11 Nov, 2016
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The Data Handbook
How to use data to improve your customer journey and get better business outcomes in digital sales. Interviews, use cases, and deep-dives.
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We had the pleasure of attending and speaking at the annual What’s Going On In Retail event, which is about getting to know the latest developments and trends in the retail business and learning from others. In that spirit we’d like to share some of the thought provoking views of future retail we picked up.
The 10 key insights we took away from the seminar, enjoy!
1. Customers expect a unified shopping experience in all encounters with a company. Omnichannel is not that much about being present everywhere that it is about understanding how customers use and want to use different channels.2. Retail is always about personal contact, whether on the web or in a brick-and-mortar store. Every single encounter counts.
3. Keep your interest groups up to date about what’s going in your company. Transparency is key.
4. Use innovative ways to build a strategy, look outside the box and question processes which have “always been like this”.
5. It’s impossible to predict the future, but it’s possible - and necessary - to make educated forecasts.
6. Everybody has basic assumptions of one’s industry. Learn to question them and take reference from other businesses.
7. Listening to worldwide megatrends and silent signals can set your business apart from competitors.
8. Great employee experience leads to great customer experience. Give your employees the possibility and resources to have actual impact in their job.
9. Brand is the glue between the company, its employees and customers.
10. People love to buy but hate to pay. Almost half of online shopping carts are abandoned because of the payment methods are not lucrative.
Bonus: Category Management is making a comeback. Retailers have power over the manufacturer, consumers feel empowered through digitalisation and big data enables gearing up to full throttle.
What became clear very quickly is that customer experience is what’s going on in retail. Consumers are expecting more and more from the encounters they have with companies and great customer service is becoming a real differentiator. But it’s more than thank yous and names in emails - consumers seek meaningful relationships with brands, they want experiences that suit their exact needs at that particular time. What makes it tricky is that consumers have different wants and needs on different days and times, which again makes it increasingly difficult for companies to cater to those expectations.
The definers of retail industry today are change and consumer centricity - and keeping up with these factors is what will set your company apart from the competition.