Defining Customer Experience in a Volatile Retail Landscape
Two questions to ask right away when you are looking to define the experience you want your customers to have in this sometimes chaotic world of retail we live in:
What experience do you want your customer to have?
What experience are you providing?
Be ready to shift quickly. Getting customer information and evolving your experience is a necessity now. Things will change quickly. The fickleness of customer demands can be frustrating, but it is necessary in a macro environment that has entirely changed in the last twenty-four plus months, and continues to evolve. Inflation, health information, and world events continue to shape people’s feelings about what is important to them, both in experience and cost. The value of what people are looking for will continue to shift as external pressures are applied in different ways to different people.
Write down what will make a difference to your customer
This is as much about defining, refining, and sharing your vision for the experience you want to provide as anything else. This may begin as a brainstorming session for yourself or with a small group of your leaders. By the way, this is not something that has to be done at a corporate or regional level. As a Store Manager, this is a great exercise to do with your store team to align on the vision for the service experience you deliver in your location. Once you have captured what you want to deliver, write it down to share with everyone, and then you can move on to the next step.
Observe what you are delivering today
Be honest, be open to the realities you may see and hear. Don’t justify. Don’t defend. View it from the customer perspective. Observations are not difficult, but they can be hard. It is tough to stand back and watch and resist the urge to jump in, especially when it's your space, your team, and when something is not going to plan. Don’t jump in; continue to watch and learn, so you can address it on a larger scale later. Connect where the breakdowns are and how that is tied to the experience you want to deliver. This will be the most critical step later to share specific examples, not as a ‘gotcha’ but as a way to recognize sometimes things go wrong. From there, you can learn how to get better at them and not repeat those disconnects from your vision.
Get feedback directly from your customers
If you have survey information, that can be helpful, but try to get direct, first-hand information from your customers. Talk to them as they are shopping or exiting about what is important to them, what they think, what they want. It can feel awkward at first, and will take some planning and practice. However, this can be critical information to inform you on the changes you may need to make. You’ll be surprised at how willing many customers are in telling you exactly what they think and what they would like to see in the future. They will likely appreciate the fact that you are asking them.
Build your action plan
Once you have the information you need from your observations, direct feedback from customers, and any other sources you feel are necessary, it is time to build the steps for bringing your vision to life. This step also requires being very honest with yourself and about your team. What can you realistically do, in what time frame? What foundations will you need to build before you reach the vision and experiences you are defining? Those may not all be possible at once. This is where recognizing what is different from what you thought was already happening and what was actually happening comes into play. You may have discovered some core breakdowns during our observations. That is okay, you need to be realistic in how you address them and the time it will take to build new behaviors.
Don’t get caught up in the idea that ‘habits are built in 21 days’ and that you can retrain your team in three weeks. Myth. It will be different for each person, as well as each behavior. You can have a sense of urgency, just leave yourself plenty of space to grow into new actions and engagement from your team.
As part of your action plan, you’ll want to provide the background and findings to your team. They will need to understand where you are coming from in the desire to change. It will also be critical to help them see the realities of what is being delivered today and the delta between your new vision and what the current state is of your experience from a customer perspective. Gather your team’s feedback to understand why they feel there may be a gap. This can help create the alignment you will need in making that meaningful shift in outcomes you are seeking.
Customer service, customer experience, customer anything will evolve. We happen to be in a time when it is moving much quicker than it once was. As consumers, we have access to more options, and they continue to grow. The barrier to entry online and even, in many instances, the physical space, has been lowered. COVID has changed what is important to many people. They invest time differently, they prioritize how they spend money in new ways, and as the economy adjusts to a post-COVID world with multiple external factors playing a role, the cost of doing anything is changing in ways that has not happened for decades. How you define and deliver your experience will determine your level of success in the coming years.
How will you update your vision for the customer experience you deliver in your business?
Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills. JOIN NOW!
Photo by Rodrigo Soares on Unsplash