One of the most discussed items at RTBE this week was how shoppers today are more informed than ever before and importantly how retailers must keep up with them. Not as easy as it sounds.
With product and price research easily accessed at the touch of a button, shoppers visit a store armed with more knowledge of the product and market than sales staff could ever hope to match. This, coupled with ongoing research via mobile devices in store, means closing a sale is harder than ever for retailers.
There is however, a clear opportunity for retailers to capitalise on the trend – for reverse showrooming, where customers research online and purchase in store. It will however take a confident approach providing service and solutions that today’s consumer expects when they come into the store: convenience, value and importantly expert advice.
Andrew Harrison, the CEO of Carphone Dixons kicked off his presentation at RBTE this week with an enlightening account of how his multinational technology business is leading by example: investing in technology loaded with bespoke software giving his workforce the tools to deliver market leading service. Not technology for technologies sake, but a truly integrated digital approach, which enhanced the store teams, not replaced them.
This approach has led to a significant growth in profits. His presentation, ‘Transforming retail by creating a digital workforce’, gave a refreshing and honest account of a brave but successful business decision, to embrace big data and technology; which he said: “…could have taken years of planning and developing business cases for but instead, they just got on with it.”
They transformed their retail business model by using technology that is and has been available for many years now. To put it simply the team at Dixons Carphone configured a single e-commerce platform that broke the sales journey down into five easy steps in Carphone Warehouse stores. This bespoke software was loaded onto a tablet computer, one for each of the 5,000 staff. The results surpassed all expectations. Sales staff knowledge increased significantly (without increasing training costs), and they delivered a shorter and more simplified sales cycle leading to increased productivity and transformed net promoter scores.
The secret to their success was that Dixons Carphone went back to basics and unlocked sales by giving their staff the tools to be one step ahead of the always-on consumer. The design team through careful analysis of the shopper journey highlighted ‘magic moments’ in the sales cycle to provide a platform that re-assured the customer, that they were in the best place to buy their product, at every point of the sales process. Put simply, it provided the customer with a personalised service that saved them time and money.
In conclusion, the savvy way to retain and gain customers is to be brave, use insights and make sure that the technology you choose compliments your services, not substitutes your staff. Good old-fashioned sales service, brought up to date appears to be the answer we have all been looking for!