences and behaviors to improve the customers' shopping experience.

"75% of surveyed modern shoppers are likely to spend more after receiving exceptional service from store associates. "

All Things Retail

Turning Associates into Product Advisors

The digital era has changed shopping, making customers more informed than ever. To stay relevant, stores need to adapt by providing more in-depth product advisory experiences than what online channels can offer.

Store associates play a crucial role in achieving this objective. They need to be a trusted source of product insights and guidance, building strong customer relationships through their advice. Technology is essential in enabling this expertise. The right solutions offer easy and quick access to detailed product catalog and inventory information, allowing associates to respond to any product inquiry efficiently and precisely. They can also suggest complementary products and locate available inventory, thereby improving sales conversions and increasing shopping cart value.

By adopting a consultative sales approach, stores can establish themselves as valuable sources of product advice to their customers.

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Build loyal customer relationships by equipping your associates with deep product knowledge and advice.

Outcomes of Turning Associates into Advisors

Increased Sales Conversions

Enabling store associates to give advice confidently and reassuringly can significantly improve the likelihood of a customer making a purchase.
Elevated Relevance of Physical Stores

Relevant product assistance enhances the importance of stores, positioning them as touchpoints where customers can get meaningful services unavailable in other channels.
Higher Cross-Sells and Up-Sells

When store associates are empowered to recommend complementary or new products, cross-sells and up-sell opportunities increase overall sales for stores.

"81% of Gen Z consumers prefer to shop in stores as part of their buying journey, with 73% using stores to discover new products."

CNBC

Elevating Service with Advanced Engagement

Modern stores go beyond using customer and product insights to personalize interactions by using advanced engagement tools. These tools enable stores to offer high-value, individualized services that create emotional customer connections.

Individualized services, such as appointment scheduling, allow customers to enjoy specialized support that caters to their needs. By curating product collections based on customer preferences before the appointment, associates can create a more intimate and compelling store experience.

Stores can also leverage advanced engagement tools to create unique customer connections. With digital lookbooks, associates build and digitally share curated product catalogs tailored to the customer's preferences. This one-to-one approach is highly effective in supporting a shopper's purchase decision even when they leave the store.
By implementing these advanced engagement tools, stores cannot only provide unique experiences but also build customer loyalty.

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Offer heightened individualized services that create emotional connections with customers.

Outcomes of Advanced Engagement

Increased Competitive Advantage

Retailers who excel in offering unique, personalized services in stores can differentiate themselves, especially compared with digital commerce-centric competitors.
Elevated Relevance of Physical Stores

Individualized services enhance stores’ importance, making them touchpoints where customers can enjoy services unavailable in other sales channels.
Improved Customer Loyalty

Engagement capabilities like appointments and digital lookbooks help brands nurture customer relationships and create compelling shopping experiences that spur repeat business.

"61% of retailers cite personalizing the customer in-store experience as a top IT priority."

RIS News

Enabling Engagement Outside the Store

Providing personalized service to customers is crucial for modern stores to increase sales and customer satisfaction. It doesn't end when the customer leaves the store. By capturing essential shopper information during store interactions, such as preferred products or saved shopping carts, associates can offer support remotely. This capability supports customer collaboration via email, text, or phone, supporting the customer's purchase decision and fostering a future sale.

With remote selling, store associates can send pay-by-link requests to customers, allowing them to securely complete checkout of a saved shopping cart from the comfort of their home or office. By leveraging empowering communication capabilities, store associates can easily connect and engage with customers remotely, enabling them to build relationships and close sales, even when the customer is not physically present.

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Enhance the customer journey and strengthen customer relationships with convenient and secure methods for remote purchases.

Outcomes of Engagement Outside of the Store

Increased Sales Conversions

Making it easier for customers to get support and complete store purchases anywhere increases retailer conversion rates.
Elevated Relevance of Physical Stores

When stores move beyond mere transactions and build continuous customer relationships, they become more relevant to modern shoppers and attract repeat business.
Improved Customer Loyalty

Capabilities like remote selling help stores nurture consumer relationships and create positive and differentiating shopping experiences that drive higher loyalty.

"For the store of the future, key elements of in-store personalization create incentives for consumers to digitally interact with the brand through associates, self-service tools, and even a retailer’s app."

Forrester