With the retail sector submerged in a price war, Tim Ogle, CEO of Retail Eyes, specialists in improving customer experience, explains how retailers need to refocus their customer service strategy, particularly as we see a rise in consumer confidence and a change in buying habits going into 2010.

Throughout 2009 I’ve seen the retail industry heavily embroiled in an aggressive price war. While this has been great for customers, it’s created the bargain hunter culture, which neither attracts loyalty nor helps increase customer retention in the long run. As this battle moves into 2010, retailers are in danger of losing sight of the value of the ‘customer experience’ and the rewards it can bring such as increases in average spend per visit, loyalty and recommendation. 

Getting your customer service right is equally as important as getting your prices right, and ever more so as the country recovers economically. Retail sales continue to grow and consumer confidence is strengthening meaning that buying habits are shifting away from price alone. According to our latest National Customer Satisfaction survey, seven out of 10 people are prepared to pay more for a product or service if it means receiving better customer service. What’s more over half (56 per cent) of the people we surveyed will leave an establishment before making an intended purchase if they get poor service. What customers are looking for is value for money and that means more than just price; it means the whole experience. Customers should come away feeling delighted with the service they have received.

People still like personal interactions and, when customers walk into your location, your teams must do everything they can to make sure those interactions count: be it making a sale or the customer leaving with a positive impression which they will tell their friends and family about. 

In 2010 customers will start returning to the high street and spending, but they will do so with caution. Customer service will be one of the key driving forces when it comes to increasing sales and consumer confidence increases, and it is your frontline staff who are the ones who can make the difference and build brand advocacy. This is why, particularly in an overwhelming majority of our clients cases, we’ve seen companies place even more focus on understanding and developing, customer experiences.

Customer experience research methods must not only provide detailed insight to those at head office, they must be actionable at the frontline and quickly! A carefully developed and well executed mystery shopping programme will give you almost everything you need to know about your customers’ experiences and quickly show you what you need to do to improve.

It’s one of the best techniques for generating quantitative and qualitative information, giving staff an understanding of how customers felt during their experience. This in turn allows staff to almost re-live the experience for themselves, so the reports can be used easily as a training tool. And by incorporating measurements such as the Net Promoter Score you can identify

the specific aspects of a customer’s experience that will drive people

to become a ‘Brand Promoter’.

Many retailers and brand managers now prefer to collate

a variety of customer satisfaction feedback such as mystery shopping, customer satisfaction surveys, exit interviews, visual merchandising & in-store audits and staff engagement surveys, to get to the heart of what can be done to improve customer experience and drive advocacy.  We’ve seen an increased level of demand from clients to have all these research methods collected, collated and communicated from one central place, not only for the key stakeholders to access but for the entire business, including the frontline teams. The forward thinking retailers already taking this approach will be the ones who benefit now and even more as the economy bounces back. 

If you’ve used pricing strategy to attract your customers, what are you doing to ensure that you will keep them? Remember, we are creatures of habit, but we have been forced to change. Perception of ‘value’ is shifting away with purchasing decisions being made on more than price alone and consumers willing to pay more for better service. This is a great opportunity for you to really boost your bottom line but are you doing enough to ensure your service leaves your customers feeling truly delighted?

For more information visit www.retaileyes.co.uk