In the 3rd trend from our whitepaper, ‘Retail & Telco – the Big Five’, we talk the power of ease. And, it’s probably one of our favourites from the five trends we identified with retail consultant, Sarah Cameron. Why? Because now, it’s neither price nor product that will get you ahead, it’s how simple you can make your service for customers to use.
In its most basic terms (because simple is what we’re going for here) Trend #3, ‘The Big Easy’ looks at the psychology of shopping and why winners in retail will focus their efforts on making even the most complex, simple. Below, we’ve shared the trends and actions w identified you should be taking if you’re intent on staying ahead in 2018. And if you don’t think it’s something that concerns your retail, Telco or brand business, then it’s worth noting that the Henley Business School reported 94% of customers who reported low effort expressed an intention to repurchase and 88% said they would increase their spending. Take note… it’s that simple.
If you haven’t already, make sure you DOWNLOAD the whitepaper now. It’s free and packed full of no nonsense info you’ll want on your 2018 roadmap. Enjoy!
THEY DON’T MAKE CUSTOMERS LIKE THEY USED TO
Today price, product and quality are a given. The real competitive advantage is ease. Customers will choose retailers & Telco companies who make everything they offer easy, quick and simple for customers to understand. Total customer obsession is about walking deeply in the customer’s shoes, thinking about their needs, hopes and desires and meeting them better than anyone else.
“Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains” – Steve Jobs
A RETAIL MANTRA TO LIVE BY…
‘Less customer effort, greater customer conversion’
Expect to see customer effort measured throughout the customer journey and sitting alongside NPS as key measures of success on customer dashboards.
MAKE THE COMPLEX, EASY
Any purchase that requires a degree of exploratory research requires an investment of time, emotion and cognitive effort. There’s a greater risk of the customer putting off decisions for fear of getting it wrong. Purchases we make regularly become familiar, requiring minimal cognitive effort. Conversion is quicker and cross sell is more likely. The big challenge for retailers & Telco is to turn a complex purchase into a simple journey.
A SIMPLE CASE STUDY – AMAZON ‘ONE-CLICK’ PURCHASE
Amazon’s One-Click takes out the frustrating step of manually entering payment card and shipping address information whenever making a purchase. The technology also allows Amazon Echo owners to complete a purchase with a single voice command.
The patent on Amazon’s One-Click payment tech is reported to run out this year, enabling other online retailers to deploy similar technology on their sites. Our advice? Get in early.
WHAT EXACTLY IS INTELLIGENT GUIDED SELLING?
So much more than just selling. Intelligent guided selling models intelligently prompt and guide customers through a logical sequence of decisions and based on customer and field insight they intuitively make purchasing easier and drive both conversion and satisfaction. In short, they’re probably going to be the most important investment retailers can make in 2018. Better still, intelligent guided selling models can be delivered on a cloud-based platform linked to CRM and in doing so can provide price comparisons, customer reviews and loyalty discounts as appropriate in the customer journey. They can be used face-to-face with the advisor, via self-service online, or a combination of both.
CHANGING ROLE OF THE CUSTOMER ADVISOR
Customers are better informed, they can access information on product, reviews and price comparisons online either before they visit or whilst they shop. In a store the best customer advisors are masters at systematically guiding the customer towards making a decision that is best for their needs; Building an intelligent guided selling model is the best way to operationalise this ‘needs based selling’ approach, driving consistent best practice and helping all advisors make a positive difference in the shopping experience.
So what are the key takeaways from trend #3? Well, it’s all about decluttering your product and service to make it as slick as possible for every customer lucky enough to come across your business. We’ll see the retail & Telco winners focus on customer ease across all touch points, including:
- Easy customer journeys unifying the experience across all as channels
- Decision simplicity and up-sell and cross-sell opportunity
- Consistent best practice across all customer advisors
- Quick sales transactions on apps
- Speedy fulfilment, easy returns and service
Enjoyed reading about this trend? Make sure you download the full whitepaper, here (It’s completely free).
Already we’ve had a huge number of downloads of the Retail & Telco Trends Whitepaper, and feedback has been really positive. Written in conjunction with retail consultant, Sarah Cameron – the paper is full of brilliant insight for planning your roadmaps for 2018. I really hope you enjoy it.
Let me know what you think about ‘The Big Easy’ – is being simple really that simple? Do you believe it’s the most important introduction and change businesses can make? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The Conversity Team