Did you know that research suggests it can take up to 12 positive customer service experiences to make up for just one negative experience? What's more, customers talk to an average of nine people about a positive experience they had at a store, but will tell an average of 16 people about a bad customer experience.
This research tells us that customer experience management is crucial to ensuring your customers come back to your store—even more so than the products you offer or the discounts you promote. At the end of the day, happy customers come from sales associates going the extra mile to meet customer expectations while they're in your store.
So as a retail business owner, how do you develop a customer experience strategy that will keep your customers coming back? In this article, we'll go over five tips to help keep your customers happy throughout every step of the customer journey.
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Why is a positive customer experience important?
Providing a positive customer experience is essential because it creates a strong relationship between customers and your business. It also gives customers confidence in your business, which can lead to repeat purchases, higher customer retention, and referral or word-of-mouth marketing.
What's more, a consistent experience can make customers more satisfied with their purchase, increasing brand loyalty and helping companies stand out from their competitors.
Finally, when customers have a good experience, they are more likely to leave positive reviews online for potential new customers to find, helping with your customer acquisition goals in addition to your goals for retention and conversion.
How to provide an excellent customer experience at your retail business
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Tip #1: Determine your goals
First, you'll want to identify the customer experience metrics you'll use to measure success at your business. Like any business goals, you'll want to set attainable milestones for your retail business—don't try to tackle the entire customer experience all at once.
Here are a few ways you can start to measure customer satisfaction:
- Request customer feedback via online review platforms
- This can include talking to your loyal customers about what they like about your store so you can identify your store's strengths
- Set a goal to improve your customer conversion rates and customer retention rates so they are in line with your industry standard
- Survey your sales associates about common issues they notice with customers who have had a bad experience and make a plan to address them
Tip #2: Set your sales associates up for success
Once you've identified your goals for improving customer satisfaction, you'll need to train your sales team on what you need from them to meet those goals.
This could be reminding them to ask for customer feedback after a positive customer interaction, establishing a procedure for how to deal with angry customers, or setting an expectation for an average response time for your customer communication channels.
While your sales associates’ main job is to sell, if they work in customer experience management into their role as much as they focus on sales, they'll generate a loyal customer base that will keep coming back—a win-win for both your sales team and your customer satisfaction.
Tip #3: Personalization
Another big part of earning satisfied customers is by providing personalized experiences for your shoppers. The more your customers feel like you know and appreciate them as an individual shopper, the better your customer relationships will be, and in turn, the more repeat business you'll earn.
According to the Business Impact of Personalization study, nearly half of the consumers surveyed said their shopping experience would be better if retailers offered promotions that were specific to their past purchases. The same study also found that shoppers are 40% more likely to spend more than they planned when their shopping experience is highly personalized.
Tip #4: Stay in touch with customers
Next, your sales associates need to stay in touch with satisfied customers to give them a reason to keep coming back. This practice of customer relationship management is known as clienteling, or relationship selling.
Instead of treating shoppers like one-time customers, clienteling shows shoppers they are valued clients who your sales team knows and remembers—including their product preferences, past transactions, and important events in their lives like birthdays and anniversaries.
The better your sales associates know your clients, the more likely they are to know who to reach out to and when to build a loyal customer base over time.
Tip #5: Utilize digital tools
Finally, it's important to keep in mind that providing a superior customer experience doesn't just have to be on you and your team. You can rely on digital customer experience tools to help you do all of the practices we've discussed already.
With clienteling software, like Clientbook, your sales team can keep track of customer insights, get automated reminders to reach out to customers through the entire customer journey, and even request reviews from those who had an outstanding customer experience.
Conclusion
Poor customer experiences can hit your business hard if you don't work to improve them. By following the key takeaways in this article, you'll be able to identify goals, train your sales team, and provide a delightful customer experience to meet the business outcomes you're aiming for.
But you don't have to go about it on your own. Clientbook is here to help. With digital clienteling, customer frustration will be a thing of the past, and your sales team will be equipped with the customer service skills they need to succeed. Book a demo to see how Clientbook can work for your retail business today.
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